Frans de Waal, Il bonobo e l’ateo, 2013

What would a bonobo say to an atheist? First of all, he would urge him to stop trying so hard to prove the absence of a god. The moral law within us was born long before religions, whose function is not to produce it, but only to uphold it. Frans de Waal sets out here to probe the origin of morality. With his usual scientific rigour and captivating prose, he shows us how man’s moral behaviour, whose ultimate justification is traditionally sought in the religious component, is actually the result of natural evolution and derives from ways of acting and feeling already present, at different levels, in other mammals. Ethics originated from below and evolved in the animal world, particularly among primates, from embryonic forms of sociality, from socialisation practices such as grooming and sexuality, from the development of empathy, from the realisation that altruism and cooperation benefit the community, helping to increase the chances of survival of each and every one. De Waal’s final proposal is that of a non-religious, though not anti-religious, humanism that best develops natural human capacities.