# Can (other) animals be evil? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 29, 2007, 11:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987 "2007-06-29T23:21:46Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/41 "2007-07-01T07:02:26Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] **MGibson** I tend to think that evil is a property of action, and not a property of being. A person can DO evil, but a person cannot BE evil. What is your opinion on that? [/QUOTE] That is a very interesting question and I’m inclined to say that there are evil people. There’s a problem with this though. First, I cannot gaze into the hearts of men to know whether they are good or evil. Second, I have no mathematical equation I can use to plug in the amount of good and evil someone has done in order to calculate whether they are good or evil. So if a person can do evil but cannot be evil, I take it that he can do good but not be good? Marc ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/42 "2007-07-01T07:11:34Z")
[QUOTE=Frylock] What does it mean to be evil? [/QUOTE] Foxes kill for fun, I’d say that fits the definition. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/43 "2007-07-01T07:17:29Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] A person can DO evil, but a person cannot BE evil. What is your opinion on that? [/QUOTE] If someone has done enough evil that it no longer bothers them, or never bother them in the first place, can you now say that person IS evil. I think so. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/44 "2007-07-01T07:18:11Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] That is a very interesting question and I’m inclined to say that there are evil people. There’s a problem with this though. First, I cannot gaze into the hearts of men to know whether they are good or evil. Second, I have no mathematical equation I can use to plug in the amount of good and evil someone has done in order to calculate whether they are good or evil. So if a person can do evil but cannot be evil, I take it that he can do good but not be good? Marc [/QUOTE] Yes, I would say the converse is also true. You know the famous old adage about Hilter loving his Mother. It just doesn’t make sense to me that good or evil can be a property of being. People are people, and they strive to do what they strive to do, but past behavior is not always a good indicator of future performance, as that would leave out the St. Augustines of the world. Perhaps when all is said and done and we are in a box a sort of tally is taken, some kind of cosmic, karmic process of summation that tells us whether or life was an excitatory or an inhibitory response within the universal mind, but I am not sure that otherwise it can be known. In the case of Hitler one of the greatest goods came out of his genocide of the Jews, in that ethnic cleansing is not considered beyond the pale, whereas it was in the past sort of standard operating procedure. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/45 "2007-07-01T07:23:28Z")
[QUOTE=Sitnam] If someone has done enough evil that it no longer bothers them, or never bother them in the first place, can you now say that person IS evil. I think so. [/QUOTE] I don’t know, I don’t know that we can really say that evil is that static and uniform. Perhaps all actions are suffused with a proportion of good and evil. An example I give a lot of the time, which is usually scoffed at is that we kill microorganisms every time we breathe. Our existance by it’s very nature both ends life and generates it. I am looking at bowl of hash on my table that is growing new life on it, even though it contains a big mixture of dead organisms, from egg to beef, to various vegetables. I enjoyed the eating of it, so is that not also enjoying the killing of it, as they were killed for the purpose of my consumption? Yet, as this thread seems to demonstrate, most people would agree that it is not evil to kill to eat, but it is evil to kill purely for pleasure, as your example of the fox above points out. I would assume that if evil outweighs good in proportion then that person can be considered evil, but can we know that before their chapter is finished? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/46 "2007-07-01T16:26:08Z")
[QUOTE=Sitnam] Foxes kill for fun, I’d say that fits the definition. [/QUOTE] How so, if the fox doesn’t understand that it is causing pain to another being? Doesn’t evil have to be a matter of intent? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/47 "2007-07-01T16:53:26Z")
No, animals cannot be evil. Evil requires awareness of right and wrong. That’s why we are forgiving of someone so mentally ill they don’t understand what they were doing. Animals–as far as we know–do not have the ability to form concepts like right and wrong. Also, pissing off the alpha is not necessarily evil. Sometimes the alpha deserves to be pissed off. ---
