How a belief in “pure evil” shapes people’s thinking: Harsher punishments for crimes, stronger reported support for the death penalty, decreased support for criminal rehabilitation, perceived need for preemptive military aggression to solve conflicts, & support for torture.
"Evil has been defined as taking pleasure in the intentional inflicting of harm on innocent others" that's not evil. It's sadism. If the recipient finds pleasure in it then it's quite socially acceptable. In fact most sadists aren't in to it at all if the recipient isn't getting off on it. There's no such thing as an evil person even if he does evil things, just as there's no such thing as a purely good person. In fact it has proven very difficult to define what evil is. Until the article tackles that, any further reading is just brain fodder.