Do you think stepping on bugs is wrong - why or why not?

[Penumbra]

Why do most people seem to not acknowledge that this is because humans have the capability to do this while other species do not?

Why do many people seem to believe that other animals have none of the advantages of a human and yet all of the drawbacks? As in, not capable of moral thought, but fully capable of suffering? You're right, most animals don't have the capability to think like that.

Humans also have the capacity for evidenced abstract thought, so we can look into the question of whether bugs can suffer and come up with a solid answer.

You said a few times in this thread that bugs can feel pain and suffer. Evidence indicates that this is incorrect.
Source.

-Pain is a result of nerves sending signals to the brain, which then emotionally processes it as pain. Raw nerves themselves enough are not enough to experience actual pain and suffering, any more than little electronic input and output sensors of a robot can feel pain and suffer. As an example, take a look at those Buddhist monks that can burn themselves alive out of protest while sitting in perfect serenity, because their meditation is advanced enough to detach their emotions from the raw signals of the damaged flesh. Bugs have nerves but do not have the structures necessary to turn pain into an emotion. Many bugs can live for days without a head, because the brain is a small component of their overall nervous system and doesn't actually do all that much.

-Animals that can suffer, learn from their suffering. That's part of the point of suffering: nature doesn't generally evolve species with completely unnecessary capabilities, because they come at a cost as well as a gain. That's why there's no reason for a tree to suffer; it can't do anything about it anyway. A human learns not to touch a stove if she was burned by a stove. If a dog is mistreated, it will make clear signs of being afraid of the one that mistreated her. But bugs are so simple, their strategies for life don't rely on learning in most cases. If it a bug gets hurt at something, it doesn't show signs of avoiding it in the future. Its ability to feel stimulus seems isolated to dealing with things in the present moment, such as fighting, hunting, fleeing, etc.

-Animals that can suffer change their behavior when they suffer. If a human is in agony, she or he doesn't do things like eat and have sex and act normally. Same thing with a dog or a rabbit- if it's cut open or some other severe wound, it does nothing other than fret about that injury. Bugs don't do that. A bug with a crushed abdomen will still do things like eat or try to mate, and generally acts like nothing has happened. In science class once, we had two praying manti in a tank, and they began having sex, and before the male was done, the female began consuming him while he was still inside of her (they do that sometimes, his sacrifice is a meal for the soon-to-be-mother) by biting off his head in small chunks, and he fought a bit and then just kind of went with it, and continued having sex without a head. That's what bugs do- they'll struggle and fight when there is a threatening stimulus but when they are no longer scurrying around for survival and the threat is gone, regardless of the extent of their injuries, they'll appear clueless to them. Bugs survive by numbers, not individual quality. Like, when a spider egg sac hatches and countless spiderlings spill out, 99% of them will die shortly. A fraction will live. In the wild, bugs generally don't die well- they get consumed from the inside out by parasites (and act normally), they get eaten by predators, they get picked apart slowly by other bugs, they get partially crushed and left to die in various ways, etc. And there's no indication that they suffer at all, or to any bothersome degree.

So in this thread, it's been said that humans are anthropocentric for, say, not caring too much about the well-being of an ant. Yet, posts that are suggesting without evidence that bugs can suffer and feel pain like a human, appear to be anthropomorphic- giving human characteristics to non-humans.

Imo, how to behave with regard to things should be informed by evidence of the characteristics of those things. This is why, as I said earlier, I care more for a human than a cat, more for a cat than an ant, and more for an ant than a bacterium. We have good evidence on how they respond to things, what they've evolved to need to survive, and how they respond to pain and how they seem to experience it.

This is why, if termites are found to be eating a house, the correct approach is to get rid of the termites.

 

[EpkSceOnTcos]

I do that sometimes too. I think it's okay to kill anything except for humans.

 

[Madhuri]

But, it does not and you have no way of knowing in certain terms that it would if it could and that was my point.

Ants are little robots, encapable of feeling pain as they lack complex nervous systems and they can be harmful to humans (some species). Even those that we don't have to fear biting can, in large numbers, cause structural damage, spread disease and contaminate food.

Granted, they can positively influence eco systems, but, not hardly, when they are invading your home and/or ruining your property.

As a human, yes, I absolutely have a bias towards my own kind. When comparing the well being of my family to the well being of an insect colony that's invaded my living space, I find it most acceptable from a moral perspective, to look out for the living creatures who can feel pain and be negatively impacted in other ways by such creatures.

