The intuitive connection children feel with animals can be a tremendous source of joy. The unconditional love received from pets, and the lack of artifice in the relationship, contrast sharply with the much trickier dealings with members of their own species.

Robin Hood had it right.Humanity's deepest wish is to spread the wealth.

To endow animals with human emotions has long been a scientific taboo. But if we do not, we risk missing something fundamental, about both animals and us.

We start out postulating sharp boundaries, such as between humans and apes, or between apes and monkeys, but are in fact dealing with sand castles that lose much of their structure when the sea of knowledge washes over them. They turn into hills, leveled ever more, until we are back to where evolutionary theory always leads us: a gently sloping beach.

The sturdiest pillars of human morality are compassion and a sense of justice.

Studies of reconciliation in primates have demonstrated that if the relationship value increases between two parties they are more willing to make peace.

Religion may have become a codification of morality, and it may fortify it, but it's not the origin of it.