The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primates by Frans de Waal (PDF)

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In this lively and illuminating discussion of his landmark research, esteemed primatologist Frans de Waal argues that human morality is not imposed from above but instead comes from within. Moral behavior does not begin and end with religion but is in fact a product of evolution.For many years, de Waal has observed chimpanzees soothe distressed neighbors and bonobos share their food. Now he delivers fascinating fresh evidence for the seeds of ethical behavior in primate societies that further cements the case for the biological origins of human fairness. Interweaving vivid tales from the animal kingdom with thoughtful philosophical analysis, de Waal seeks a bottom-up explanation of morality that emphasizes our connection with animals. In doing so, de Waal explores for the first time the implications of his work for our understanding of modern religion. Whatever the role of religious moral imperatives, he sees it as a “Johnny-come-lately” role that emerged only as an addition to our natural instincts for cooperation and empathy.But unlike the dogmatic neo-atheist of his book’s title, de Waal does not scorn religion per se. Instead, he draws on the long tradition of humanism exemplified by the painter Hieronymus Bosch and asks reflective readers to consider these issues from a positive perspective: What role, if any, does religion play for a well-functioning society today? And where can believers and nonbelievers alike find the inspiration to lead a good life?Rich with cultural references and anecdotes of primate behavior, The Bonobo and the Atheist engagingly builds a unique argument grounded in evolutionary biology and moral philosophy. Ever a pioneering thinker, de Waal delivers a heartening and inclusive new perspective on human nature and our struggle to find purpose in our lives.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐The debate with the New Atheists in de Waal’s book misses the point that the basic theories of human evolution are all wrong, making the issue of religion, and the god debate somewhat beside the point.Whatever his disagreement with Dawkins, et al., De Waal, like most in the field of biology, lives in a Darwinian cocoon, and never really encounters the critiques of that theory, a theory so entrenched that scholars in the dozens embark on research careers based on false premises. It is not a plus in his book that he takes on the New Atheists, as I do, because his own assumptions aren’t very different, and, as with Dawkins, his views of religion are based on Darwinism, a pseudo-science. Mr. De Waals, Darwinism is a pseudo-science.We have pointed to the fallacy of thinking that ‘religion’ arose as some kind of evolutionary adaption, with a similar statement about the evolution of morality. It is entirely possible that `religion’ in some sense has genetic correlates, a different statement from any claim as to its Darwinian evolution. We don’t know how morality emerged in man, homo sapiens, and it’s unproven to say that it evolves ‘upward’ from below rather than ‘downward’ from above. The question is simply ambiguous, we don’t know how it happened. It is part of the immense disservice done to science, and secularists, by Dawkins, and not only he, by creating a kind of cultic belief system out of Darwin’s theory. As late as the forties, pace Gore Vidal’s classic, academic dissent of Darwinism didn’t cause an eyeblink, but then the synthesis took hold. The theory of natural selection, Act II. The whole legacy of (Neo-) Darwinism has been based on a series of confusions, ultimately stretching back to the beginnings of Wallace’s theory (not Darwin’s), a theory he later rejected because it failed on the issue of human evolution, and morality.It is entirely apt to conduct research on ‘moral behavior’ in bonobos. But we cannot assume that anything we find in the primates shows direct continuity with the human reality, a moral reality so complex that noone has been able to describe it, as Kant made clear in his attempts to do that. The evolution of man, we suspect, was NOT a directly continuous result of primate givens. But even so, the line from the earliest predecessors of man (who were not the same as the parallel Chimps) is hardly a clear result of anything we see in the earliest apes. There might well be direct strains of primordial similarity, for sure. But the overall result in man’s moral behavior is not really clarified by evolutionary psychology. It simply isn’t. It is something new in evolution. Where is the proof of Darwinian claims? There is none. We do not have a continuous chain of evidence for the emergence of human morality, and, most important, we don’t really know what precedents there were in homo erectus, set aside the chimps for a moment. The step to homo erectus was decisive, but still primitive. The step to homo sapiens closed the case, as it were. How did it happen that such limited research with bonobos could enter the debates over religion, let alone the debates between theists and atheists. The whole game is thus a feint, if not a fraud, to serve just this debate, and is phony. Dawkins’ obsessive faith that the miracle of natural selection proves the foundations of atheism. It is a pipedream of reductionist scientism. We can’t deduce how human morality evolved in man from any clear