You are arguing a point here which is somewhat different to my point in this thread, and I do not entirely disagree with what you are saying. If an insect that I consider to be dangerous is in my house, I will not be opposed to killing it (even though I generally get my mum or dad to do it and I can't watch).

This is much different to going out of your way to kill an insect in the outdoors just for the fun of it, which is the subject of the OP.

 

[Madhuri]

You said a few times in this thread that bugs can feel pain and suffer. Evidence indicates that this is incorrect.
Source.

Does this seriously include all insects? Just this morning I was washing spinach and a bug lost its leg in the sink. I took it out and put it on a leaf in a pot-plant where it limped around and struggles. Many insects, including spiders, seem to react to danger with cautious behaviour, including staying still, pretending to be dead, walking slowly or running quickly, attacking, and yes, even limping (unlike what the article says).

What would their experience of pain be like? How can we possible know?

 

[Repox]

Bugs are purely instinctive, they don't know or don't think about what happens. If there is no thought, there is no moral issue for bugs. Humans think and therefore have moral issues. Maybe life would be less painful if humans accepted their fate without thinking about it.

When a human has moral regret for stepping on a bug, the bug has no knowledge of said remorse. Bugs may prosper when humans don't step on them, but only humans feel morally upright.

 

[Parsimony]

Ants are little robots, encapable of feeling pain as they lack complex nervous systems and they can be harmful to humans (some species).

Argiope spiders are probably comparable to ants and other arthropods in nervous system complexity, and they certainly behave as if they can feel pain (recall the wasp venom experiment I posted).

If it a bug gets hurt at something, it doesn't show signs of avoiding it in the future.

I did list examples of crabs and snails taking measures to avoid stimuli that harmed them in experiments. So in those two animals at least, they can learn to avoid pain. I doubt they'd be particularly unique. Learning to avoid dangerous stimuli would be beneficial to any organism capable of avoiding it.

 

[Penumbra]

Does this seriously include all insects?

Yes.

Just this morning I was washing spinach and a bug lost its leg in the sink. I took it out and put it on a leaf in a pot-plant where it limped around and struggles. Many insects, including spiders, seem to react to danger with cautious behaviour, including staying still, pretending to be dead, walking slowly or running quickly, attacking,

I suggest you observe it for longer. I said in my post that they do react to stimuli. Bugs do fight back if touched, if you grab them, if you stomp a foot near them, etc. That's how they stay alive.

Watch what it does when it is out of danger, regardless of how harmed it is. When a bug walks around without a head for a few days, or has sex without a head, or eats food with a recently crushed abdomen or multiple lost legs.

What do you think happened to the bug with a missing leg when you put it in a plant? Do you think it actually went on to live, to find food and avoid predation?

and yes, even limping (unlike what the article says).

Not to favor it, but because they're structurally weakened, like missing a leg. I didn't include that example in my post because it's a bad one, because it has to be observed under very controlled circumstances to identify the difference between a painful limp and a structural limp.

For example, I fractured my leg once right above my knee in a kickboxing match. I could walk fine with a minor limp right after, even walked to my car and drove myself home, because it was a mild fracture. That's of course how we're evolved to react; adrenaline dulled the pain and the body gave me time to flee the threat, even though of course there no longer was an actual threat. The next day when I woke up, due to swelling and pooled blood in my kneecap, I had zero walking ability. Not even one step. It was not due to structural weakness; it was due purely to pain, to agonizing pain that my body told me when I tried to put weight on my foot, and even without conscious thought it would give out and refuse to support my weight even for a second. And, when I went to a surgeon either that day or the next, he removed the blood from my kneecap, and I could immediately walk with a limp again out of his office, although I was advised to stay off of it for healing once I got crutches. The entirety of the difference was because of pain rather than structure.

Bugs can have a structural limp, like I would have had if my bone was a compound break or if I lost my leg. There's no way it cannot limp, if it loses a major pillar of its support.

What would their experience of pain be like? How can we possible know?

What is a bacterium's experience of pain like? If you've cleaned a kitchen counter, you've killed trillions.

How can we know what a rock feels?