**Author:** ![elelle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f0a364/32.png) [@elelle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elelle)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/48 "2007-07-01T21:46:24Z")
In thinking about what might constitute “Evil”, or particularly abhorrent action, one hinging point would be the ability to discern one’s action as having an effect on another being’s future. From my understanding, animals live in the Now sense, and don’t have any concept of time and cause and effect other that what they need to survive. Their choices are immediate in the course of survival. If someone has better knowledge of animal consciousness in this regard, I’d like to know about it. From my lifelong experience with all kinds of critters, I see intelligence, but not a discernment of suffering of another creature. As Colibri put it well, a predator would not live long if it had the hesitation of thought to consider it’s prey’s well-being. Hawks dive down on bunnies, and bunnies have a remarkable ability to breed so many more bunnies. That’s the way it goes here. The difference between humans and animals is that we have memory, beyond basic tooth and nail operations, I hope: the basic ability to discern cause and effect of our actions. Perhaps “Evil” means an intelligent being who , having all appartus of choice, chooses to inflict actions that cause pain and suffering on others. And, usually , that’s quite ignorant of so many other better behaviors. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 11:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/49 "2007-07-01T23:44:53Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Yes, I _will_ say it. There is no such thing as good or evil except that which we label good or evil. [/QUOTE] You could say the same thing about TVs. “There’s not such thing as TVs, except what we label as TVs.” > [@](#): > > How is this different from a cat playing with a ball of yarn? The cat almost certainly doesn’t understand that it is inflicting pain on the prey. It is playing with it as “practice” for actually catching other prey; its objective is not to inflict pain, but to entertain itself and hone its skills. > > It would be highly maladaptive for a predatory animal to feel any empathy for its prey. If it injures an animal, its objective is to incapacitate it so it can’t escape, not to make it feel pain. A predator that “felt the pain” of its prey would quickly starve to death. The difference between people and other animals isn’t that we have intelligence and they don’t, it’s that we (most of us) have more intelligence. A cat doesn’t stop to think about whether a mouse feels pain. Cats just don’t think of mice that way. Animals are capable of feeling sympathy for other creatures, but not for those they see as prey. If a cat could stop and think, “You know, just because my instincts tell me this thing is prey, that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of feelings,” then cats could be evil. But if cats were that smart, we’d know it, because they’d rule the world. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [July 1, 2007, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/50 "2007-07-01T23:47:10Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Yes, I _will_ say it. There is no such thing as good or evil except that which we label good or evil. [/QUOTE] You could say the same thing about TVs. “There’s not such thing as TVs, except what we label as TVs.” > [@](#): > > How is this different from a cat playing with a ball of yarn? The cat almost certainly doesn’t understand that it is inflicting pain on the prey. It is playing with it as “practice” for actually catching other prey; its objective is not to inflict pain, but to entertain itself and hone its skills. > > It would be highly maladaptive for a predatory animal to feel any empathy for its prey. If it injures an animal, its objective is to incapacitate it so it can’t escape, not to make it feel pain. A predator that “felt the pain” of its prey would quickly starve to death. (Nice post) The difference between people and other animals isn’t that we have intelligence and they don’t, it’s that we (most of us) have more intelligence. A cat doesn’t stop to think about whether a mouse feels pain. Cats just don’t think of mice that way. Animals are capable of feeling sympathy for other creatures, but not for those they see as prey. If a cat could stop and think, “You know, just because my instincts tell me this thing is prey, that doesn’t mean it’s not capable of feelings,” then cats could be evil. But if cats were that smart, we’d know it, because they’d rule the world. ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 12:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/51 "2007-07-02T00:07:01Z")
[QUOTE=LinusK] But if cats were that smart, we’d know it, because they’d rule the world. [/QUOTE] I don’t know, I think the ‘animals are not intelligent crowd’ tend to overstate things. I think the opposable thumbs thing is at least as relevant as the cognitive function. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/52 "2007-07-02T00:10:00Z")
