Veneer theory is a term coined by Dutch primatologist Frans de Waal to label the Hobbesian view of human morality that he criticizes throughout his work. Although he criticizes this view in earlier works, the term in this form is introduced in his 2005 book "Our Inner Ape", denoting a concept that he rejects, namely that human morality is "a cultural overlay, a thin veneer hiding an otherwise selfish and brutish nature". [1] The idea of the veneer theory goes back to Thomas Henry Huxley and has more recently been advocated by biologists like George C. Williams .

Proponents of the theory

As evidenced by de Waals' characterisation of this theory as "Hobbesian", one of the earliest and most influential thinkers criticized by him for having popularized this view is Thomas Hobbes:

The traditional view is that of a contract among our ancestors, who decided to live together “by covenant only, which is artificial,” as Thomas Hobbes put it. — Frans de Waal, Our Inner Ape

A few centuries later, Thomas Henry Huxley developed the idea that moral tendencies are not part of the human nature, and so our ancestors became moral by choice, not by evolution. Thus it represents a discrepancy in Huxley's Darwinian conviction. Social behavior is explained by this theory as a veneer of morality. This dualistic point of view separates humans from animals by rejecting every connection between human morality and animal social tendencies. George C. Williams, as another advocate of the veneer theory, sees morality as "an accidental capability produced, in its boundless stupidity, by a biological process that is normally opposed to the expression of such a capability".[2]

Psychologist Abraham Maslow argued that humans no longer have instincts because we have the ability to override them in certain situations. He felt that what is called instinct is often imprecisely defined, and really amounts to strong drives. For Maslow, an instinct is something which cannot be overridden, and therefore while the term may have applied to humans in the past, it no longer does.[3]

Richard Dawkins seems to condone the veneer theory when he writes:

we, alone on Earth, can rebel against the tyranny of the selfish replicators Richard Dawkins, The Selfish Gene

Some argue that veneer theory presents a false dichotomy; the adaptations of a cultural overlay of pseudo morals, and de Waal's biologically-based morals might coexist, and are both evolutionarily advantageous. [4]