Beasts

Subtitled 'what animals can teach us about the origins of good and evil' and building on his previous books about emotions in animals, this trenchant book puts the case that animal aggression 'is not even remotely equivalent to the violence of mankind.' Partly for reasons already identified by Konrad Lorenz in the 1960s, we do not as a species have the necessary checks on aggression and indeed project our own aggression onto animal behaviour. Another key factor is the dehumanisation of the other based on conformity and the need to belong, so that the perceived threat of the other justifies our cruelty, hatred, exploitation, indifference, killing and war. We are in fact socialised into racism and false views. Even the orca or killer whale has nothing on humans: 'when it comes to complex, deep, almost unimaginable violence, our species is beyond compare.' This is a sobering conclusion from the chapter on kindness, but it does not mean that we are all alike - although under pressure we too can become inhuman.

The great evolutionary biologist JBS Haldane remarked that kindness to human beings and animals usually go together although he also argued that violence is part of human nature. Masson's conclusion is nevertheless optimistic if we can acknowledge the existence of the dark side of human nature and abolish the ugly aspects of the us/them distinction, the results of which are only too apparent in the current international scene; we can also do more to cultivate compassion. Incidentally, the appendices contain fascinating lists on traits unique to humans and those we share with animals, human universals, and, more soberly, what humans do to other animals – 60 billion are killed for food, over 50 million used in animal experiments, 5 million in zoos and 100 million a year killed by hunting in the US alone.