[QUOTE=elelle] In thinking about what might constitute “Evil”, or particularly abhorrent action, one hinging point would be the ability to discern one’s action as having an effect on another being’s future. From my understanding, animals live in the Now sense, and don’t have any concept of time and cause and effect other that what they need to survive. Their choices are immediate in the course of survival. If someone has better knowledge of animal consciousness in this regard, I’d like to know about it. [/QUOTE] Even if tpredators could feel empathy for prey they would still be forced to kill and eat it. We would feel great empathy if we saw someone take a hammer and hit a steer in the head, or cut a pigs throat while it was still alive. That empathy wouldn’t stop the predator because it must eat to survive, it is driven to survive and it has no other way of getting food. And because of our empathy we hire others to slaughter our animals for food and make sure they do it out of our sight.( Except in the 1930’s Iowa where a trip to a slaughter house/meat packing plant was a feature of the senior year.) ---
**Author:** ![mswas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mswas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mswas)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/53 "2007-07-02T01:57:05Z")
[QUOTE=Solution below right] I’d say the majority of dogs and cats are evil. They are cruel and they know exactly what they are doing and that it is wrong. This is unlike wild animals. [/QUOTE] They know that humans disapprove of their actions, that is different from knowing that it is wrong. ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/54 "2007-07-02T02:03:34Z")
[QUOTE=MGibson] Basically you’re going along with an argument based on the dependency theory; that moral principles are defined by cultural acceptance. There are some pretty serious problems with that line of thinking. #1. There is no room for moral reformers with the dependency theory. Women pushing for the right to vote, the Civil Rights movement, and feminism were all morally wrong because it went against accepted societal norms. [/quote] I don’t know about dependency theory\* but as for moral relativism, I’d say #1 actually supports my position. Successful reformers are just what you would expect: a vanguard of changing social mores. 100% culture-wide agreement is not what I would expect. > [@](#): > > #2. You said that there is no such thing as good or evil except as “we” label it. Please, tell me who this “we” is. If we’re talking about society as a whole, then please tell me how many people it takes to make up a society. Surely you’ll agree that morality changes through time and across cultures. “We” is us here now or them there then. Can we identify morality down to how many people it takes to define it? Of course not. Morality is vague. That’s why “we” (at whatever level of society you wish) struggle with various moral issues. Moral relativists aren’t asking for a vote on what’s right and wrong. They merely claim the vote is constantly going on and largely undetected. > [@](#): > > Moral nihilism, also known as ethical nihilism, is the belief that no valid moral principles exist. If you fall in with the moral relativist crowd then ultimately I think it leads to ethical nihilism. It sounds like you’re saying that moral relativism might be true but we shouldn’t voice it because the future consequences might be disturbing. In any case, I don’t see moral nihilism is a necessary or even likely consequence. Perhaps you could flesh out how you see that happening. Remember, moral relativism isn’t looking to change anything except how we look at ourselves. It’s a proposition of what is, not what ought to be. \*Most hits seem similar to this Wikipedia [entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_theory). Can you point me toward a better reference of how you see my position? ---
**Author:** ![the\_PC\_apeman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac8455/32.png) [@the\_PC\_apeman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_PC_apeman)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/55 "2007-07-02T02:12:40Z")
[QUOTE=LinusK] You could say the same thing about TVs. “There’s not such thing as TVs, except what we label as TVs.” [/QUOTE] Well we could say there’s no such thing as TVs except for the TVs we create. We create our own definitions of good and evil (though not nearly as consciously). ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/56 "2007-07-02T02:21:55Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] I have never in my life met anyone that I could definitively call ‘evil’. [/QUOTE] Hi! I’m **Vinyl**. Don’t think we’ve met. You sure look familiar, though. Man, do you hate these things as much as I do? Anyway, gotta mingle. By the way, don’t drink the punch. I put… well, let’s just say don’t. Trust me. _Ciao_. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 2:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/57 "2007-07-02T02:59:04Z")
[QUOTE=mswas] They know that humans disapprove of their actions, that is different from knowing that it is wrong. [/QUOTE] In what way? Good and bad (I haven’t seen a solid definition of “evil” as anything besides being a step on the continuum that includes both good and bad), are totally defined by society, and societies evolve, in part because of reformers, which shows **MGibson** ’s bit about reformers for the nonsense it is. And if **Colibri** hasn’t watched a dog, who had just been outside and has no pressing bladder reason to do it, lift his leg on a pile of laundry in a direct challenge to **Colibri** ’s authority BECAUSE he knows that such behavior is unacceptable, then he should stop watching birds for a while and spend some time watching animals that have been peripheral members of human society for tens of thousands of years. This discussion, and the way people keep talking past one another, is what happens when biologists, social scientists, and philosophers try to “describe an elephant.” We should probably give up now. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 3:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/58 "2007-07-02T03:10:45Z")
