Frans de Waal: An Ethologist's Confusion About Ethics — Part II

Some time ago I wrote a two-part critique of Frans de Waal's book, The Atheist and the Bonobo, arguing that de Waal not only fails to understand the evolutionary significance of religion in the success of human groups, but advocates a return to the moral world of the apes, a proposition that seems guaranteed to insure continuation of the social disintegration now to be witnessed in the Western world. Part 1 of that critique delivers, I believe, points worth making. Part 2, however, enters I now see, a realm of incoherence, notwithstanding the validity of the objective that I was driving at. Normally, coming across a flawed post from the past, I either shrug or hit the delete button. The critique of de Waal, however, seems worth getting right, especially as, according to my blog stats, people are still reading it. Here, then, is the revision. which I have temporarily pinned to the top of the page.

First Posted December 8, 2016. revised November 23, 2019: Frans de Waal, whose accounts of animal behavior have won him numerous awards and honors, believes that empathy, which is innate to both mankind and many other species, is the only effective basis for socially constructive behavior and that religion as a guide to human conduct is, therefore, both unnecessary and undesirable.

However, as I discussed in an earlier post, de Waal fails to acknowledge the limits to the power of empathy, which is most clearly expressed among family members, friends and neighbors, but which is less evident or entirely absent in interactions among strangers, especially among strangers differing in tribe, culture, race or nation.

Moreover, even among family or close associates, empathy is often insufficient to ensure fair dealing, sharing, sympathy and kindness. This is evident in the behavior not only of people but of chimpanzees, the study of which has been the focus of de Waal's own research. Thus, de Waal wrote, .he found reading Machiavelli's The Prince, a useful guide to interpreting behavior among chimps.

...breaking with tradition, describing chimps as schmoozing and scheming Machiavellians, my book drew wide attention and enjoyed many translations.

Specifically, as de Waal makes clear in Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? chimps, like people, frequently engage in deception, bribery, and theft in the pursuit of food, sex, and status, such behavior often resulting in violence. Moreover, as with humans, chimps are much more likely to be uncooperative or violent with strangers than with members of their own family or troop.

It is precisely the tendency for strangers to be uncooperative, dishonest, or violent, that made a top-down, universally enforced code of conduct a necessity in communities larger than the family or tribal groups in which humans lived prior to the agricultural revolution and the emergence of urban civilization and its imperial expansion.

A universally applicable code of conduct to promote socially constructive behavior in a large community constitutes a religion, whether it is based on a claimed supernatural authority, or mere force, propaganda and tradition. Thus, Political Correctness, the atheistic code of the American Empire, is just as much a religion as Islam, Buddhism, or Roman Catholicism, and its value must likewise be judged by how well it serves the community over which it holds sway.

Thus, de Waal's dismissal of religion as an unnecessary relic is based on a misunderstanding both of the nature of religion and its necessity. Moreover, de Waal confirms his misconception of the nature and function of religion — and I use the term function in the evolutionist's sense of the way in which a characteristic contributes to the survival and propagation of a species — by his bizarre analysis of perhaps the best known teaching of the Christian religion, the parable of the Good Samaritan.

As a prelude to that parable, Jesus was questioned by a person that de Waal identifies as "a lawyer." However, as the gospel account makes clear, the questioner was "an expert in the Law," which is to say an expert in the Jewish religious law, not a specialist in some secular legal code.

As the gospel of Luke recounts:

On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”

“What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”

He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.”

“You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?”

“The answer” to that question, writes de Waal, “came in the parable of the good Samaritan. A half-dead victim, left by the side of the road ...” in which, according to the Gospel of St.
 Luke:

A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he was attacked by robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead.

A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.

So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side.

But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him.

He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him.

The next day he took out two denarii[c] and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’

“Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The expert in the Law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

By way of interpretation, De Waal writes: “The biblical message is to be wary of ethics by the book, which as often as not offers excuses to ignore the plight of others.”

But such a conclusion is highly questionable. Thus, as the 1906 edition of the Jewish Encyclopedia states:

The story of the good Samaritan, in the Pauline Gospel of Luke x. 25-37, related to illustrate the meaning of the word "neighbor," possesses a feature which puzzles the student of rabbinical lore. The kind Samaritan who comes to the rescue of the man that had fallen among the robbers, is contrasted with the unkind priest and Levite; whereas the third class of Jews—i.e., the ordinary Israelites who, as a rule, follow the Cohen and the Levite are omitted; and therefore suspicion is aroused regarding the original form of the story. If "Samaritan" has been substituted by the anti-Judean gospel-writer for the original "Israelite," no reflection [would have been] intended by Jesus upon Jewish teaching concerning the meaning of neighbor... 

It can be argued, therefore, that contrary to de Waal's assertion, the expert in the Law identified his neighbor in accordance with Jewish Law, or what de Waal calls “ethics by the book.”

Confirming his faith in the Law, Jesus is elsewhere quoted:

“Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.”

So what was the lesson Jesus intended by this parable?

First, that his hearers should adhere to the Law and the Prophets, which is to say "ethics by the Book," as recorded in scripture. Second, Jesus is warning his hearers not to be misled by religious authorities who, in their personal behavior, may often fail to abide by the "Law or the Prophets." The hypocrisy of the religious authorities is a recurrent theme of Jesus's teaching: take heed not of outward displays of religiosity, only of actions and intentions.

Another lesson of the parable, writes de Waal, “is that everyone is our neighbor ..."

Which as we have pointed out, was surely not the conclusion intended by Jesus. Rather, that is the message of Pauline Christianity, the invention of a Roman citizen, who adapted the teachings of Jesus to the needs of the Roman Empire.

That Jesus was put to death by the occupying Roman power with the support of the Jewish authorities, lends support to the notion that Jesus was at odds with the Jewish authorities primarily on religious grounds. But that idea likely reflect the fact that the gospels were written after the Jewish revolt and the Roman sack of Jerusalem, including the burning of the Temple. By then, the followers of Jesus and the gospel writers surely wished to play down Jewish nationalism and adjust their doctrines to suit their Roman imperial overlords. 

Related:
CanSpeccy: Frans de Waal: An Ethologist's Confusion About Ethics — Part I