sentience

(eg. grace, celtic, love )

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(n) state of elementary or undifferentiated consciousness
(n) the faculty through which the external world is apprehended
(n) the readiness to perceive sensations; elementary or undifferentiated consciousness

The key is that the 'heroes' actually retain their sentience, so they appreciate the horrific nature of their actions, they just can't calm their insatiable hunger for human flesh.
Yet once we realize that our own consciousness is a product of our brains and that other people have brains like ours, a denial of other people's sentience becomes ludicrous.
Some concede that sentience is still a mystery, but expect that an unborn genius will someday explain it to us as all.

Still, as Tallis says (with a clunkiness rare in his writing): "We have transformed everything by virtue of our unique human ability to collectivize the sentience that we share with other animals and make of it a property of a community of minds."
on Apr 25, 2008 By: Raymond Tallis Source: Telegraph.co.uk