The Moral Lives of Animals by Dale Peterson, and: The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the Ocean’s Most Magnificent and Mysterious Creature by Richard Ellis (review)

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Reviewed by: The Moral Lives of Animals by Dale Peterson, and: The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the Ocean’s Most Magnificent and Mysterious Creature by Richard Ellis Mary K. Bercaw Edwards Dale Peterson The Moral Lives of Animals New York: Bloomsbury Press, 2011. vii + 342 pp. Richard Ellis The Great Sperm Whale: A Natural History of the Ocean’s Most Magnificent and Mysterious Creature Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 2011. xv + 368 pp. These two books may at first appear to have little in common. Yet Richard Ellis in his study of the sperm whale moves toward the argument that Dale Peterson makes so eloquently: animals have powerful impulses toward cooperation, generosity, and fairness. Ellis writes near the end of his book: “Some people believe that killing whales for profit is cruel, mercenary, and utterly unnecessary, but recently, a new and persuasive argument for the elimination of commercial whaling has been introduced into the dialogue: sentient mammals with larg

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