Yeah, I never think I'm one for long. And there's no way I could do something to hurt people, because it just hurts too much- and it's also morally wrong. But also sometimes think that if I wasn't so empathetic I could do some horrible things-- I mean that's kind of the definition of a psychopath... but I almost feel like I have all the capabilities to hurt people really easily, and without empathy or integrity I wouldn't be a fun person or something. But still, I think that's basically everyone. I don't know.
Okay... posting a serious note now, you allude to something very important. Most people, and society itself, likes to get all high and mighty in sitting in the moral high chair under the following belief: "I could
never do that." This belief in one's inability to do something morally wrong and twisted leads to an 'us and them' mentality built on a personal moral sense of superiority. Now the things some people do, be they religious or non-religious, are disgusting, absolutely sick, and such actions are in no way justifiable or excusable. The perpetrators themselves however, even if there is no excuse for what they have done, one can usually understand how it is how they arrived at such a twisted act, or at such a state of being seemingly so twisted. This is possible through observing certain contributing factors that influenced them and perverted them - be it a genetic predisposition, coupled with a history of child abuse, exposure to certain traumatic or unhealthy content at a very young age, mental illness, drug use, brain washing from a group or peer etc. These aren't excuses for twisted behaviour, but partial explanations.
I do not believe in a hard-determinism, that external factors
will 100% shape a person, since I believe, at least for a sane person who has reached the age of reason, the realm of human choice is always apparent on some level - except
perhaps in extreme cases (i.e. hard core mind control or something). Either way, external factors certainly influence behaviour and can strongly incline one towards and can normalise sociopathic and outright immoral behaviour. With this in mind, it is only logical to conclude that the worst of evils
could plausibly be committed by ones own-self, and it would be fantastical to put one's head in the sand on such a matter as being an outright impossibility. The foundation of a healthy self-awareness, and humility even, is the awareness you stated - an awareness of our capacity for evil. On this basis we can be set free from judging others, and thinking we are better than them, because who knows, we could have ended up like some of those twisted people if it weren't for X, Y and Z.
BUT what we must cling to along with such bold self-awareness, and what distinguishes one from doing outrageously evil things - I won't say sociopathic or a psychopathic since to be these things without acting evily wouldn't be wrong per say - is that 1) one is aware that certain things are wrong, and that 2) such things are therefore not a possibility to act upon, and that 3) despite being aware of one's capacity for evil, one is aware of one's capacity for good whilst intending and desiring anything but such blatantly 'unacceptable' and 'evil things'. Still, what distinguishes one from being an actual sociopath is that 1) one knows what is truly wrong and unacceptable, and 2) one feels a sense of moral responsibility and therefore guilt in either so doing, or even thinking of so doing - such a sense of moral responsibility and guilt lacks in those who are sociopaths (psychopaths falling under this umbrella).