evidence in the record, and the evidence so-called from bonobos is beside the point. The primate anatomy prefigures man’s anatomy, and no doubt morality as such has some early intimations in the earliest primates. But it does not follow that this can tell us anything about religion, or the earliest forms of morality in man. Chimpanzees didn’t have religion. Religions are really complex constructs that emerge with civilization starting in the late Neolithic. The use of the term religion for the behavior of man in the Paleolithic is entirely possible if you redefine the terms, but that’s the problem, we can’t do that. Although Old Stone Age tribalisms might give some hints. That isn’t really religions, but tribal spirituality. But OK. It is possible to backdate the term `religion’, to some extent.The assumption, due to the obsession of atheist humanists, is that morality was bottom up. Where’s the proof? De Waal’s vague arguments are absolutely not proof of anything.The fact of the matter is that many biologists have always maintained that humans (homo sapiens) emerged fairly suddenly from homo erectus in thee 200k millennia BCE period onwards. And the anatomical transition seems to have had an additional behavioral transition, most significant. Hardware change, and then a software change, very sudden. After that language, moral something, and art, higher consciousness, a soul sense, and spirits beliefs take over. This is by no means proven, but it is simply significant that even many among the Darwin camp have conceded this point, so we are not obliged to share the assumptions, speculation, of Darwinists that homo sapiens evolved slowly from erectus, and ditto for early erectus. It is hard to proceed here, because we don’t know the content of this so-called ‘Great Explosion’ (which no doubt had a long concomitant aspect of slowly evolving side factors. We can’t be sure, but this model, freely granted by many Darwinists (cf. Richard Klein’s books with their going so far as to posit punctuated equilibrium), in some cases pegged to the era of ten to 50K intervals for this great explosion in the closing period before the great Exodus ca. 50-60K BCE from Africa to a global speciation of sapiens.Whatever the case, it is VERY hard to think that standard selectionist thinking can explain the complexity of homo sapiens. Those who protest exceptionalism have missed the point. Man has roots in chimps, in dinosaurs, in amoebas, but so what? He is exceptional because he shows transition crossings of factors such as language, differential consciousness, and finally morality. The issue of consciousness suggests the real core of religion coming into being. That has less to do with morality than with the ability to escape mechanical consciousness into real self-consciousness, and, perhaps later, into the final ‘consciousness’ sometimes pegged with the misnomer ‘enlightenment’. But here’s the mystery, that totally defeats Darwinian thinking, that potential was there from the beginning, but began to manifest with the arising of the religions of the yogic type, probably in the late Paleolithic.Whatever the case, the issue of religion has been muddled by biologists, taking theism, or moral behavior as the defining characteristics. But monotheism was a very late development indeed and isn’t relevant to discussions of early men, whose behavior may way have resembled earlier forms of what Paleolithic men exhibit in their beliefs in ‘soul’, magic, and spirit visitation.We have to suspect that the anatomical frame of man suddenly began to acquire the characteristics of a hyper-body in the form of a ‘soul’. We can’t even define what we mean by that (and Kant gave a drastic warning as to either belief or negation there), but every generation of homo sapiens (until the coming of the idiots of modern scientism) ascribed to some belief in the human soul. The Kantian system allows one to derive the meaning of that in about a two line (controversial, but scientifically informed) demonstration of the mind and the faculties of space-time. It is thus not hard to guess why science can’t even locate a `soul’, a myth in decline at all periods, but always sensed. And, of course, the factor of language, a VERY complex instrument science can’t even describe yet, was mixed in with all the rest. Now here we would like to know how much of this homo erectus had. It is hard to figure without this piece of the puzzle. But, whatever the case, there is no proof that the emergence of homo sapiens was bottom up, especially given evidence of such a rapid closure on the human definition. Sit down, and ask if you really believe that an instrument (take the Chomskian brand of theory here) of such subtlety emerged slowly over time as a piecemeal and random set of mutational changes. What is strange is that this belief it taken as science dogma.I am sorry to say it, but the evidence suggests it was all top-down in some sense we don’t understand. Here the creationists are themselves confused, and can’t seem to apply their own myths to man’s emergence, for the obvious reason that the Bible had no idea of evolution, and records only the interaction of Adam and Eve with a peculiar kind of serpent/devil. But, remarkably, that myth does record (I will risk saying this out of earshot of creationists) a curiously confused intimation of the results of emergent man, a developed consciousness with the issues of will, thence good and evil, and