Morality Outside of Religion

Frans de Waal questions whether the world needs religion in his inherent morality speech. Waal expresses his belief that morality existed in people long before religions came along. While modern day religions are only a few thousand years old, humans have been around longer than that.

Waal has no doubt that even the most primitive humans thousands of years ago would have had some kind of inherent morality, or a sense of right and wrong. Many people believe that morality sprouts from religion but Waal thinks that this is incorrect. He believes that religion was used to enforce morality, or steer it in a particular direction.

Frans de Waal discusses an experiment going on in Europe that examines whether or not people remain moral in a society where religion is not dominant. He is certain that without the presence of religion people would still follow their inner sense of what is morally right.