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The problem is that the causality could go both ways. If you ask why someone doesn't want responsibility, the answer might be that some part of their mind is resentful towards the world.
It isn't necessarily a question of how cruel the world actually is. It might be a question of how much sway such tendencies hold over a person.
Personally, I think that "I didn't do X because life is evil" sounds an awful lot like saying the quiet part out loud, and stems from something deep and as yet poorly understood inside of the human mind.
You mean that people who say this are tacitly admitting they themselves have evil impulses?
Mostly unconscious questionable impulses, would be more accurate for the people you describe. I think we all have a part of us that is capable of this, but I don't yet have any systematic thoughts on how those impulses take over, nor in what situations they can clearly be described as evil.
If you read school shooter manifestos or journals, you'll see a lot of parallels. This is the main basis for why I suggest that you don't dismiss these claims so easily. Something about the claim that "life is not worth living" is a recurring feature that I've noticed, or think that I've noticed.
I suspect that there is an underlying philosophy of evil which some aspect of the mind is prone towards believing in, perhaps because of the specific way in which that part of the mind works (ie. it may be an accidental but high-probability outcome) and in certain (as yet unknown to me) situations it takes over.
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