It's about evidence. It's carefully observing behavior, about understanding the complexity of the central nervous system; they barely even have brains. In some aspects, they display remarkable skill, like an ant navigating, or a spider that can design a web. But they do so on instinct. When experiments are done to test for the ability to change their behavior to avoid obstacles, they can't even begin to do it. And like I said, nerves alone are not enough for true pain, for suffering. Nerves have to send the data to a consciousness capable of processing emotion. And there's certainly a spectrum there, among creatures. Experienced humans can detach emotion from the raw nerve sense of pain in order to avoid the subjective experience of physical pain, demonstrating the necessity of that link in order to feel it. Certain other creatures, have no need for complex emotions, have no need to experience the full array of suffering, when mere awareness of stimulus is sufficient. Just like an ant has no need to develop informed opinions on ethical behavior, it also has no need to experience true agony.

Nature would be awful if such things could suffer so fiercely, because at one point, they all basically will, and they are countless in number, orders of magnitude more in population than the rest of creatures. Nature would be a symphony of agony if it were true. That's the fate of a bug, they die. When born, the vast majority will die shortly. When adult, they will be eaten or crushed, or many species will die in the winter having no such evolved ability to survive it. Fortunately their lives do not require that extensive array of experience, and nature is not wasteful. They require the ability to react to stimulus, and their nerve supply information to their rather decentralized and simple central nervous system.

 

[Parsimony]

Bees seem to be able to learn based on positive and negative experiences: For stressed bees, the glass is half empty

Invertebrates may not be as complicated as or experience the world in the same rich ways or to the same extent as vertebrates, but I still hold these studies to be evidence that they have some ability to harbor positive and negative feelings.

 

[Penumbra]

Bees seem to be able to learn based on positive and negative experiences: For stressed bees, the glass is half empty

Invertebrates may not be as complicated as or experience the world in the same rich ways or to the same extent as vertebrates, but I still hold these studies to be evidence that they have some ability to harbor positive and negative feelings.

Some of the more complex arthropods with longer lifespans may be able to develop very simple learning behaviors, but this is not indicative of the ability to experience suffering, and does not address the rest of the evidence of the experience of suffering in bugs.

Being able to experience qualia is not the same as experiencing an emotionally negative experience. Like I mentioned, their brains are extremely simple. We can't know the exact experience of qualia they have, but to suppose that it is some deep experience of suffering is entirely without evidence, and with ample evidence to the contrary.

A butterfly with a recently crushed abdomen casually walking around on someone's hand, or cockroach without a head going about its business as usual until it starves, or a headless praying mantis continuing sex, or a bug eating right after losing multiple limbs, shows that their experience of the problem is much, much simpler than in an organism with a central nervous system that is orders of magnitude more complex.

 

[Parsimony]

Some of the more complex arthropods with longer lifespans may be able to develop very simple learning behaviors, but this is not indicative of the ability to experience suffering, and does not address the rest of the evidence of the experience of suffering in bugs.

Being able to experience qualia is not the same as experiencing an emotionally negative experience. Like I mentioned, their brains are extremely simple. We can't know the exact experience of qualia they have, but to suppose that it is some deep experience of suffering is entirely without evidence, and with ample evidence to the contrary.

A butterfly with a recently crushed abdomen casually walking around on someone's hand, or cockroach without a head going about its business as usual until it starves, or a headless praying mantis continuing sex, or a bug eating right after losing multiple limbs, shows that their experience of the problem is much, much simpler than in an organism with a central nervous system that is orders of magnitude more complex.

I suppose that depends on what one would consider the definition of suffering. They may not exhibit the same external signs of suffering that we do nor are able to suffer to the same extent or in the same ways, but it would make sense for invertebrates to experience motivations which minimize exposure to noxious stimuli. Something like pain would be appropriate to this. It may also be that insects do not experience pain for as long as humans and that after the initial injury pain reduces or vanishes rather quickly which allows them to behave normally.

Nonetheless, I believe I've already seen you say that you try to avoid senselessly killing insects so I don't suppose a difference of opinion here amounts to much between us.

I would also consider the conscious experience itself to be precious even if the organism which bears it can't experience pain or suffering. I'd see no reason to end the life of such a being unless its existence was an inherent problem (such as during infestations which might cause disease or famine).

 

[dawny0826]

You are arguing a point here which is somewhat different to my point in this thread, and I do not entirely disagree with what you are saying. If an insect that I consider to be dangerous is in my house, I will not be opposed to killing it (even though I generally get my mum or dad to do it and I can't watch).

