Are we evil?

[Zrak]

Like pretty much any principled stand in my experience.

I would disagree. Even on a very rudimentary level, a great many principled stands involve a great deal of at least petty, quotidian inconvenience, and a not inconsiderable number of them involve a lot more.

Being aware that you're a separate entity, an individual. Dolphins, elephants and most apes have been observed demonstrating the most rudimentary characteristics of this (such as recognising themselves in mirrors). Humans can too. The overwhelming majority of animals, however, cannot. Even dogs. And I love dogs.

The idea that this is testable borders on the ludicrous; the idea that the mirror test is representative crosses that border and builds a clown shoe factory on the other side.

For example, do you contend that blind people, who lack one of "the most rudimentary characteristics" of self-awareness, are not aware that they're individuals? If not, then that is a pretty bad rudimentary characteristic of self-awareness. I don't mean this just to be pedantic, either. Although that's an extreme example, it shows the exact reason that the mirror test is a bad test; it doesn't test whether or not you're aware that you're a separate, individual entity, it tests your reaction to mirrors. I say "your reaction to mirrors" because it doesn't even really test whether you can recognize the figure in the mirror as yourself, but rather whether or not you touch a mark made on a part of your skin you cannot normally see that the mirror would allow you to see. The connection between this act and self-awareness relies on an astounding number of not only totally unsupported, but often contraindicated or demonstrably false assumptions, like an animal relying on vision to distinguish between individuals or the notion that touching all marks you see on your body is a necessary and unavoidable consequence of self-awareness. For example, dogs rely on other senses much more heavily than vision, and a visually-focused mirror test may be as likely to create a false-negative for a dog as a scent-based "mirror" test would be for most people.