Is evil always insane?

When, in July 2011, Anders Breivik killed 77 people and injured a further 151, many wondered whether he would ever face trial because they assumed that he would be declared insane and locked up in a secure mental hospital for the rest of his life.

This week, however, he has been declared sane - a surprise ruling which overturned an earlier medical assessment of him. This means, of course, that he is now able to stand trial for his crimes and, in all likelihood, as he doesn't deny that he did the crimes, he will then be found guilty and then be sent to jail for the rest of his life.

Evil is a word that gets overused, particularly in the media, but, surely, it fits Breivik's actions perfectly. If he isn't evil them I'd suggest nobody is.

What I find interesting, though, is a wide spread assumption that someone who is evil has to be insane.

Is it not possible to do evil things but be perfectly sane?

When you think of all the world's dictators and the number of atrocities they carried out in the name of their particular ideology, were they all insane, or is it just that their beliefs are just so out of kilter with those of the rest of society that they get labelled as mad simply out of laziness?

And if the dictator was insane, what about all those who followed their orders and carried out their wishes?

I suspect that many who carry out mass killings are insane but I don't think they have to be. If, for instance, a particular political or religious ideology is so heartfelt that a person they have to do something appalling they aren't necessarily insane if they carry those things through. They might, simply, have a deep, strong conviction that makes them different from the rest of society, but that doesn't mean they should be sent to a mental hospital for the rest of their life.

In many ways, I'm glad that Breivik will stand trial for his crimes, though I do fear that he will try to use his day in court to promote his extreme far right ideology. The judge needs to be very wary of any attempts to use the court room
as a way to attract publicity for what most people consider to be a truly evil ideology.

I suspect there are as many, if not more, people who I would class as evil in our society as are actually insane, and while we protect ourselves from the insane by locking them up in secure hospitals, the question has to be asked whether we should be locking up all those we consider to be evil in order to prevent further atrocities like the ones in Oslo last July, or in any other form that the criminal decides upon.

There are many, myself included, who would argue that a lot of the Pope's teachings ate evil. Should he be locked up to protect the rest of society?