males may carry an unrelated orphan around, protecting it and letting it remove food from their hands. Humans, too, adopt on a large scale, often going through hellish bureaucratic procedures tofind a child to bestow care upon. The strangest cases, though, are cross-species adoptions, such as a canine bitch in Buenos Aires, Argentina, that became famous for having saved an abandoned baby boy by placing him alongside her own puppies in an act reminiscent of Romulus and Remus. This adoptive tendency is well-known at zoos, one of which had a Bengal tigress nurse piglets. The maternal instinct is remarkably generous.
Some biologists call such applications a “mistake,” suggesting that behavior shouldn’t be used for anything it wasn’t intended for. Even if this sounds a bit like the Catholic Church telling us that sex isn’t for fun, I can see their point. Instead of nursing those piggies, the biologically optimal thing for the tigress would have been to use them as protein snacks. But as soon as we move from biology to psychology, the perspective changes. Mammals have been endowed with powerful impulses to take care of vulnerable young, so that the tigress is only doing what comes naturally to her. Psychologically speaking, she isn’t mistaken at all.
Similarly, if a human couple adopts a child from a faraway land, their care and worries are as genuine as those of biological parents. Or if people have sex because they “want to change the conversation” (an actual reason given in the above poll), their arousal and enjoyment are as real as that of any other couple. Evolved tendencies are part and parcel of our psychology, and we’re free to use them any way we like.
Now, let’s apply these insights to kindness. My main point is that even if a trait evolved for reason X, it may very well be used in daily life for reasons X, Y, and Z. Offering assistance to others evolved to serve self-interest, which it does if aimed at close relatives or group mates willing to return the favor. This is the way natural selection operates: It produces behavior that, on average and in the long run, benefits those showing it. But this doesn’t mean that humans or animals only help one another for selfish reasons. The reasons relevant for evolution don’t necessarily restrict the actor. The actor follows an existing tendency, sometimes doing so even if there’s absolutely nothing to be gained: the man who jumps on the train tracks to protect astranger, the dog who suffers massive injuries by leaping between a child and a rattlesnake, or the dolphins forming a protective ring around human swimmers in shark-infested water. It’s hard to imagine that these actors are seeking future payoffs. Just as sex doesn’t need to aim at reproduction, and parental care doesn’t need to favor one’s own offspring, assistance given to others doesn’t require the actor to know if, when, and how he’ll get better from it.
This is why the selfish-gene metaphor is so tricky. By injecting psychological terminology into a discussion of gene evolution, the two levels that biologists work so hard to keep apart are slammed together. Clouding of the distinction between genes and motivations has led to an exceptionally cynical view of human and animal behavior. Believe it or not, empathy is commonly presented as an illusion, something that not even humans truly possess. One of the most repeated quips in the sociobiological literature of the past three decades is “Scratch an ‘altruist,’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.” With great zeal and shock effect, authors depict us as complete Scrooges. In
The Moral Animal,
Robert Wright claims that “the pretense of selflessness is about as much part of human nature as is its frequent absence.” The reigning incredulity concerning human kindness recalls a Monty Python sketch in which a banker is being asked for a small donation for the orphanage. Utterly mystified by the whole concept of a gift, the
Some biologists call such applications a “mistake,” suggesting that behavior shouldn’t be used for anything it wasn’t intended for. Even if this sounds a bit like the Catholic Church telling us that sex isn’t for fun, I can see their point. Instead of nursing those piggies, the biologically optimal thing for the tigress would have been to use them as protein snacks. But as soon as we move from biology to psychology, the perspective changes. Mammals have been endowed with powerful impulses to take care of vulnerable young, so that the tigress is only doing what comes naturally to her. Psychologically speaking, she isn’t mistaken at all.
Similarly, if a human couple adopts a child from a faraway land, their care and worries are as genuine as those of biological parents. Or if people have sex because they “want to change the conversation” (an actual reason given in the above poll), their arousal and enjoyment are as real as that of any other couple. Evolved tendencies are part and parcel of our psychology, and we’re free to use them any way we like.
Now, let’s apply these insights to kindness. My main point is that even if a trait evolved for reason X, it may very well be used in daily life for reasons X, Y, and Z. Offering assistance to others evolved to serve self-interest, which it does if aimed at close relatives or group mates willing to return the favor. This is the way natural selection operates: It produces behavior that, on average and in the long run, benefits those showing it. But this doesn’t mean that humans or animals only help one another for selfish reasons. The reasons relevant for evolution don’t necessarily restrict the actor. The actor follows an existing tendency, sometimes doing so even if there’s absolutely nothing to be gained: the man who jumps on the train tracks to protect astranger, the dog who suffers massive injuries by leaping between a child and a rattlesnake, or the dolphins forming a protective ring around human swimmers in shark-infested water. It’s hard to imagine that these actors are seeking future payoffs. Just as sex doesn’t need to aim at reproduction, and parental care doesn’t need to favor one’s own offspring, assistance given to others doesn’t require the actor to know if, when, and how he’ll get better from it.
This is why the selfish-gene metaphor is so tricky. By injecting psychological terminology into a discussion of gene evolution, the two levels that biologists work so hard to keep apart are slammed together. Clouding of the distinction between genes and motivations has led to an exceptionally cynical view of human and animal behavior. Believe it or not, empathy is commonly presented as an illusion, something that not even humans truly possess. One of the most repeated quips in the sociobiological literature of the past three decades is “Scratch an ‘altruist,’ and watch a ‘hypocrite’ bleed.” With great zeal and shock effect, authors depict us as complete Scrooges. In
The Moral Animal,
Robert Wright claims that “the pretense of selflessness is about as much part of human nature as is its frequent absence.” The reigning incredulity concerning human kindness recalls a Monty Python sketch in which a banker is being asked for a small donation for the orphanage. Utterly mystified by the whole concept of a gift, the
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