This is much different to going out of your way to kill an insect in the outdoors just for the fun of it, which is the subject of the OP.

Then, you and I share similar views, as I do not think it "moral" to stomp out life without purpose. I don't delight in killing bugs if they are minding their own and I've already posted these thoughts.

What I disagree with, is the notion that humans are somehow more biased towards our own kind than other animals.

 

[Caladan]

Then, you and I share similar views, as I do not think it "moral" to stomp out life without purpose. I don't delight in killing bugs if they are minding their own and I've already posted these thoughts.

What I disagree with, is the notion that humans are somehow more biased towards our own kind than other animals.

This so called Human bias claim which has been repeated for so many threads by pseudo-enlightened members (or armchair gurus as I fondly refer to them) is one of the stupidest I have ever heard. Many animals are biased towards their own kind. It is in fact perfectly natural.
If a woman rather have a romantic dinner with a man instead of with a shrimp then she is biased towards our own kind.

 

[oldbadger]

This so called Human bias claim which has been repeated for so many threads by pseudo-enlightened members (or armchair gurus as I fondly refer to them) is one of the stupidest I have ever heard.

Hi.... Firstly, I'm not an armchair guru. As soon as I sit down in the old armchair I reach for a Guinness, and soon afterwards you'll not get much sense out of me..... well, that's what Mrs B says!
But I think Dawny's got a point. Let me try this, ok? Apart from one local animal I can't think of many creatures that would go out of their way to hurt another creature for no reason. I know that foxes around here will kill every chicken if they get into a chicken-run, but I still think that this behaviour is caused by 'the drive to survive', which can run out of control at the point where the old fox is presented with 'unusual opportunity'.

In other words, I can't think of many creatures that have 'wrongful intent'. Dear Lord...... epiphany.... I can go further...... the only creature on this Earth capable of evil..... is Mankind. Everything else just does what it does to survive.

Bl--dy H-ll....... She's right, you know. I think she's cracked it. :yes:

Many animals are biased towards their own kind.

Well, yes....... continuation of the species demands this. Even moles, (which hate each other's guts, utterly! :yes have to meet up occasionally!

If a woman rather have a romantic dinner with a man instead of with a shrimp then she is biased towards our own kind.

Mrs B doesn't mind coming to dinner with me, but she also likes to be joined by shrimps..... plate loads of 'em. She loves 'em.

 

[Caladan]

Hi.... Firstly, I'm not an armchair guru. As soon as I sit down in the old armchair I reach for a Guinness, and soon afterwards you'll not get much sense out of me..... well, that's what Mrs B says!
But I think Dawny's got a point.

Just so we are clear, I agree with dawny's posts here. In fact, she seems to be one of the few members here who is actually sober when responding.

Let me try this, ok? Apart from one local animal I can't think of many creatures that would go out of their way to hurt another creature for no reason.

Please. First, I certainly did not have any specific member in mind when typing this, because this human bias Bull Dung has been repeated by various of members in several threads, including a few otherwise intelligent and articulate members, in fact I did not even had you in mind when posting my reply. So let me just say, that please please please just stop. You are just prolonging what seem to be a car accident in the making by rationalizing it more. You are simply diverting and dramatizing a very basic concept which has been taken out of context under the guise of pseudo-ecology and pseudo-spiritualism and even pseudo-pantheism in such threads. How many people in your life do you know that belong to this obscure species who go out of their way and for no reason to hurt other creatures? Really? How many? Are these your neighbors? Your children? Your spouse? Your college professors? I really hope that our nice members in North America and otherwise civilized sounding countries do not live in a society which goes out of its way to hurt other creatures. How may of your pets, your cats, or your dogs, or even your gold fish Larry are NOT BIASED toward their own kind in some way and toward yours in a completely other?

I know that foxes around here will kill every chicken if they get into a chicken-run, but I still think that this behaviour is caused by 'the drive to survive', which can run out of control at the point where the old fox is presented with 'unusual opportunity'. In other words, I can't think of many creatures that have 'wrongful intent'.

I hope you realize how subjective that is and how many examples there are of other living creatures 'playing and toying with their food', sometimes for no apparent reason other than to either pass the time or train other members of their species. Objectively and in the normative sense, human beings are not different. I do not torment other creatures, I do not go out of my way to cause them suffering. I eat them for functional purposes and that is the extent of it.

