Redefining Good & Evil

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by alatar

Good thoughts, Nogrod and others. I was hoping to get time to post 'we are animals,' but ya beat me to it.

Though some many not agree, we are animals. Sure, we have credit cards and cell phones, but animals just the same.

But, for discussion, let's pretend that there is some gulf between us and the other inhabitants of this globe. So my question then is, is there good or evil in the animal kingdom? Animals 'murder' in that they do kill for non-sustenance reasons. Rape and incest exist there as well. So what's the difference between them and us?

At first I thought that it might be premeditation. Do animals think out their actions before acting upon them, or is it all instinct/gene-driven? In the case of apes, I would say that 'forethought' (darn Prometheus!) does happen, as observed here. If we have the same actions taking place within the animal world, how then do we then say that as humans, we have knowledge of 'good and evil' whereas the animals just do what they do?

So what is it? Do all animals, human included, have the ability to commit acts of good or evil? Or can only we humans act thus? Hate to sound all relativistic, but are these concepts just in the eye of the beholder?

And, if evil is 'selfish,' and if we cannot exclude animals from evil acts, then isn't this just 'survival,' and yet we want to call it something else?

Well, in my darker moments I have always though that humanity is proably unique in our capacity for sadism and scadenfreude, that is, the we are likey the only cretures who are capable of taking pleasure in the pain and suffering of others (I would even in such a state, go so far as to say that that is the main way we are different than animals). Other animals may hurt and kill kill but we are likey the only ones who engagle in recreational torture for the sheer fun of it (well, maybe a cat toying with a mouse, but that's a grey area)