Philosophy Now Forum

To me I think you need intent to do evil. I believe evil is the result of planning to do some harm. So with non-human animals, are they capable of doing evil?

What do you think?

PhilX

Everything with a brain is capable of as much good and evil as its intelligence allows.
Of course, "evil" is a value judgment, based on a morality, rooted in a world-view. Therefore, what one species considers evil may be quite different from the belief system of another species. There is considerable variation among various cultures of one species, so I'd guess the specific variation would be wider still. Yet, all social animals have many of the same rules of interpersonal conduct, so I would also expect a degree of similarity.

The only arena in which we can make observations of individual conduct in mutually understood (if not agreed) legal framework is a household with pets, or a barnyard - that is, a society consisting of several species, with single set of rules, howbeit imposed by the dominant species and too complex for most of the others to understand. Cats, dogs, horses, sheep, geese and chickens know the human rules. We can watch them obeying or breaking those rules. However, we have to apply very fine judgment, indeed, to distinguish naughtiness, misdemeanour, self-serving crime and evil.

I have seen a rudimentary form of evil in cats, dogs and crows (sorry, just the one crow, but he was a right little bastard), and I've seen vindictiveness in a horse. Otherwise, just run-of-the-mill theft and vandalism.