The Bonobo and the Atheist: In Search of Humanism Among the Primatesby Frans de Waal

(Norton, $28)

Frans de Waal “has a scientist’s curiosity about religion,” said Nina Bai in Scientific American. The famed primatologist doesn’t wish to defend or decry it; he cares more about understanding where it comes from. In this “richly observed” book, de Waal argues that moral behavior predates religion and is instead rooted in hardwired emotional responses that are common to all mammals—“from mouse to elephant.” Religion arose after empathy and sympathy, he says, in part to codify appropriate behavioral responses to human beings’ own empathetic instinct.

De Waal “is never naïve about animal goodness.” said Barbara J. King in NPR.org. He knows better, thanks to his studies of chimpanzees, an intelligent but often brutal species. Yet he’s observed many moments of enlightened behavior among nonhuman mammals—from elephants working collaboratively to bonobos comforting losers after a fight. Or consider Azalea, a young macaque afflicted with a Down syndrome–like disorder. She behaved in ways that normally merited punishment from the other macaques in her troop, yet they treated her kindly, seeming to understand that she was not responsible for her actions. Among mammals, human beings are distinguished not so much by morality, de Waal says, but by our capacity for thinking in terms of universal rules.

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De Waal’s field research yields “by far the book’s most interesting sections,” said Robert Herritt in TheDailyBeast.com. When he’s instead looking for lessons in literature or paintings, his thoughts about religion merely sound like pet theories. “Of course, there’s nothing wrong with a little abstract meandering, especially from a scientist as accomplished as de Waal.” Yet readers will wish he’d worked more fully through the implications of his idea that morality has biological origins. Does that mean there’s a one-size-fits-all moral code out there? He needn’t have an answer to every question about moral theory, “but he might have thought to ask a few of them.”