Quote:
Originally Posted by LizardNecro
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I'm not so sure. I've seen a cat "toy" with a dying bird/mouse for hours. I put the word toy in quotes because it's more like extended hideous torture.
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Difference is, the cat isn't making a conscious choice to torture the mouse. It doesn't have the intellectual complexity for morality to be a consideration, it's just acting on instinct. Same thing with lions killing cubs fathered by other lions, orcas tossing mutilated seals around. or dolphins and ducks raping each other.
A human has the capacity to make a choice independent of internal and external stimuli. Everything a human actively does is a choice. When we torture somebody, or when we murder other people, we're choosing to do so. We're very adept at shirking the responsibility for those choices (I couldn't help myself///I was fighting for my country///Those people are evil///It was defense)
We're the only species capable of
actively choosing to avoid killing, torture, and destruction altogether. Yet we're the most effective and accomplished killers, torturers, and destroyers on Earth.