Evil has no place in any psychological context. People who commit these crimes ARE sick. Whether or not they're evil is up to you, but its not a question for psychology
The Ancient Greeks were very famous for pederasty, and yet their culture is universally renowned. Homosexuality was also a very common practice in Greece, which was considered until somewhat recently a vile act performed by the mentally ill. What is to you "vile," is to another perfectly socially acceptable. Except, apparently, fucking your mother, which was considered horrifying to both the ancient Greeks and our contemporary culture, and every culture in the entire world.
You can call Freud a moral relativist if you want, but he certainly discovered universal moral qualities, they just made people very uncomfortable, because it wasn't biases against murder, or stealing, or pedophilia, but something so (relatively) common in society, but which nobody would speak of. According to Freud, then, everybody is sick, because everybody has desires which they can't fulfill without coming to significant social harm--especially of the sexual order; and breaking sexual codes always results in some of the most severe punishments: It's legal for a police officer to kill someone under the right circumstances, never to rape them. The purpose of treatment, then, is not to stop people from having violent and/or sexual fantasies, but to convince and train them to divert those urges to a socially useful purpose. It is better to live in an organized society--according to Freud--than total anarchy.
Where as psychiatry deals with the chemistry and biology of the brain with respect to undesirable behavior. still, the politics of the day decides what is a sickness but with psychiatry you have to prove some chemistry or makeup of the brain is responsible while with freud's psychoanalysis it is a belief which is conscious or subconscious that needs to be washed out if your brain.
Let's consider two very different examples of a sickness. Both homosexuality and interracial relationships were considered undesirable behaviors for which you should be treated and unless it changed in the last few years transexuality is still considered a disoreder (wanting to modify your body for any reason I believe). Yet whether you disagree or agree with past or current designations of these behaviors as sickness, it is undeniable that the politics of the day is the deciding factor for what is socially unacceptable and therefore a disease which makes it hard for me to accept the field as anything more than pseudo science.
Complex ways to call beliefs sicknesses do not seem like a particulary honest or intellectual way of analyzing people's minds. And this wouldn't be happening if freudianism acknowledged clearly that it is a tool of a specific belief system as opposed to a science just as much as religion can consider behavior wrong and fixable freudian psychoanalysis defines social sins that need to be corrected by supposedly scientific beliefs.
A Freudian analyst would never proscribed certain behaviors for their patients, but would perhaps advise them to find ways to keep themselves out of trouble. If we lived in a society where it was acceptable to challenge your enemies in single combat to the death (like virtually all societies in the west before the 20th century) then an analyst would probably tell their patient that they should just be careful and make sure that it was a decision the patient made with a full, conscious understanding of the repercussions. Every society has acceptable and unacceptable forms of violence, which becomes all the more clear during times of war, when virtually all violent means become socially acceptable against the enemy.
Also,
>Where as psychiatry deals with the chemistry and biology of the brain with respect to undesirable behavior. still, the politics of the day decides what is a sickness but with psychiatry you have to prove some chemistry or makeup of the brain is responsible while with freud's psychoanalysis it is a belief which is conscious or subconscious that needs to be washed out if your brain.
there is no "conscious or subconscious" beliefs for Freud, there is only the conscious and the unconscious, which are precisely that which we are actively aware of, and that which we are not aware, in the cognitive processes of the mind. What someone says the believe is a lot less important than what they say about their belief, and what sort of structural orderings they are applying (in language) that reveal how they understand the world around them. And,
>with psychiatry you have to prove some chemistry or makeup of the brain
I think you are giving Psychiatry far too much credit. You should know Freud was the first person to attempt to create a physical model of the psyche, and he utterly failed, which is why he developed psychoanalysis (cf. Project for a Scientific Psychology). And to this day not only is he credited as being the father of modern psychiatry for that reason, virtually no progress has been made since his work.
You're saying psychology cares about evil just prefers to use the term sickness. Or maybe I misunderstood and you were really saying psychology does not consider analysis of why people do evil something worth studying.
But I will say that people who molest children ARE often mentally ill. Often, they themselves were abused and people who undergo traumatic experiences have a tendency to recreate those experiences. Seeing child molesters as purely evil and irredeemable does nothing to help us prevent child molestation.
And psychology is useless in a debate on morality. And therefore, unless you prove your antecedent of evil being an illness, when discussing crime.
People who abuse children are in a position of power to do so. They violate the trust given to them for their pleasure. They know right from wrong, they know the concept of innocence, they know their actions cause harm. The thing psychology in it's inglorious ignorance leaves out is the concept of knowing your actions will affect someone adversley and you would not want that thing done to you. They are evil because they knew what they were doing and the harm it will cause and did it anyways because they know they will get away with it. You know what one good way to verify this is? They hide their actions! A person who had no idea they were causing harm will not hide their actions. A person fit to stand trial knows right from wrong, a convict chose wrong and for this crime that person chose to harm a child for their own gain.
Keep in mind, I am not claiming that it is impossible for a person to have been brainwashed and traumatized so much that they are no longer in control if their own actions and cannot process concept such as harming others or innocence. Such people can pleas insanity and if found insane they will be locked up seeking treatment. That is not the typical priesr or gym teacher that abuses children.
> Seeing child molesters as purely evil and irredeemable does nothing to help us prevent child molestation.
Yes it does and your thinking in my opinion is what has caused such an explosion if this crime since the 20th century. Recognizing sane people who commit horrific crimes for what they are allows society to deal with them accordingly. If society acknowledges evil then society much also choose to be evil and ignore it or destroy it. Suddenly no punishment seems sufficient and humane treatment becomes impossible (as it should!). By how much do you reckon this crime would decrease if they were tortured in horrible medeival ways and their torture was public and streamed on the internet and tv? I'd reckon by at least 90%! So society had chosen to feel good and humane over protecting its most innocent members! And part of the cause is psychology telling you feeling good about yourself is the most important thing.
You just cannot ignore the concept evil and act surprised when it is rampantly spreading.
But psychology is not alone, the catholic church excuses the acts of priests and blames it on the devil much like you blame it on sickness. Any system that refused to put the blame entirely on a (sane) perepetrator is at fault.
In politics you saw the so called "evangelicals"(not all of course) who supported trump no matter how much harm he caused and look at he has done to america!