[QUOTE=the PC apeman] Successful reformers are just what you would expect: a vanguard of changing social mores. 100% culture-wide agreement is not what I would expect. [/quote] What percentage of agreement does one need to move from the evil to the good category? Typically, when people are on the forefront of social change they don’t have a whole lot of support from society at large. > [@](#): > > Surely you’ll agree that morality changes through time and across cultures. I would certainly agree that what is thought of as moral has changed throughout time and culture. That isn’t the same as saying that what is or isn’t moral has changed. > [@](#): > > “We” is us here now or them there then. Can we identify morality down to how many people it takes to define it? Of course not. Morality is vague. That’s why “we” (at whatever level of society you wish) struggle with various moral issues. So “we” can be defined at whatever level of society I wish. So if I belong to a group that believes homosexuality to be evil and should be erradicated does that make my gay bashing good? After all, by the standards of my own little society “we” have deemed my actions to be moral, therefore they must be good. Right? > [@](#): > > Moral relativists aren’t asking for a vote on what’s right and wrong. They merely claim the vote is constantly going on and largely undetected. There is a lot more to moral relativism than this. > [@](#): > > It sounds like you’re saying that moral relativism might be true but we shouldn’t voice it because the future consequences might be disturbing. In any case, I don’t see moral nihilism is a necessary or even likely consequence. Perhaps you could flesh out how you see that happening. I’m a little confused as to how anything I said suggested that I thought moral relativism might be true. Ah well, we’ll chalk it up to the vaugeries of internet communication. The Great Pumpkin knows I’ve certainly made my share of miscommunications and misinterpretations. As I said earlier in this post, there is a lot more to moral relativism than voting for what is moral. Some adherents to moral relativism believe that all systems of morality are equal. If it is accepted that all moral systems are equally valid then it’s a pretty short step to say that there is no such thing as right or wrong. > [@](#): > > \*Most hits seem similar to this Wikipedia [entry](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dependency_theory). Can you point me toward a better reference of how you see my position? Enter “ethical relativism” or “dependency theory of morality” into Google and you’ll have better luck. Marc ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/59 "2007-07-02T04:35:46Z")
[QUOTE=dropzone] And if **Colibri** hasn’t watched a dog, who had just been outside and has no pressing bladder reason to do it, lift his leg on a pile of laundry in a direct challenge to **Colibri** ’s authority BECAUSE he knows that such behavior is unacceptable, then he should stop watching birds for a while and spend some time watching animals that have been peripheral members of human society for tens of thousands of years. [/QUOTE] We’re not disagreeing that dogs do such things, we are disagreeing _why_ they do it. The dog may indeed be challenging the owner’s (alpha pack member’s) authority, but it is not performing the act _in order to make him unhappy._ The dog doesn’t care about your emotional state _unless it has a positive or negative feedback for the dog._ You are projecting human awareness and motivations on the dog. ---
**Author:** ![dropzone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dropzone/32/7515_2.png) [@dropzone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dropzone)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2007, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987/60 "2007-07-02T05:12:43Z")
[QUOTE=Colibri] The dog may indeed be challenging the owner’s (alpha pack member’s) authority, but it is not performing the act _in order to make him unhappy._ [/quote] No? That is the whole point of a challenge to the Alpha Animal! You challenge him and either he responds to your challenge or else he acquiesces, making you the Alpha. > [@](#): > > The dog doesn’t care about your emotional state _unless it has a positive or negative feedback for the dog._ Of course. Works the same if the Alpha is a human or God or the societal rules that govern atheists. > [@](#): > > You are projecting human awareness and motivations on the dog. And you are denying that “dumb animals” possess them. On that point you, a biologist, and I, a social scientist, will have to disagree. After all, I’m the one who sees little _behavioral_ difference between children and dogs. As they (the kids) mature the differences grow, but, in the beginning, it’s all about learning how to fit into human society. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-other-animals-be-evil/409987.md?page=4)