a loss of innocence. It is a curiously muddled tale, but one with echoes from some primordial era of man. It is highly probable that this hoary myth (clearly transmitted from yore and clearly pegged back via dozens of tales told to the Sumerian thence earlier sources) records something of the by then distant beginnings of human consciousness able to play the higher music of self-consciousness. This is not to pursue the Old Testament brand of religion, which always ends in useless confusions. But it is significant something probably still survives in the OT of man’s earliest preoccupations. Indeed, in parallel India a far more advanced form of religion than the Canaanite/Egyptian/Sumerian nexus (?) that produced monotheism was emerging in India, and there we see the whole legacy of the instrument of consciousness brought to a kind of perfection in the onset of Buddhism (whose sources go very far back via Jainism, probably to the Paleolithic). This pure form of the saga of consciousness proliferates in other forms in a wider domain of culture in the beliefs in the magic, etc… But the Indian preserves something that is almost scientific in its precision.The religion of monotheism is therefore not the issue for evolutionary psychology. Monotheism is a very late development, and, mirabile dictu, we see at once that its association with the Axial Age shows unmistakable evidence of top-down dynamics. The Axial Age is mystery, because it gave birth to both an atheist and theistic religion of monotheism, and much more than that, a veritable seedbed of cultural innovations, including secularism itself in the Greek case. That should tell us something: secularism and religion came into existence in parallel.The issue of morality is very difficult to resolve, because we can’t easily describe what human morality is, let alone how it might have evolved. Kant made the issue clear. We don’t have to really explain morality, because it hardly exists yet. A set of beliefs and behaviors of the moral variety exist in all forms of men, but what do we mean by this? And here we are getting suspicious. We consistently reject design arguments because they invoke all the confusions of creationist, and, indeed, the religious confusions that came into being in the emergence of monotheism, in the Axial period (with anticipations before). Biologists have confused the issue by a tendency to equate morality with altruism, which is mechanized as nearly illusory as a byproduct of natural selection in the bogus theories of Hamilton et al. It doesn’t work.There is no way to reduce the whole of morality to the single trait of altruism, or, indeed, the phases of group consciousness and cooperative survivalism. That misses the point, that the Old Testament gets it better: the will, and associated consciousness emerges and with a sense of good and evil, however naive the whole game, wrongly but insightfully rejected by Nietzsche in another crackpot evolutionary scheme. But the Old Testament and Nietzsche both get a sense of a ‘new man’ or ‘overman (projected on the future from past, perhaps)’ or a new Adam with an incipient factor of (free) agency (if not free will) that must suddenly render judgments of good and evil. It is not hard to glimpse the primordial forms of that in earliest homo sapiens, whatever the facts. But the problem is that it is very hard to get free from a design argument. Ironically, the Old Testament makes the point that it wasn’t god but a being (serpent??) of far lesser rank, with questionable morals no less, who taught morality! Nietzsche smelled this rat, but missed the point. A sort of buddhist view can help here: morality is not a mechanical set of rules but a phase of insight based on higher consciousness. The real clue. But to what? We can’t conclude anything from this, but we must be honest to acknowledge that the emergence of higher consciousness in man is almost always associated with some kind of hermaneutic higher ‘power’, or guru. Usually, but not always. It is always possible that primitive man had a potential that he stumbled on in stages, in a kind of euphoria of self-discovery of his potential of consciousness, so like intoxication in its earliest phases (which no doubt involved a kind cave man tantra, the relation of sex and consciousness) More we cannot say. It is entirely possible that human higher consciousness appears from an unknown cosmic process unknown to us. It could be that the answer has been guessed at in a dozen works of science fiction. 2001 the movie, a great favorite of secularists, was actually a cleverly disguised design argument We have often talked here of Bennett and his view of the existence of demiurgic powers of nature, which we can discuss again later. The point is that supernatural theism can confuse the issue. A being in nature but at a higher level of technology than man can imagine could be involved in evolutionary transitions. We don’t know.But it is not reasonable to conclude from the false findings of evolutionary psychologists like de Waal anything whatever about religion from research on bonobos. Can’t you sit down and look at the clear evidence of the Axial Age? That research into bonobos is of great value by itself, but its presumption to explain human religion is simply false.The whole debate over theism and atheism is almost beside the point. We can’t have a discussion in the confused context of biologists, and/or the New Atheists.

