Veneer theory (de Waal)

Veneer theory sees morality as a thin layer over a selfish nature. The primatologist Frans de Waal gave it this name – veneer theory; the German edition speaks of Fassadentheorie, the “facade theory” – and contradicted it: morality is not a coat of varnish, but grows out of natural dispositions, above all out of empathy and reciprocity.

This entry deals with de Waal’s critique of veneer theory and what it means for altruism, not with his work as a whole.

Translator’s note: Frans de Waal wrote in English. Where this page quotes him, it does so verbatim from the German edition (Primaten und Philosophen, Hanser 2008), on which our reading is based. The English renderings in square brackets – “[our translation: …]” – are our own translations of that German text; they are not de Waal’s original English wording.

About the person. Frans de Waal (1948–2024), Dutch-American primatologist and behavioural biologist. His Tanner Lectures at Princeton in 2003 were published in 2006 as Primates and Philosophers, together with responses by four philosophers and science writers.

What is veneer theory?

Veneer theory starts from a hard core: human beings are supposedly selfish by nature, and morality is a cultural layer that laboriously covers up this core. Its best-known formula is the old saying Homo homini lupus, “man is a wolf to man”, which Thomas Hobbes made famous.

De Waal traces this view above all to the biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, a contemporary of Darwin, who in his 1893 lecture Evolution and Ethics described morality as a struggle against the cosmic process of nature. The name “veneer theory” comes from de Waal, not from Huxley. And Huxley himself thought it quite probable that the moral feelings had developed in the course of evolution – his concern was the question of how morality can be justified.

What does de Waal set against it?

De Waal’s counter-thesis: human morality stands in continuity with the social dispositions of other animals. He names two capacities as the most important building blocks:

• Empathy – from simple feeling-with, emotional contagion, through to targeted help for another.
• Reciprocity – returning help and favours over time (reciprocity).

In chimpanzees and bonobos he observed how they console one another, share and reconcile after conflicts. Veneer theory, de Waal argues, would have to explain where a morality that works entirely against one’s own nature is supposed to come from – and for that it lacks any evidence.

Are human beings good by nature?

De Waal does not claim that. He expressly leaves open whether human beings are good or bad at heart; evolution has produced both the sociable and the unsociable.

Our reading: Human beings are by nature capable of morality – not good by nature. The building blocks are there, but their use is not guaranteed. That is why assuming the good in others is an attitude, not a factual claim. And this is precisely where the difference from Hobbes lies: whoever starts from the wolf builds fences; whoever starts from the capacity creates room to unfold. Harald Alke put it briefly: “One need not be a wolf to others.”

Isn’t helping selfish after all?

This is the strongest objection to the prosocial nature of human beings – and de Waal refutes it. That helping has paid off in evolution does not make the helper calculating. The helping impulse has become detached from the reasons for its emergence: whoever stands by someone in tears is not counting on an advantage for their genes. The philosopher Mary Midgley, on whom de Waal draws, therefore distinguished self-serving in the sense of consequences from selfish in the sense of intention.

Self-interest is not egoism. The “selfish gene” is an image for natural selection, not a statement about human motives (see Egoism).

How does compassion arise?

De Waal describes empathy as a spectrum, often as a Russian doll with several layers: on the inside, simple emotional contagion, which many animals share; around it, concerned sympathy; on the outside, the ability to distinguish the other’s situation from one’s own and to do in a targeted way what helps them.

Compassion therefore begins simply and early – even one-year-old children console others. What grows with development is the ability to help in a targeted way, because one learns to distinguish one’s own from another’s. No ranking among people follows from this: compassion is not a matter of intelligence or education.

Psychology distinguishes here between sympathy that turns towards the other and one’s own distress, which flees from the other’s pain (Batson 1990). In Harald Alke’s lexicon the same direction appears as practical advice: “Do not suffer with others – only feel with them!” (see Empathy).

Does feeling come before reason?

According to de Waal, mostly yes: human behaviour first follows quick emotional evaluations; the justification often comes afterwards. For him, feelings are a compass in living together. Research confirms the primacy of intuition in moral judgement (Haidt 2001) – but not that reason has nothing to say: reflection can change a judgement.

Our reading: Feeling gives the first impulse; reason examines and extends it. Whoever only feels stays within the close circle; whoever only calculates loses the occasion.

Is morality rooted in war?

De Waal writes this himself and calls it a „böse Ironie“ [our translation: “wicked irony”]: morality applies first to one’s own group, and its origins also lie in cohesion against others. Moral rules often barely apply to outsiders.

This is a description of origins, not praise of war. Our reading: The circle of consideration can be widened – that is the real task of ethics. Societies have again and again extended the scope of morality, and compassion sometimes reaches even across the front line.

Are the building blocks enough for morality?

Here de Waal and his critics stand side by side.

• Christine Korsgaard, Philip Kitcher and Peter Singer responded in Primates and Philosophers: morality only begins with normative self-determination and impartiality; empathy alone remains partial (Korsgaard 2006; Kitcher 2006).
• De Waal took this up: in the „Turm der Moral“ [our translation: “tower of morality”], animals share the lower floors; the top level – judgement and deliberation – is human.
• Our reading: The building blocks are natural; conscious ethics is the task of the individual. This fits our distinction between lived ethics and imposed morality (see Loving-kindness & altruism). Harald Alke describes ethics as something “also proper to animals” and morality as an attempt to correct deviations from it through social rules: a morality that fights nature needs overseers – an ethics that builds on it needs insight.

What does research say today?

• Consoling is more widespread than was thought. It is not only great apes that console: Asian elephants calm stressed conspecifics (Plotnik & de Waal 2014), and even prairie voles show consolation behaviour (Burkett et al. 2016).
• Empathy has common foundations in mammals – in behaviour and in the brain (de Waal & Preston 2017). Individual animal experiments on empathy are methodologically disputed; the overall picture, however, has become more firmly established.
• Self-awareness is not a simple yardstick. The mirror test, which de Waal linked to targeted help, has meanwhile even been passed by a fish (Kohda et al. 2019) – the connection between the mirror test and empathy is weaker than was assumed.

What did Tobias O. R. Alke write about this in 2017?

In Ausgewählte Perspektiven des Altruismus (Selected Perspectives on Altruism, 2017), de Waal opens the perspectives of anthropology. Tobias O. R. Alke read him as a key witness against the image of man as a wolf: morality is a product of evolution, emotions carry it, and empathy is the foundation of living together.

Checking against the English original and the German edition shows: the core holds, and some of it more strongly than in 2017 – above all the separation of evolutionary self-interest from motive. Some things, however, de Waal does not say: that human beings are good by nature; that the altruist is distinguished by self-assurance and cognitive ability; and the biographical explanation of Huxley’s stance he only reports from Huxley’s biographers. The new edition notes this.

What does this mean in practice?

• Assume the best in the other person. Not as naivety, but as an attitude: the dispositions towards the good are there.
• Feel with others instead of suffering with them. Sympathy that stays with the other helps more than one’s own distress.
• Give the first impulse room – and examine it. Feeling and reason complement each other.
• Widen the circle. Consideration is not only for one’s own people.
• Live ethics instead of decreeing morality. What comes from one’s own insight carries further than any regulation.

Related terms

Empathy · Prosocial nature of human beings · Egoism · Altruism · Reciprocity · The Gift (Mauss) · Solidarity through the division of labour (Durkheim)

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By Tobias O. R. Alke