Dear Lord...... epiphany.... I can go further...... the only creature on this Earth capable of evil..... is Mankind. Everything else just does what it does to survive.

Including mankind. Mankind may have the technological and intellectual edge to take 'the food industry' and other domestication or treatment of animals, vegetables, or growing fungi in controlled environments to other levels, but it has nothing to do with the pseudo-intellectual, philosophical, or spiritual argument that we are supposedly the only species to have a bias toward our kind as so many have claimed in successive threads involving similar topics. Just stop for a second and reflect about it (not you specifically, but all of you who make this intellectual argument). Of course most of us on this forum would agree about the problematic circumstances humanity has arrived to in terms of the food industry and other forms of plant or animal domestication, but the nonsense argument that the so called lesser masses are too blind and unenlightened to not look at nature and all living creatures in harmony, as one ecological system, in which all creatures are on equal terms is exhaustingly unsophisticated and daft. No living creature is free of bias toward their own kind. It has nothing to do with humanity's capacity for more damage which we all obviously agree on. The mere claim is speciesist as it assumes humanity's superiority in being receptive to higher perceptions about nature than all other species and creatures. Think about it. On one hand members claim humans are biased for giving special consideration towards their own kind, while at the same time bring forth the biased concept that we above all other species (who are not free of this inclination) should have the capacity of doing so.
No, sorry. All creatures are biased toward their own kind. All will kill for their own kind. All would even do parasitical and even cruel and murderous actions for the sake of their kind on many occasions.

Well, yes....... continuation of the species demands this. Even moles, (which hate each other's guts, utterly! :yes have to meet up occasionally!

Good, that's some common sense. All species are inclined, nay... programmed to promote the survival of their species first and foremost. All creatures are 'biased' in such a way. This does not mean that they cannot go out of their way to help other creatures. It also does not mean that other species do not compete and kill each other for self interests. To promote one leader over another, to promote one pride over the other, to kill the offspring of the previous alpha, and so on and so forth.

Mrs B doesn't mind coming to dinner with me, but she also likes to be joined by shrimps..... plate loads of 'em. She loves 'em.

Thanks, there you have it. She dines with you, makes a toast with you, laughs with you... while both of you, or maybe just her feast on a plate of shrimp. She is biased to enjoy your company, to have a conversation with you, and also 'biased' to enjoy eating cooked or fried shrimp instead of holding one to her face and tell her about her past week's adventures.

So to sum this returning argument, humanity of course has the capacity for more damage but that does not make us the only species which is biased toward their own kind. They all are. They are all biased to prefer to mate sexually with their own species, many biased towards having certain natural enemies, many are biased toward treating other species as nothing more than a meal while others are a threat or competition. All creatures are biased. Which is my point. Not the fact that we are disproportionately capable of doing more damage.

If people insist on making a constructive point, then leave the overbearing condescending moral guilt trip out of it as if any of you are in a higher state of mind which sees into the heart of the natural world, recognizing the true worth of every living creature (no one does). Focus on the basic lack of education many people suffer from when understanding the necessity and place of other creatures and the fact that they are not as useless or expandable as they think while at the same time placing humanity on a pedestal. Because this, I agree, is a real problem. Not the philosophical nonsense debate that people lack an imaginary enlightened and pantheism perception or intuition of the equal worth of all creatures. Because obviously you would not treat your best friend like you would treat an ameba, even if on the educational level you understand that both are part of the larger chain of life.

 

[Repox]

Two hundred years from now we, and the bugs, will be dead. So why moralize about it? In the meantime, let the poor bugs live, it'll make you feel good. You know, environmentally sensitive morality.

 

[oldbadger]

Oh yes, one more thing.
While some of you might wish to burn me at the stake at the moment for my hissing and scratching, just remember that I love you oh so much and still thinks you are cooler than vanilla flavored chocolate. After all apparently I'm biased that way. So, cut me some slack.

Question:- Are you having a bad week?

I ain't going to copy all that last post. That was drivvle, absolute drivvle....
I am not saying that creatures don't 'push' for themselves or their own species.
I am not saying that mothers will not train their young with caught-but-living prey.
I am simply saying that that other creatures just do what they need to do to survive.
I am simply saying that animals are completely and utterly incapable of 'evil' acts.

....whereas humans differ from this characteristic. Yes...... kids do pull the wings off moths,. etc. Yes.... some humans are the only living creatures capable of evil. You can remove the very young, the demeted, the mentally disabled, even the very low IQs..... and what is left of the human race can be capable of evil, all on its own.

