Ok, but these guys too were entirely products of systems, situations and genes, not self-created monsters. We shouldn’t reify evil or evildoers as being somehow above or separate from their environmental and genetic circumstances. Not that Phil would do that, but the way he puts it above leaves him open to that interpretation.

What seems like a “situation-only” analysis by me and other social psychologists, is always a counter-reaction and our attempt at a counter-balance to the “rush to the dispositional” by authorities, lay people, and too many other psychologists who have adopted an entirely individualistic perspective.

And there’s the rub. As long as such arguments continue to be a battle of the extremes for dubious rhetorical purposes, neither side will be taken seriously outside the choir.

And there’s the rub. As long as such arguments continue to be a battle of the extremes for dubious rhetorical purposes, neither side will be taken seriously outside the choir.