Hi, you raise interesting points but I think we many end up agreeing to disagree.
Maybe. And fair 'nuff.
I do believe and am fully convinced evil is a conscious decision to undertake an act knowing it is wrong, and that pain or suffering is being inflicted. A seal suffers while it is hunted for food, yes. Unfortunately for the seal it has a natural predator that wants to eat! The motive however is purely to eat, not to cause suffering. The motive is not evil.
Except that the seal isn't always eaten. As I've said before, I think I just define evil outside the norm. I won't argue the correctness of that. But that's how I see it.
Others hear John Lennon say, "Imagine all the people living for today." And they sigh wistfully,thinking of a perceived better way. I see the LA riots after the Rodney King verdict.
So for me, evil is a state of self absorption, of an abrogation of consequence. Either or both of those can be present either in an act or in a being.
Can you really equate the hunting of seals by natural pedators to the holocaust? Or a serial killer or a paedophile, or a serial rapist who attacks not even through a real desire but purely to cause pain, bring about dominance and to cause terror and humiliation in his victims?
No, I can't. But I don't have to. For me, evil isn't *just* a binary condition. It has nuances and degrees. There *can* be a "more" and a "less" evil, while both items are still evil.
And as I point out, there are documented cases where the whales hunted for something other than eating. If someone were to find another source for that act than the self-absorption I admit to presuming, then the context changes. Until then...
To put it simply, perhaps *too* simply, there are misdemeanor evils and there are felony evils. More, I'm sure, but that's sufficient for this discussion.
Evil IMO is the sole property of human beings because it goes to MOTIVE. We conciously act against our knowledge of right and wrong and justify it according to our own wishes or needs regardless of the pain and suffering of others. This IMO is evil.
I don't disagree that this is evil. I just think my view of it goes beyond. Motive, for me, can be involved, but doesn't have to be.
I'll use a human example: Over the past few years, there have been a few well-publicized cases of mothers killing children because of post-partum depression. In at least one case, the mother believed that she was helping the children. Under your definition, neither the mother nor the act are evil because that motive of right and wrong cannot apply. Under mine, the mother can be understood for the illness she suffers, while the act is still an evil act.
I derived this attitude from observing an acquaintance who sank into schizophrenia. That never got to the fatal stage. Still, I couldn't condemn the acquaintance, but neither could I excuse the act. So I rethought my ideology on evil. The seal/orca example, when I later learned of it, seems analogous.
And as their intentions morph to the point of knowingly causing suffering and pain then they are encroaching onto the territory of knowingly doing an evil act.
Here's the core of our disagreement, I think. Not that your description above is wrong. I agree with it. It just seems to me that you cannot divorce the act from the actor. But what if Hitler (or Stalin, or Pol Pot, or Noriega, pick a name) truly thought he was saving his country with his acts? Are those men, or their actions, now less evil because they didn't have the intent of evil?
I may be misundertanding you here. My belief is that an evil act is one undertaken when in full knowledge and acceptance of bringing about suffering to others (as in my second paragraph regarding serial killers and extermination camps etc.)
So far, not. We agree this far.
Animals prey on others for food, attack when territory is invaded, but the point is not to cause pain or suffering, but to survive and defend itself. Not evil just hard, brutal nature. Tragic for the seal, but not evil.
Ah, but the seal isn't encroaching, and it isn't always eaten. Sometimes, so far as we know, orcas beat and kill a seal as a form of play. It's still the way of nature. But I submit that such an act is evil still.
Human beings are capable of evil because we know right and wrong and act over and above the need to eat and survive.
Dogs (cats,even monkeys, and other animals, I believe) act to alert to fires, or to a human's impending seizure. It's tough to bring up any particular example, because it's possible in any particular case that it was more we people recognizing an animal's response than that the animal was actually alerting us. Still, I believe that those are acts of good. And, to paraphrase from the original
Oh, God! movie, I can't imagine a coin with just one side.
So maybe you're right that we cannot divorce intent from action. I just don't agree with it based on what I see in this world on BOTH sides of that coin.