The newest Bloggingheads discussion is now available: it features Robert Wright and Frans de Waal in a conversation about primate ethics. The full video is about 50 minutes long, but each section can likely be watched as a shorter stand-alone piece.

Accompanying it nicely is an article by de Waal just published over at The Stone, the New York Times blog devoted to contemporary philosophy. At its heart, de Waal’s piece can be summed up in a paragraph:

Perhaps it is just me, but I am wary of anyone whose belief system is the only thing standing between them and repulsive behavior. Why not assume that our humanity, including the self-control needed for livable societies, is built into us? Does anyone truly believe that our ancestors lacked social norms before they had religion? Did they never assist others in need, or complain about an unfair deal? Humans must have worried about the functioning of their communities well before the current religions arose, which is only a few thousand years ago. Not that religion is irrelevant — I will get to this — but it is an add-on rather than the wellspring of morality.

That said, the piece is well worth reading in its entirety because of the breadth and depth of de Waal’s research with primates. Of course, in the end, de Waal probably says enough here to ruffle the feathers of believes and atheists alike. But all of that hinges on the question of why we ought to be good, when — to my mind — de Waal is really at his most fascinating when he talks about how we’ve been able to address that question at all.