Can animals be wicked?

[Philosophy Explorer]

Here's a definition:

"wick·ed

ˈwikid/

adjective

evil or morally wrong.

"a wicked and unscrupulous politician"

synonyms:evil, sinful, immoral, wrong, morally wrong, wrongful, bad, iniquitous,corrupt, base, mean, vile; More

intended to or capable of harming someone or something.

'he should be punished for his wicked driving'"

I don't think so as I'm not aware of any cases (but what does that prove?) In the sense of being mean comes closest to what I mean by wicked.

What do you think?

PhilX

[hammock]

Animals lack any formal system for determining and ascribing moral values to their acts or dispositions, as well a legislative body and agency for imposing the social contract upon a population and enforcing it. Unless we count as such the claims of evolutionary psychologists that some social-like species have innate, primitive precursors for such; or that something akin to "proper and improper conduct" falls out of their interactions with each other and their shifting dominance hierarchy.

Humans, of course, can relationally project their own judgements upon individual animals, as if the latter were voluntary members of their prescriptive scheme. Thus interpreting this or that attitude, expression, or behavior as "wicked" (should their ethical canon even feature such a distinctive property to verbally pin evaluation-wise upon the furry, scaled, feathered, or bare-skinned beast).