⭐I know of few biologists who would be better prepared on “morality as an emergent property of social groups” than the author: he has a long experience with apes and a calmly examining mind. His lucid and engaging narrative “connects the dots” in a convincing manner. This is a book worth reading – and it is easy to do so: as gripping as a mystery novel. A special thanks to the editor, Angela von der Lippe, for helping the author produce an outstanding piece of work.The author’s thesis is quite straightforward: “The moral law is not imposed from above or derived from well-reasoned principles: rather, it arises from ingrained values that have been there since the beginning of time. The most fundamental one derives from the survival value of group life. The desire to belong, to get along, to love and be loved, prompts us to do everything in our power to stay on good terms with those on whom we depend. Other social primates share this value and rely on the same filter between emotion and action to reach a mutually agreeable modus vivendi.” (pg. 228) To prove his point he takes the reader over territory that he has explored in earlier books. This is his synthesis: a guided tour of the accumulating evidence. It is a worthy continuation of Darwin’s Descent of man. It is not the full story, but it marks the “end of the beginning”.It is wryly ironic that man’s “poor relations”, the apes, are better able to explain us to ourselves than philosophers in their overstuffed armchairs, or religious moralists. It is also highly refreshing. After WWII, we stopped viewing animals as instinctual and devoid of any behavioral interest: once we began observing them, we learned to recognize the rudiments and elements of our “moral sentiments”. Our ability to record this behavior through photo and film allowed us to move beyond anecdote (often tainted by anthropomorphism) to critical observation and experiment. Results are coming in, refuting the “veneer theory” – morality as a thin veneer barely able to conceal our true nature, which is entirely selfish. Brain and cognitive sciences have also contributed: we can now plainly observe the biological basis of empathy. We are also beginning to untangle the link between biology and culture.As we observe our cousins we become aware of the multi-layered level of empathy: it goes from emotional contagion to consolation, to targeted helping. All these levels can be found in apes. They are expressed best in humans. The transition is smooth, and it is no longer possible to argue discontinuities (aka “soul”). We already observe in some apes both one-on-one morality and “community concern” – the ability to move beyond the particular to a view of the general welfare of the group. This is evidence of “bottom-up morality”.I particularly liked the author’s view: “moral laws are mere approximation, perhaps metaphors, of how we should behave” (pg. 185). In other words, morals are not imperatives; what we aim for is “good enough” behavior. The West’ categorizing mindset has transformed something, which is fluid and evolving, into categories frozen in time – a Procuste’s Bed operated by lawyers and philosophers. The author concludes: “morality predates religion” (pg. 219) – and philosophy, I’d add.The final part of the book deals with “religion”. Here, the author argues for its evolutionary role. He should have been more precise. What is evolutionary is the “religious sentiment” – not religion. While I’d agree with him that the former has evolutionary usefulness, the track-record of revealed religions is at par with other ideologies: plain dismal. I’m not just thinking of the hundreds of millions killed over religious strife but of the oppression that allowed extractive elites to control subaltern groups. The irenic view of religion the author presents reflects his culture and not realities on the ground. Religion has been far too close to power and hierarchies for (my) comfort. The challenge is to emancipate “religious sentiment” from “religion” – Buddhism, Dao, Shinto and Confucianism are nearer to this goal.The author has little patience with biologists and social scientists, who argue humanity’s “selfishness”. He could have been more incisive. The “selfish gene” does not exist – genes have no intentionality. More to the point: together with many thousand others a gene is packed within a phenotype. Selection occurs, not on the individual gene, but the phenotype. Breeders can select for a single gene (the rarely do), but nature never does. The closest nature comes to it is in sexual selection: