Let's look at three cases: Dr. Faustus, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll.
Dr. Faustus sold himself to the devil. He wanted to have more knowledge and inevitably more power in his life and saw this as a way to get there. He had moments where he wanted to repent, and he had moments of what seemed to be pretending emotions of satisfaction. At the end he had a fearful repent to hopefully be forgiven for his wrong doings.
I do not believe he was a monster, only created to be one. He was "forced" to think a certain way by Meth. and Lucifer. He was naive and because he was not strong or confident he turned to the devil.
Dorian Gray was a perfect, beautiful person that Basil admired. He was self conscious of his looks, and instigated and made aware of the power his beauty had by Lord Henry. He killed himself and others along his journey. He was afraid of becoming old, and wanted to stay youthful forever.
Like I said he was self conscious. He also was told constantly how beautiful he was by Basil that led him to kill a once friend. He was so wrapped up in his wants and emotions that he had no idea what he was doing. A monster was created, he was not always that way.
And finally Dr. Jekyll was a respected doctor who was trying to separate his good from the bad. He created a "potion" where he could transform himself into Mr. Hyde until he fully became his evil side.
His purpose was to separate the good from the bad, and inevitable became holistically evil while doing so. He tried to warn others, and at a point knew that he lost all control. In this case the need to be different than what he was took over him by being able to transform into someone else. That is what made him a monster.
In each of these stories, the monster was naive, and lost control of his actions. They were created. They were not born this way, which can be seen through their tiny moments of repention. They never wanted any of this to happen. So when do these "monsters" begin to take responsibility for their actions?
In the court of law, they would probably plead not guilty by insanity, which is already controversial. However some could maybe get off with involuntary manslaughter, because it was accidental, or not meaningful. But if the court doesn't buy the whole "I didn't mean to" gig, most would probably get at least second degree murder. This would be because they had the intent, however they did not have the conscious knowledge or decision. However for the cases that killed multiple people, I'm pretty sure the court system of the U.S would not let them get off.
The only reason we use a psychological approach is to understand why. Why did they do what they did, which is why we can say it was created by experiences and people. Psychology doesn't mean that any of it is okay.
Good
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