All I need from you, apart from another page of 'whatever it was'... is say, 10 examples, any examples of a creature being evil, or ';stamping on bugs' or similar, where there is no reason for it to do so. Don't start off about viruses... they just want to survive.

Since there must be many millions of species out there, ten seems reasonable. Now...... I'm going back to my armchair, and a guiness.

 

[Erebus]

All I need from you, apart from another page of 'whatever it was'... is say, 10 examples, any examples of a creature being evil, or ';stamping on bugs' or similar, where there is no reason for it to do so. Don't start off about viruses... they just want to survive.

This is a tough one since it's difficult to apply human morality to other animals. We don't know what they're thinking after all. Still I'll try to think up a few that we might consider immoral.

Pretty much all cats: Housecats, lions, leopards and so on. Cats of all sizes are pretty notorious for toying with their prey and for killing without needing to. There's more than ten species of cat to choose from there, but I'll continue.

Various primates: Most famously chimpanzees, but plenty of others are known to do it. Not just killing either, but rape and torture of both their own and other species.

Dolphins: Bottlenose Dolphins kill for sport. Sharks and whales tend to be their preferred targets. Interestingly they are also capable of altruism to other species (much like humans).

Ants: Ants engage in war, slavery and even a form of agriculture (they "farm" aphids and squeeze their juices out of them). Insects are even more controversial in determining morality than other creatures because of how far removed they are from us. Interesting that ants offer so many parallels with human society though and we don't call them on it

Dogs: Many hundreds of breeds of house dog and presumably wild dogs too. Same as cats here really, they play with their food and don't necessarily eat it. I remember my own dog used to toss slugs into the air repeatedly and watch them splat against the floor and curl up. He'd do this until they died, then he'd wander off. Why would he do that? For fun!
Foxes are also a classic example, not only will they kill everything if their prey is trapped (often chickens) they don't always eat what they kill.

Killer Bees and wandering spiders: Again a tough one morality wise, but both of these species will actively pursue something that got them angry. Killer bees in particular will follow something way past their hive in order to kill it. I picked these two because they attack things that are trying to escape them and not in order to eat them either. They go beyond defending themselves in this simply because they are aggressive. In humans we call it taking revenge.

Corvids: By far my favourite birds. Corvids, especially crows and magpies, will occasionally murder (get it?) one another for reasons as yet unknown. They do this far more frequently to other birds though. Considering the intelligence of Corvids, this isn't as easy to blame on simply being a dumb animal than some other things on this list.

I'm probably missing a few, but those categories should provide plenty of examples of animals' cruelty to one another. As I mentioned it's extremely difficult to apply morality to this, with the possible exception of chimps and dolphins.
However let's flip the tables a minute and look at the human animal. Without bringing morality into it, why might humans kill, rape, torture and maim without good reason? Simply put, it's human nature. As a species we're frequently aggressive, vindictive, easily panicked, easily bored and extremely curious. We also have the technology, the intelligence and the numbers to really make our nasty side known. If I were to say that humans are worse than other animals, I'd look at it in terms of sheer scale rather than morality.

 

[Caladan]

Question:- Are you having a bad week?

Actually I had an absolutely great week, and although you might take offense from my posts, I had a lot of fun typing them.

I ain't going to copy all that last post. That was drivvle, absolute drivvle....
I am not saying that creatures don't 'push' for themselves or their own species.
I am not saying that mothers will not train their young with caught-but-living prey.
I am simply saying that that other creatures just do what they need to do to survive.
I am simply saying that animals are completely and utterly incapable of 'evil' acts.

....whereas humans differ from this characteristic. Yes...... kids do pull the wings off moths,. etc. Yes.... some humans are the only living creatures capable of evil. You can remove the very young, the demeted, the mentally disabled, even the very low IQs..... and what is left of the human race can be capable of evil, all on its own.

All I need from you, apart from another page of 'whatever it was'... is say, 10 examples, any examples of a creature being evil, or ';stamping on bugs' or similar, where there is no reason for it to do so. Don't start off about viruses... they just want to survive.

Since there must be many millions of species out there, ten seems reasonable. Now...... I'm going back to my armchair, and a guiness.

You have said absolutely nothing worth of objective merit above, in fact I am not even sure what point you think you made.

