Frans de Waal's Bottom-Up Morality: We're Not Good Because Of God

[okasha]

9. I think we can all agree that H. sap, as welll as other species, arrive in the world

with a certain potential for "good behavior" built in. It follows, unfortunately, that we also carry the genes for rather appalling "bad behavior." Bonobos may give us the warm fuzzies, but it's the Pan troglodytes' nasty habits of territorial war, murder and infanticide that we've inherited right alongside empathy. Not only is parenting an activity that does not fade unnoticed into the background, much of it consists in deterring an infant human from scaled-down versions of chimp mayhem. No, Johnny, don't hit little Frank with the alphabet blocks. No, Mary, that's Janie's tricycle; give it back to her. No, don't lie to me; I saw you break the window, so don't try to blame it on your brother. Etc., etc.. It's fine to say we've inherited a measure of morality in the process of evolution. What isn't fine (and de Waal apparently, to his credit does not do this) is to blame all of human immorality on social constructs--politics, religion, capitalism, socialism, whatever "ism" one doesn't happen to subscribe to.