Do Animals Have the Capacity to Be Good and Evil?

There has been a lot written by various so called scientists, on the reason for us humans capacity to appear both good and evil. One disturbing view that I keep running into is the line, "animals are red in tooth and claw so that is why we are". I say disturbing because that suggestion ignores the fact that animals are operating completely on an instinctual level where our behavior is reliant on the conscious decisions we make. Animals simply do as their instincts govern, where as we can decide whether to behave in a "good" or "evil" way. It also implies at base that we have no control over our actions and must therefore be destined for self destruction. If that were true why do we have the capacity to be selfless, loving and cooperative while at the same time murdering, raping, making war and destroying the world. An organization based in Australia, The World Transformation Movement, explains in incredible detail this misconception we use to explain our own capacity for good and evil. They use many quotations from various philosophers and great thinkers to help explain this and many other dilemmas facing humanity.

So do animals have the capacity to be good and evil? I think not. How could they when they have no concept of what either state is. To quote Aldous Huxley from The perennial philosophy, 1946: "Non rational creatures do not look before or after, but live in an animal eternity of a perpetual present; instinct is their animal grace and constant inspiration; and they are never tempted to live otherwise than in accord with their own... imminent law". Or from Richard Leakey's The Making of Mankind, 1981 "Those who believe that man is innately aggressive are providing a convenient excuse for violence and organized warfare."

I have been fortunate enough to have read about and seen footage of Bonobo Chimpanzees. There is something about them that gives us a view into our own past. They are much more secure and less violent than regular chimps and the people that have studied them in great detail explain, that because they have abundant food supplies and don't need to fight over a mate they can focus wholly on nurturing their young. There is a picture of a mother with her adopted son and they almost look like one being. The mother is holding the child so close that the love she exudes streams out of the page to the viewer. In one sense it is very confronting in so much as if this is our past then what happened to us? We witness of all sorts of horrors towards our own generation of children that the Bonobo chimpanzees are simply incapable of. So I don't believe that animals have the capacity for good and evil but I do believe that understanding the difference between them and us is the window into the soul that we all hope will reconcile the "good" and "evil" in our species, which after all is the real question that needs answering.

Some commentators feel issues of morality and 'sin' belong squarely in the church. Others acknowledge that fields of study like evolutionary psychology are throwing a lot of light on why we are the way we are, and the cause of this behaviour in humans. I found an interesting article recently titled Good vs Evil. We must keep questioning if there is to be an optimistic future.

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