I think the reason humans care about other people’s interests, and aren’t power-seeking ruthless consequentialists, is because of evolution.
Evolutionary “group selection” meant each human cared about her tribe’s survival a tiny bit: not enough to make sacrifices herself, but enough to reward/punish other humans to make sacrifices for the tribe (which was far more cost effective).
Evolution thus optimized our ability to evaluate other people’s behaviour by how beneficial to the tribe (virtuous) or beneficial to themselves (evil) they were. Evolution also optimized our ability to appear more beneficial to the tribe than we truly are.
It’s very hard for humans to get away with lying and pretending over many years—evidenced by the fact psychopaths (usually) go to jail instead of corporate boardrooms—so the best way to appear beneficial to the tribe (virtuous) is to genuinely seek goals society considers it virtuous to seek. So evolution made humans internalize approval reward.
Some of that seems true. Some the last, hard to get away with lying, seems to apply only in very good circumstances. I don’t know why you’re saying psychopaths usually go to jail. We don’t know about the ones that don’t screw up and get found out.
I agree that evolution has had some really good effects on cooperative behavior, but it’s also designed us to be brutally selfish when that seems necessary. Our perspective would be way different if we lived in the Congo or a tribal society where strangers might be friendly or might come up with excuses to kill us and take our stuff.
I think the reason humans care about other people’s interests, and aren’t power-seeking ruthless consequentialists, is because of evolution.
Evolutionary “group selection” meant each human cared about her tribe’s survival a tiny bit: not enough to make sacrifices herself, but enough to reward/punish other humans to make sacrifices for the tribe (which was far more cost effective).
Evolution thus optimized our ability to evaluate other people’s behaviour by how beneficial to the tribe (virtuous) or beneficial to themselves (evil) they were. Evolution also optimized our ability to appear more beneficial to the tribe than we truly are.
It’s very hard for humans to get away with lying and pretending over many years—evidenced by the fact psychopaths (usually) go to jail instead of corporate boardrooms—so the best way to appear beneficial to the tribe (virtuous) is to genuinely seek goals society considers it virtuous to seek. So evolution made humans internalize approval reward.
Some of that seems true. Some the last, hard to get away with lying, seems to apply only in very good circumstances. I don’t know why you’re saying psychopaths usually go to jail. We don’t know about the ones that don’t screw up and get found out.
I agree that evolution has had some really good effects on cooperative behavior, but it’s also designed us to be brutally selfish when that seems necessary. Our perspective would be way different if we lived in the Congo or a tribal society where strangers might be friendly or might come up with excuses to kill us and take our stuff.