ABSTRACT
Judges, and tabloid newspapers, have a habit of saying that violent criminals ‘behaved like animals’. After all those years of David Attenborough they ought to know better: very few other species behave as badly as humans. But they are invoking the ancient belief that animals have neither reason nor justice. A few creatures, notably ants and bees, are naturally social. But fish and beasts and birds cannot agree that life would be better if they did not eat each other, because they are aloga zôia, ‘irrational animals’ in the standard translation, or more exactly ‘living creatures without logos’. But according to some philosophers, the absence of reason makes it impossible for animals to have passions. A movement of the soul is a passion if it is contrary to reason. According to the Stoics, it is not possible for a non-human animal. The non-human animal is without logos, so has impressions without logos.