 

[Caladan]

Points to focus on: claiming that from the 'POV' of nature all organism may be part of one system rather than a hierarchy is one thing, implying that humans are somehow unique in the animal kingdom by being biased toward their own kind is just plain ignorant.
If people want to claim that humans are 'more biased', then please show that a piraña is less biased toward other organism, or a viper, or a fruit fly. Please measure your data for comparison between the thoughts and feelings of different creatures and establish your analysis, I would not be surprised if house cats turned out to be more vain than all. In addition this superficial claim of bias is biased in itself, you are in fact patronizing over other creatures not to have their own sense of discretion.
If you want to discuss the disproportionate unnecessary cruelty or damage humans do then choose your terminology to better address that, and don't lose the argument by turning it into a false argument on the philosophical level making hunanity into an anachronistic component in earthly biology. Stress the difference between biased to 'biased in a particular way' and make a constructive case for it using data in context without the philosophical baggage.

 

[oldbadger]

This is a tough one since it's difficult to apply human morality to other animals. We don't know what they're thinking after all. Still I'll try to think up a few that we might consider immoral.

Pretty much all cats: Housecats, lions, leopards and so on. Cats of all sizes are pretty notorious for toying with their prey and for killing without needing to. There's more than ten species of cat to choose from there, but I'll continue.

Various primates: Most famously chimpanzees, but plenty of others are known to do it. Not just killing either, but rape and torture of both their own and other species.

Dolphins: Bottlenose Dolphins kill for sport. Sharks and whales tend to be their preferred targets. Interestingly they are also capable of altruism to other species (much like humans).

Ants: Ants engage in war, slavery and even a form of agriculture (they "farm" aphids and squeeze their juices out of them). Insects are even more controversial in determining morality than other creatures because of how far removed they are from us. Interesting that ants offer so many parallels with human society though and we don't call them on it

Dogs: Many hundreds of breeds of house dog and presumably wild dogs too. Same as cats here really, they play with their food and don't necessarily eat it. I remember my own dog used to toss slugs into the air repeatedly and watch them splat against the floor and curl up. He'd do this until they died, then he'd wander off. Why would he do that? For fun!
Foxes are also a classic example, not only will they kill everything if their prey is trapped (often chickens) they don't always eat what they kill.

Killer Bees and wandering spiders: Again a tough one morality wise, but both of these species will actively pursue something that got them angry. Killer bees in particular will follow something way past their hive in order to kill it. I picked these two because they attack things that are trying to escape them and not in order to eat them either. They go beyond defending themselves in this simply because they are aggressive. In humans we call it taking revenge.

Corvids: By far my favourite birds. Corvids, especially crows and magpies, will occasionally murder (get it?) one another for reasons as yet unknown. They do this far more frequently to other birds though. Considering the intelligence of Corvids, this isn't as easy to blame on simply being a dumb animal than some other things on this list.

I'm probably missing a few, but those categories should provide plenty of examples of animals' cruelty to one another. As I mentioned it's extremely difficult to apply morality to this, with the possible exception of chimps and dolphins.
However let's flip the tables a minute and look at the human animal. Without bringing morality into it, why might humans kill, rape, torture and maim without good reason? Simply put, it's human nature. As a species we're frequently aggressive, vindictive, easily panicked, easily bored and extremely curious. We also have the technology, the intelligence and the numbers to really make our nasty side known. If I were to say that humans are worse than other animals, I'd look at it in terms of sheer scale rather than morality.

What an interesting post! There's so much there to take in, attempt to remember and think about. I can't attempt to reply that for some time to come, because I want to think all those points through. You may even end up changing my mind, for what that's worth to you.

I know about the foxes, and have always believed that their chicken-run killings are driven by survival-inertia. I will think on it some more.

Corvids. Aren't they wonderful? Back in the 70's I noticed that crows were taking mussels off the foreshore, flying high and then dropping them. Sometimes they would crack open, sometimes not.

By the early 80's they had developed this skill, and would fly over the concrete sea-wall to drop them, thus achieving a 100% immediate dinner success.

The seagulls watched all this, and now, decades on, they copy it, but by comparison common gulls are thick, and have still only reached a 'hit-or-miss' success rate by dropping their mussels over the foreshore.

My Father was a part-time gamekeeper, and would send me out with an old shotgun to try to reduce the crow population (they love a nice partridge or pheasant egg, or even a chick). I'm sure that crows can laugh.