by Ion » August 22nd, 2006, 4:51 pm
Sadly I can't find the papers, and it'd be hard to cite them unless you had them infront of you (they're literal papers).
Regardless, searching in and around the internet I found no evidence whatsoever that animals couldn't be evil, nor did I find any where they could be evil. Studies have been done but generally it seems like it's difficult to pinpoint what's "evil" by standard of an animal, because most animals like Hammel said (actually, all animals) act on instinct.
The problem is, our definition of an animal is:
• A multicellular organism of the kingdom Animalia, differing from plants in certain typical characteristics such as capacity for locomotion, nonphotosynthetic metabolism, pronounced response to stimuli, restricted growth, and fixed bodily structure.
• An animal organism other than a human, especially a mammal.
Humans have intelligence because that is our tool for survival. Look at this definition (again)
• Morally bad or wrong; wicked: an evil tyrant.
• Causing ruin, injury, or pain; harmful: the evil effects of a poor diet.
• Characterized by or indicating future misfortune; ominous: evil omens.
• Bad or blameworthy by report; infamous: an evil reputation.
• Characterized by anger or spite; malicious: an evil temper
The first subset of the defintion of evil describes an action. To a human (non-sociopath), for a runt bear cub to be excluded from feed and possibly even killed by it's mother seems cruel, unneccessary and down-right wrong. That is because we have empathy: the bear mother doesn't. Therefore, a bear can do evil things because it does not have empathy.
But then, if a bear does something evil, does that itself make the bear evil?
Not necessarily. By human standards, yes, by animal standards, not at all. It did what it could to survive, if it sees something as unfit to survive, the bear will kill it. Therefore, if the bear were a human it'd be doing something evil, but it isn't, so we lower our standard of tolerance and empathy and it's "just helping it's cubs survive".
Therein lies the problem. If an animal willingly enjoys causing mayham, if it conscieously makes a decision to maul another bear because it dislikes the bear or feels like it, then we can assume it's an evil bear (because in the definition of evil, causing widespread mayham and being liable for blame are some of the key factors in being evil).
Animals are intelligent, but the fact is an intelligent animal in relation to a human is not easy to come by. This is simply because a wolf has no use for a gun because it has its claws, it's jaws and it's teeth. An ape will use a small array of tools to get through the day but overall, it's heavier body mass, lankier stance and hand-like feet allow it to live a moderately safe life in it's natural habitat.
The point being, an animal doesn't have to be intelligent, therefore we cannot judge an evil animal by human standards.
However. If an animal were to exhibit evil, and if it were to be consceious of its actions or to enjoy what it would be doing, then yes an animal could be evil. A pitbull who kills another dog for no reason can be considered an evil animal, because unnecessary agression is unbecoming of an animal. There is no need to do such a thing on an animal-to-animal basis.
This is not "conditioning" as the animal was not "brought up" to kill dogs. The animal itself was over-agressive, regardless of what the owners did about it, it was just a bad dog. Thus by human standards, we could easily say all animals are evil because they don't feel empathy. But at the same time, we realize animals do not have the same level of intelligence as humans because they do not need it. An animal can still be evil however, but it is on a much broader, much more simplistic basis then on the level of human evil.
That said, if we assume the Master of the Hunt is more then a hound-dog, then yes he is evil. To enjoy causing pain to another person is evil, regardless of weither you're an animal or a human, because in both cases it is un-needed agression, and harmful to the survival of the animals. Fenris therefore, would then be evil, regardless of weither he is intelligent or semi-intelligent.
I think in order for us to judge who's evil and who isn't, we'd need character bios and faction history. That's the only objective way to really determine it =/
Ion.