Abstract
The frequency of domination, violence, and war among humans can count against the idea that humans are ethical beings. In this chapter, I discuss aggression and hierarchy in the context of social animals’ relationships and groups rather than as topics separate from or antithetical to those relationships. In this opening section, I summarize seven key ways that aggression and hierarchy must be contextualized, and then I provide arguments and evidence for this viewpoint in the remainder of the chapter.