Hey, thanks for engaging and no worries, nothing in your comment struck me as condescending. I see your point here, and will grant that I've been fortunate to

Hey, thanks for engaging and no worries, nothing in your comment struck me as condescending. I see your point here, and will grant that I've been fortunate to not have been in a situation in which I've had to consider anything approaching a "bad deed". Most of my thoughts on the subject are purely hypothetical, and informed by conversations with my dad, who has Seen Some Shit. Looking back on the 2 times I can think of where I have considered striking someone to cause harm (both in middle and high school, a bully and a fight respectively), it seems to me that there is an element of considering consequences, but in neither circumstance were those consequences external. In both cases, it was very much a question of "am I going to feel bad about this later?", which prompted the question of justification rather than punishment. Perhaps at a certain level this is the same thing, but it seems at least qualitatively different to me, a kind of fear of my own judgment rather than that of another person. Would you generally consider this to be the same process, or not? In either case, I can only wholeheartedly agree that perceiving oneself as incapable of evil is a Bad Idea. It seems dangerous to me for much the same reason you laid out, and I will occasionally attempt to engage in the kind of introspection necessary to grapple with what I might be capable of in a similar situation. I'm hesitant to say I'm incapable (psychologically) of doing something terrible in a similar situation, and my previous comment was from the reductionist point of view of a spherical murderer in a vacuum, as it were. Were I in that father's position, I know that I would feel _justified_ in taking that kind of action, which may prompt me to seek the opportunity, which is again where I see a slight difference from being prohibited solely by the fear of consequences, if that makes sense. Again, thanks for taking the time to respond!