when nature uses one proxy (the peacock’s tail) we get all sorts of aberration. Biological selection is a messy affair; a lot of traits and collaterals come along for the ride (The spandrels of St. Mark come to mind).The author finally shares with Stephen Jay Gould a misunderstanding of why card-carrying Christian religions oppose evolution. Both scientists argue NOMA “non-overlapping magisteria”. This is nonsense, and as biologists they should know better. The two magisteria do overlap – smack in the middle of the two scientists’ field of work. The critical juncture is the primeval couple and original sin. Though coy on evolution, John Paul II set his foot down on the fact that God had zapped the soul into a primeval couple (monogenism), who had proceeded to make hash of things. For this Pope, the Garden of Eden is not a myth, but dogma. No original sin, no need for redemption; the Son, whose job in the Trinity is to redeem (since before all time), is out of a career. Both biology and paleo-anthropology exclude the existence of such a couple. So here we are…

⭐Some extremist religious people claim it is impossible to be “good without God”: we are all steeped in original sin, and fear of God’s wrath is the only thing stopping people from murdering each other. Frankly, I don’t know whether to assume they don’t really believe this, or whether to avoid them in case they suffer a crisis of faith and go on a rampage.de Waal demonstrates a rather more sensible source of our morality: it evolved. To bolster his argument, he provides many examples from the behaviours of chimps and bonobos. These apes have different kinds of social structures, one rather more violent than the other, but both exhibit what can easily be interpreted as moral behaviours, including a desire for fairness, respect for each others’ possessions, and altruism.de Waal’s observations build up a strong picture of a proto-moral society, with the chimps and bonobos exhibiting a wide range of bottom up moral behaviours, and resorting to some top-down “policing” on the relatively few occasions when individual behaviour is wanting. The multiple descriptions draw a picture of a complex society of caring individual apes, plus the odd grouch.In summary, we are moral because we evolved as social apes, and the kind of morality we have evolved lets us live together in relative harmony. We too need policing, but only for the outliers, not for everyday behaviours. So no need to worry about atheistic murderous rampages. Or no more than religious ones, anyway.

⭐The book explored some interesting ideas about the way in which morality may have evolved, and the author uses many examples of primates and other animals throughout the book to illustrate his point. However, he does not present a balanced or accurate view of the religion vs atheism debate. On many occasions, De Waal criticises “neo-atheists” for arguing that religion is often negative and sometimes damaging for our species. As an atheist who escaped christian fundamentalism, I have experienced first-hand the trauma and suffering that can occur in that environment. To say that “neo-atheists” are wrong to promote a society which is not driven by religious ideas is questionable at best. Of course, this is my own personal opinion.In general, the book is well-written and well-reasoned. And if you like Bosch’s paintings, you will love this book. De Waal really likes Bosch. Really, really likes Bosch.

⭐Humanism is under huge pressures from AI in one side and studies like these on primatology. Delivered calmly, eruditely and without looking for rancour Franz de Waal offers a series of observations about our ancestral behaviours that challenge me as a person of faith. If religion is merely an outworking of sociology as the author basically maintains then of course those behaviours of bonobos and chimpanzees do inform where ours have come from. It’s no less bracing for being a person of faith looking especially at morality.Well worth a read

⭐This is quite an interesting book, easily readable as well. The author’s main idea is that, rather than being tied to religion, morality is ingrained in our species, and is ingrained in our most extreme ancestors/evolutionary cousins. As much as living creatures exhibit violence toward each other, they exhibit caring and helpfulness in adversity.

⭐I was hoping to get a bit more biology in this book, but the author wastes a lot of time in metaphores that I feel don’t bring any objective elements to his reflection.

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