I think about this a lot as well. I don’t remotely empathize with him or anyone like him, but I do think I somewhat understand the path that their thoughts and actions take in order to allow this kind of dichotomy. I believe it entails a sort of divorcing of oneself from everyone else’s reality.

Have you ever done something that most people would consider objectively wrong and excused yourself for it? I don’t mean “forgave” or “accepted.” I mean, have you ever looked at the situation and just simply turned off the part of you that takes any responsibility or feels any shame? Let’s say cheating. I think this is a good example because most of us have cheated on a test or in some other capacity at some point, even if it was relatively minor (I haven’t cheated since high school chemistry, but still remember doing it). Think back to when you did it. When I did, I knew that what I was doing discounted all of my other hard work; I knew it was considered very wrong, I knew it would upset a number of people if I was caught, etc. But I did it anyway, because I wanted to. I wanted the positive consequences (a better grade) more than I wanted to see myself as a person who doesn’t cheat, or avoid potential negatives. To cope, I simply excused myself by opting to consider myself an exception to the rule that one cannot cheat. Of course, I wasn’t. As I’ve grown up, I’ve stopped being able to so readily see myself as an exception and thus excuse my own bad behavior, both because my impulse control has increased and because I’ve generally matured to see reasons for upholding moral values, both for my own self-worth and for others. But some never get to this point. And some find they enjoy bloodshed.

Unfortunately, I genuinely believe that this feeling I’m trying to describe scales up to serial killing. Obviously it’s not the same type of offense by any means whatsoever as cheating - The “X” factor remains why people want to kill in the first place, of course. But when you consider that they are able to see murder like I did cheating, I feel like it begins to become easier to see how they could walk away whistling and excel where they chose to, including in convincing others that they are decent and kind.