 Most theorists writing about evil believe that evil action requires a certain sort of motivational state. Once again, this claim is somewhat controversial. In the Atrocity Paradigm, Claudia Card makes a point of defining evil without reference to perpetrator motives. She does this because she wants her theory to focus on alleviating the suffering of victims rather than on understanding the motives of perpetrators (Card 2002, 9). Card’s theory also has the virtue of being able to count as evil actions which stem from a variety of motives.