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Notes -
Just because someone thinks they are doing something for good doesn't mean it's their true motivation though. People who enjoy cruelty, find purges orderly and tell themselves they're helping could also be included in a definition of evil. This would cover e.g. a sadistic cop.
We'd get into very deep weeds here. How do we know what is "true" motivation and what is self-delusion? We can't read minds. How do we know if the sadistic cop enjoys causing pain, or enjoys the righteousness of his anger agains the criminals (in his own view)? I don't think it is possible, and I don't think it matters too much. If you do evil, and think it's good, it's still evil. There could be a possibility of opening the eyes of the evildoer to the true nature of their deeds, and thus convincing them to stop, but this possibility is remote and theoretical. Most people would find a million of excuses rather than admit "I was doing evil".
I don't think it has to be all that deep. It's not like you require a truly Freudian and unfalsifiable notion of a subconscious to understand the idea of someone who has a false narrative that gives them a license do what their baser self really wants to do. Confronting the fallible bad guy with a truth about themselves that they can't handle but deep down know is true is a common part of thousands of thrillers.
As you say, we're deep in the weeds here though.
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