Most of the things our class talked about in the Socratic Seminar (both times) had to do with what distinguished people from animals. In class, we have talked about how Aristotle believed that, since humans have the freedom of thought, they were different from all other "lesser beings" with less constructed existences. Even though people went back and forth discussing this, no one really said outright that the difference between people and animals is the power of thought. It answers the other main question asked in the seminar as well: Can animals be evil? And my answer is that animals cannot be evil, because if they do not have advanced rational thought like humans do (that we know of: this could change as new evidence comes into play) then they cannot consciously make truly evil decisions. Plus, evil is a human construct that we have created to ensure the survival of our species: if people killed each other, robbed each other, and did other evil things to each other, it would not be ideal to the success of the human race. Someone brought up that bears often kill each other if they're hungry, but I'm pretty sure that's not true. Bears also have a concept of species survival, and therefore would not commit an atrocity against his fellow bear unless it would benefit him as an individual.
So, basically, the thing that separates animals from humans is the fact that humans can think. We don't know for sure if animals have rational thought like we do (certainly not on the level that we do, or there's a reason why they haven't risen to the level of humans, but that's another debate entirely), but until we know that, it's safe to assume that any "evil" act we attribute to animals is only their nature and nothing more.
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