Understanding immoral motivations vs. Sympathizing with them

[Tucker]

"...Americans seem to have a very difficult time recognizing that there is a distinction between understanding and sympathizing." --Kathleen Norris, quoted by Jessica Stern

Aaron Lazare's 2004 book On Apology was published the same year as Jessica Stern's Terror in the Name of God. Lazare had read her book before his book went to press (he mentions her on p. 262.) He wrote:

"Examples of this need for explanations abound...[e.g.] 'Why are you killing innocent civilians?' 'Why did you bomb our embassy?' The various explanations received in response to these questions help us regain our sense that the world is predictable after all, that there are reasons for such behavior even if we do not accept their validity. [my emphasis] These explanations demystify offenses committed against us by telling us whether an offense was a random act of violence or an act of revenge. We learn how much responsibility we share for the offense and whether should expect similar offenses in the future. The net result is that we gain a means of assessing our safety and taking appropriate actions to forestall future attacks."

My question on the Norris quote is why Americans have a hard time comprehending the distinction between understanding and sympathizing. The Lazare quote implies one resolution: they may have a difficult time comprehending that people can be driven by psychological motivations that happen to be immoral. (He said their motivations lack "validity," but I dislike this word choice, since the motivations are obviously "valid" enough for them to cause the person to take action. More specifically, some motivations are successful but corrupt in nature.)

Originally, I was inclined to think that, given the fundamentalist religious flavor of much of the United States and its good/evil dualism, we should have no problem realizing that some people have unadmirable motivations. But, the more I think about it, I can see it the other way. Perhaps people who believe in the dualism of good/evil are so accustomed to attributing their own motivations to the "good" side that they have difficulty understanding how someone else might have his psychological roots in the "bad" side. Therefore, it may be easier for them to simply dehumanize the criminal and to neglect to think of him at all as a psychological creature and a moral agent. To re-humanize the criminal, even just for the purpose of understanding how his mind works, is, on this interpretation, to come dangerously close to sympathizing with him (in the political sense of the word) or attaching some moral validity to his actions. The good/evil dualism may be so radically understood that those on the "evil" side are no longer even seen as humans, and renewed attempts simply to see them as human beings with minds similar to our own (however misguided or mistaken, shocking or cruel their lives and fantasies may be) are misunderstood as attempts to cast them squarely on the "good" side after all.

If this is the case, then it is good/evil dualism that prevents us from trying to understand offenders. Dualism indirectly generates the false equation that to understand means to agree with. It tells us that, if we do not agree with someone, we cannot possibly make any sense out of his motivations. But this belief leaves us powerless. As Lazare notes, without understanding the person, we cannot predict what he will do next. We have no "means of assessing our safety and taking appropriate actions to forestall future attacks."