[bryanrasmussen]

the evil here seems to be being a predator, which for the doe it would be reasonable to say the predator is evil, but examining the natural order of things from outside, as a human observing the doe, the fawn, and the crows, that is a pretty weird judgement to make. The predator has evolved to eat the prey, if that is evil then nature is evil or if you like, whatever created nature.

[tialaramex]

I suspect the corvids aren't obligate carnivores and so they could choose not to eat animals but they do it anyway.

Given that humans aren't obligate carnivores and further more, are capable of advanced chemistry so that even if they were obliged to eat other animals biologically they could just work around this without needing to kill anything - it seems much more compelling to judge us by such a metric than them. We decided that we liked steak so much we would deliberately raise cows just to eat them, the crow can't be anywhere near that "evil" if that's how we're characterising this outcome.

[JohnMakin]

They're scavengers, I think scavengers are wired to eat whatever is available at the least expenditure of energy.

[verisimi]

'Evil' is a human characterisation, and is not applicable to animals imo; to apply it is to anthropomorphise the animal.

An applicable use of 'evil' for an animal, would be if you believe the animal 'knows better', eg a dog that knows right or wrong (in its way) but does something it thinks it shouldn't.

[conartist6]

The longer I live the more evidence I see the barrier between humans and other animals is thinner than we would like to imagine.

So I counter you with a practical question: can a crow commit a social transgression that will result in punishment by other crows? My strong suspicion is that the answer is yes, though I would love documentation as it would suggest a crow-cultural definition of morality

[verisimi]

I agree. But I don't think pecking the eyes of a deer, thereby providing all the crows food, would be considered 'evil'/'bad' by other crows. I think crows would acclaim the action as 'good'/'right'.

[srean]

We have rescue dog (abandoned on the street) and it seems to have a notion that violence within family is bad.

I was quite surprised to see that when I mock threatened my wife with a broom in his presence he jumped in to block. Not only that, he took the broom away from me and secured it away. I initially thought it was play, that he wanted to play with the broom. Seems he was just interested in separating me from the broom. He is our household saint.

We have a much younger dog (another rescue) who is not very nice at all to our saint. However, if my body language has even a hint of a threat to our little devil, he sure gets perked up and ready to protect.

This probably comes from pack behavior instinct. Fights inside a pack is bad.

[verisimi]

Nice story. I believe that dogs are capable of moral judgements too. The idea of 'evil' is a human idea though.

[tormeh]

I'd say the evil lies in the infliction of suffering, not the killing or eating.