As God clothes the naked, so shall you,
As God visits the sick so shall you
As God loves mankind, so shall you.
This phrase mirrors phrases in countless other scriptures, holy
books and self-help guides. The ethics of reciprocity is a moral fundamental
born from social interaction itself. It also illuminates the biological and
hence, psychological ability for empathy.
It is degrading to say that any wise man was wise for having
thought of it. Nor is it meaningful to label such a fundamental as exclusive to
one’s religion.
It is as simple as, feeling sad when another fellow
is grieving for his deceased loved ones. As straightforward as
feeling indignant when a friend is incarcerated on false accusation. As
fundamental as understanding punishment, pain and suffering, that we revolt at
its use (even our own) towards another human being.
In this sense, this particular moral, is not a learned moral, but
is typical and universal of human beings, and probably of all social animals
others than ourselves.
You could also see this particular moral as being a social tool,
to weed out selfish individuals who might be leeching from the benefits of the
group. Knowing who does not reciprocate is hence a useful gauge of one’s
cooperation, trustworthiness and personality. In social groups where this is a
universal fundamental, it would therefore be most advantageous for all members
of the group to exhibit reciprocation. “You scratch my back, and I’ll scratch
yours”, so to speak.
Allow me to broaden your perspectives further, biological entities
are typically selfish, or euphemistically, act upon self-interest. This is a
truism. Because if we had evolved to not be selfish (excluding animals in
social groups for the moment), then we would have died out long ago, for we
would be outcompeted by our rivals quite simply. True altriusm, is not an
Evolutionary Stable Strategy (forgive the biology jargon), because if selfish
individuals arose in a population of selfless beings, the selfish individual
will outcompete, outlast and reap all the benefits from all the suckers around
it.
In this sense, the selfish individuals will breed and proliferate
in much greater number. And the selfless individuals who are short-changed,
breed and proliferate to a smaller degree. Through generations of differential
reproduction, the selfish individuals will start to overtake and become the
predominant group of the population. Eventually, the last sucker might be
short-changed so badly, that it might eventually perish under the competition.
You might be thinking, how does selflessness manifest then? Why
are certain people constantly being portrayed as selfless, friendly and
exceedingly helpful? Surely, that couldn’t possibly exist, if my explanation
were true.
My explanation still stands because of two things.
I assumed the earlier population to be that of a non-social
animal. Social groups deal with adversity in a different way. The group works
in favour of both the individual’s needs balanced with the group’s. It might
seem valuable, in certain situations to have one’s own needs to be fulfilled
with the compromise of “social tribute” to the group in the form of
reciprocations, sharing etc, than if one worked alone, and risked not
satisfying one’s own basic needs due to the lack of help.
Also, while being selfish would certainly be a winning strategy in
a group of friendly people, that might not really sit well with the members of
the group. We all recall incidents or experiences with people where our
friendliness or help have been taken without reciprocation, or even
more preposterously returned with a stab in the back, or more mildly,
taken for granted.
Equity, justice, fairness. These values arose from simple social
and biological interactions such as empathy and reciprocation.
Secondly, and of more controversiality, is the different kind of
reward that reciprocation brings – happiness. We couldn’t have relied on such a
complex moral issue on pure rationality only. We must definitely have evolved a
neurological (biological) way of rewarding our brain whenever such behaviour is
carried out.
This might seem blasphemous that altruism and selflessness are
performed in self-interest or pleasure, but allow me to explain. Many
biological and social functions are dealt with biochemically. Thirst and hunger
are biochemical. Libido is dealt with by the sex hormones. Happiness is
biochemical (Recent studies have shown that an addiction to alcohol, smoking,
exercise is due to an increasing de-sensitivity to the “happy chemical”,
otherwise known as dopamine, which gives us the feeling of euphoria and
temporary happiness). Empathy is a mixture of both neurological and biochemical
inputs. How these are exactly elicited, is still being studied.
So, quite simply, the feeling of happiness and contentment
associated with altruism and all those happy volunteers proud to have done
their part is an adaptation to ensure that we keep to this social function.
Morality seems so much less sacred as it is philosophy. It is biology.
In a nutshell, we are selfless, because we are selfish but
sacrificed a bit of the reward for more certainty in the success of survival
How do social groups form then?
Obviously, social groups are exclusive entities, in that the
members satisfy a certain list of club entry requirements. For humans, we might
be at the extreme end of the spectrum, when it comes to the club entry
requirements, but we’re not alike from other social animals in other respects.
Most groups are formed out of this mutual cooperation or altruism. But what are
the criteria?
In biology, there exist two hypothesis to explain altruism
- Kin Altruism and Reciprocal Altruism. Kin Altruism is straightforward.
Our family, or closely related family members, share many genes in common, due
to our relatedness. Hence, it would be advantageous, for the gene (and the
individual carrying it) to help members of one’s own family. This may appear to
dilute familial love, but as I mentioned, familial love might be similar to how
happiness manifests – as a biochemical, psychological and neurological
phenomenon, for purposes I have already mentioned. If my body didn’t tell me
via this means, that familial love is such a wonderful thing, I might end up
treating family members as competition, which fundamentally, really is. It’s
either a social family group helping the whole bunch of the same combinations
of genes, or the chance that the entire group may be outcompeted by others or
by each other and perish. Again, it’s perhaps a trade-off of probabilities.
Reciprocal Altruism has already been elaborated earlier. To
summarize once more, it basically means, that I would “scratch your back, if
you will scratch mine”. It can also be put in more crude terms, that one is
selfless, only in one’s self-interest, and in the case of groups, in the
group’s interest, as well.
So, in summary, social groups probably formed from reasons of
increased survivability relative to the hardships of individual survival. They
evolved in species that found it increasingly difficult to manage at the level
of an individual and might be due to kinship, or simple benefits of mutual
cooperation. Society or social groups is merely one of the many strategies that
the biodiversity of this Earth has employed. Co-evolved with social behaviour
is biochemistry, neurology, psychology, all of which manifested in our ability
for emotion, empathy, sympathy, which then doubled as social “tools”.
(c) Sangbid Kundu
2010-11
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