It seems to be in vogue to rally behind the antagonist that the MFG finds themselves up against. To be cooler to get behind that character and rationalize what they do. To stir up fans of the main characters with such. With making the said villian some kind of truly misunderstood dark hero or heroine.
Yes selfish is a tame tag to put on them. It is never the less a fact that it is rather common denominator for them doing evil acts. Which makes them evil persons.
A lot of bashing has gone on the character Elena. Yes she is responsible for killing thousands of vampires with taking part in killing a couple of the originals. Through such would never been the case if she had not been backed into such recourse. I bring this up because this is an example of doing an evil act. Just as Caroline not meaning to killed the twelve witches linked when she slit the throat of the one as they were linked. The act was influenced by outside sources.
It is not the same with Silas, Klaus or Kathrine. They truly chose to do the evil acts for their own selfish purposes. To put any other light on it is a fallecy. That being such then they are truly evil.
So the question should be who or if any of them can be redeemed from being evil. We got a taste of such on a smaller scale with Damon. Klaus seems to be the one that is going to be redeemed from being the selfish evil one. The first step was pardoning Tyler. The next step is his child with Haley and his brother Elijah.
I don't see Silas being redeemed, nor Kathrine even through she is human. I see both of them continuing to do evil acts in selfish nature which makes them evil.