{"id":52,"date":"2025-10-15T15:34:44","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:34:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/?p=52"},"modified":"2025-10-15T15:34:44","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T15:34:44","slug":"frans-de-waal-1948-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anarchistfaq.org\/anarcho\/frans-de-waal-1948-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Frans de Waal (1948-2024)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

An obituary of leading primatologist Frans de Waal. He had written numerous books on co-operation and altruism which should be of interest to anarchists, recognising his debt to Kropotkin. It appeared in Anarcho-Syndicalist Review<\/em> No. 90 (Fall 2024)<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

The Dutch-American primatologist and ethologist Frans de Waal died of stomach cancer on 14 March 2024. His research was of interest to anarchists for it centred on primate social behaviour, including conflict resolution, cooperation, inequity aversion and empathy. In other words, subjects which Peter Kropotkin pioneered in Mutual Aid<\/em> and Ethics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unusually, de Waal was well aware of Kropotkin\u2019s work and mentioned it in his writings, noting repeatedly how Kropotkin \u201crightly noted that many animals survive not through struggle, but through mutual aid\u201d.[1]<\/a> With Jessica C. Flack, he argued that Kropotkin is part of a wider tradition \u201cin which the view has been that animals assist each other precisely because by doing so they achieve long term, collective benefits of greater value than the short term benefits derived from straightforward competition. Kropotkin specifically adhered to a view in which organisms struggle not necessarily against each other, but collectively against their environments.\u201d They summarise that the \u201cbasic tenet of [Kropotkin\u2019s] ideas was on the mark. Almost seventy years later, in an article entitled \u2018The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism\u2019, [Robert] Trivers refined the concepts Kropotkin advanced and explained how co-operation and, more importantly, a system of reciprocity (called \u2018reciprocal altruism\u2019 by Trivers) could have evolved.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As such, de Waal\u2019s work is of interest to anarchists. It also points to a wider issue, namely that a problem for mainstream evolutionary theory. This has difficulty explaining a large part of animal behaviour, namely co-operation (not to be confused with altruism, which it also has difficulty explaining). This was the case in Kropotkin\u2019s time (in spite of Darwin\u2019s own comments on the matter in The Descent of Man<\/em>) and it is still the case now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take, as an example, Ant Super-colonies. These are formed of ants with different genetic backgrounds, which led a Professor from the Department of Biology in the University of Copenhagen publicly stating that \u201cit looks as if the ants defy evolution, and we\u2019re eager to figure out how that\u2019s even possible\u201d for \u201caccording to the laws of evolution, you only need to help out your relatives. But we\u2019re seeing ant colonies so big that all the ants cannot possibly be related. So why are they helping one another? That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to figure out.\u201d Ignoring the all-too-common confusion of a theory which seeks to describe reality with reality itself, it is useful to compare the two ant experiences. Normal ant colonies spend a lot of time fighting each other, with the ants facing the distinct possibility of having their internal organs dissolved fighting for their Queen. The super-colony ants do not have to fight the others, so they spend more time finding food and doing other, more pleasant, activities. So, obviously, it is a complete mystery as to why such super-colonies developed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fact is that science is pursued by scientists who are products of a given society and all too often reflects its cultural assumptions. De Waal recounted how euphemisms for friendly, co-operative or altruistic behaviour are often utilised as using those terms is considered \u201coverly anthropomorphic. Whereas terms related to aggression, violence, and competition never posed the slightest problem.\u201d He notes that he was expected to \u201cswitch to dehumanised language as soon as the affectionate aftermath of a fight was the issue\u201d rather than the fight itself.[3]<\/a> This is to be expected, as the notion we are \u201ccompetitive\u201d is just \u201ccommon-sense\u201d as we live in such a society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet de Waal\u2019s research challenges those assumptions. He investigated the innate capacity for empathy among primates which led him to the conclusion that non-human great apes and humans are simply different types of apes, and that empathic and cooperative tendencies are continuous between these species. This was no isolated case for he viewed empathy and sympathy as universal mammalian characteristics, a view that over the past decade has gained support from studies on rodents and other mammals, such as dogs. In terms of apes and monkeys, recent work on their prosocial tendencies by other scientists supports de Waal\u2019s position. So co-operation, empathy and preference for equitable outcomes are all part of nature and, as Kropotkin showed, there are clear evolutionary advantages for such behaviour.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As de Waal argued, the \u201cfairness principle\u201d in humans has evolved and is \u201cpart of our background as co-operative primates.\u201d It has reached the point of \u201cdeclaring inequity a bad thing in general . . . If the goal is to maintain co-operative relationships by ensuring payoffs for everybody, hence a widespread motivation to participate in joint efforts, the evolution of the fairness principle is really not that hard to explain. The parallels between human and animal responses to inequity seem to tell this story.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Like Kropotkin, de Waal moved on from animal sociability to the evolution of ethics. He noted, as had Kropotkin decades before, that T. H. Huxley, mainstream Darwinism most famous exponent in Kropotkin\u2019s time, \u201cproposed ethics as humanity\u2019s cultural victory over the evolutionary process\u201d and so \u201cwas in effect saying that what makes us human is too big for the evolutionary framework.\u201d This meant \u201cthat people are fit for society only by education, not nature.\u201d Huxley, though, \u201coffered no hint whatsoever where humanity could possibly have unearthed the will and strength to go against its own nature.\u201d[5]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was Kropotkin\u2019s position as articulated in works like Justice and Morality<\/em> (1893).[6]<\/a> Yet mainstream evolutionary theory fails to integrate the insights on co-operative behaviour \u2013 usually based on Robert Trivers\u2019 \u201creciprocal altruism\u201d in spite of Kropotkin\u2019s earlier \u201cmutual aid\u201d \u2013 into their writings. Richard Dawkins, despite correcting certain clumsy phrasing in the first edition of his The Selfish Gene<\/em> in subsequent editions still writes that \u201cwe should not derive our values from Darwinism, unless it is with a negative sign.\u201d De Waal, rightly, criticised Dawkins for this quoting him as follows: \u201cWhat I am saying, along with many other people, among them T. H. Huxley, is that in our political and social life we are entitled to throw out Darwinism, to say we don\u2019t want to live in a Darwinian world.\u201d However, co-operation and altruism are as \u201cDarwinian\u201d as competition and selfishness, as Dawkins himself has shown. That suggests, de Waal argued, \u201cthat calls to reject Darwinism in our daily lives so as to build a moral society are based on a profound misreading of Darwin. Since Darwin saw morality as an evolutionary product, he envisioned an eminently more liveable world than the one proposed by Huxley and his followers, who believe in a culturally imposed, artificial morality that receives no helping hand from human nature. Huxley\u2019s world is by far the colder, more terrifying place.\u201d Thus the likes of Kropotkin \u201cpondered the origins of a cooperative, and ultimately moral, society without invoking false pretence, Freudian denial schemes, or cultural indoctrination. In this they proved the true followers of Darwin.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As de Waal showed, biologists have acknowledged that animals, including humans, evolved co-operative behaviour within groups to increase their chances of survival (and so increase their chances to pass on their genes to subsequent generations). In fact, the Hobbesian assumptions of Huxley have been proven as bankrupt as Kropotkin argued at the time as de Waal summarises: \u201cFor the biologist, this imaginary history is as wide of the mark as can be. We descend from a long line of group-living primates, meaning that we are naturally equipped with a strong desire to fit in and find partners to live and work with.\u201d[8]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, regardless of the assertions of the likes of Huxley or his modern-day followers, there was never a point at which we decided to become social. We are descended from highly social ancestors and, as with most other creatures, our ancestors lived in groups. This was not an option but an essential survival strategy and from this mutual aid ethics arose. Simply put, humans are not born as loners \u2013 our bodies and minds only flourish in social life and the absence of others results in depression and deteriorating health. Thus notions of social contracts (i.e., \u201cthe underlying assumption of a rational decision by inherently asocial creatures\u201d) are \u201cuntenable in light of what we know about the evolution of our species.\u201d In fact, \u201c[o]ur social makeup is so obvious that there would be no need to belabour this point were it not for its conspicuous absence from origin stories within the disciplines of law, economics, and political science.\u201d[9]<\/a> This, of course, reflects long-argued anarchist ideas as well as Kropotkin\u2019s analysis of cooperative behaviour and its implications \u2013 an analysis de Waal shows has been confirmed by subsequent research even if Kropotkin\u2019s pioneering writings go unmentioned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

