Acts of Nature and of Animals

“Acts of nature,” though sometimes spoken of as having “evil” effects, are not judged in the same way when we perceive no will or intent behind them, and the acts of animals are only judged to the extent which we perceive will and intent in those acts. Some hold that animals have no such thing as will or intent, only animal instinct and are thus “innocent;” in other words, the idea of “good” or “evil” cannot be applied to their actions, but if the will and intent is acting ultimately to alleviate difficulty what real distinction is there between “animal instinct” and will and intent? Is it possible that human will or intent somehow perceived as better than animal instinct simply because we are more aware of the complexity of human decisions than we are the complexity of animal decisions? Do not humans as a group have natural tendencies - behavioral patterns with exceptions - and do not animals also exhibit exceptions to their behavioral patterns? The strongest objection to this view seems to come from those who value humanity over all other forms of life, but the intent of this argument is not to form a degraded view of humanity by comparing it to nature but to form an elevated view of nature by acknowledging that our perspective is necessarily human and therefore biased in favor of human interests.