De Waal was not an anarchist and his political views \u2013 and how he interpreted the evidence \u2013 reflected centre-left European middle-class views (as such, seeing a role for both co-operation and competition, some inequality and so on). However, this should not detract from his writings which are of interest to anarchists for they confirm \u2013 as other research has \u2013 that Kropotkin was right on both the importance of co-operation in evolution and its implications, not least the evolutionary roots of our ethical perspectives. Anyone interested in Kropotkin\u2019s work will find de Waal\u2019s writings worth reading.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

End Notes<\/strong><\/h5>\n\n\n\n

[1]<\/a> The ape and the sushi master: cultural reflections by a primatologist<\/em> (Basic Books, 2001), 122.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Jessica C. Flack and Frans de Waal, \u201c\u2018Any Animal Whatever\u2019: Darwinian Building Blocks of Morality in Monkeys and Apes\u201d, Journal of Consciousness Studies<\/em>, Vol. 7, No. 1\u20132, 4.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Good natured: the origins of right and wrong in humans and other animals<\/em> (Harvard University Press, 1996), 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Frans B. M. de Waal, \u201cJoint Ventures Require Joint Payoffs: Fairness among Primates\u201d, Social Research<\/em>, Vol. 73, No. 2, 363.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[5]<\/a> The ape and the sushi master<\/em>, 344.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[6]<\/a> Translated into English for the first time in Black Flag Anarchist Review<\/em> Vol. 3 No. 3 (Autumn 2023)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[7]<\/a> Primates and Philosophers: how morality evolved<\/em> (Princeton University Press, 2006), 9, 16-7, 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[8]<\/a> de Waal, \u201cJoint Ventures Require Joint Payoffs: Fairness among Primates\u201d, 350<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[9]<\/a> de Waal, Primates and Philosophers<\/em>, 4, 5.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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