Is human nature selfish or altruistic, and how can altruism be restored in the modern world?

Drawing on the debates between Eastern and Western philosophers about human nature, this course argues that altruism has favored human survival and highlights the need to recover and strengthen altruism in the modern world through a variety of examples and research.

 

Since the past, philosophers have debated whether human nature is selfish or altruistic. In China, Mencius, Sun Tzu, and Ko Tzu argued for the sexual good, sexual evil, and sexual nothingness theories, respectively, and in the West, Rousseau, Hobbes, and Locke made similar arguments. For example, Rousseau argued that humans are born pure and good, but society corrupts them. Hobbes, on the other hand, believed that human nature is basically selfish, and that this inclination leads to the struggle of “all against all” in the state of nature. This debate about human nature has been at the center of philosophy and political theory in both the East and West.
In modern times, the debate has been reinterpreted in a new light thanks to advances in evolutionary biology and psychology. In Chapter 3 of The Brilliance of Man, Yuval Noah Harari, author of Homo Deus, argues that history has shown that those who are better at cooperating win. Thinking through this, it’s natural to assume that our original nature was altruistic, because those who acted altruistically would have had a survival advantage over those who acted selfishly, and that trait would have been passed down. In particular, Harari emphasizes that our ability to cooperate was a crucial factor that allowed our species to dominate the planet.
I also believe that human nature is altruistic. However, in the modern world, I believe that human nature has become increasingly selfish. However, I argue that humans have more to gain when they are altruistic, and that we should return to this state of affairs and use it as an example. There are many examples that support this argument. For example, archaeological evidence shows that early humans lived in small groups and relied on cooperation to survive. Humans were physically weaker than other animals, but through cooperation and communication, they were able to protect themselves from predators. This need for cooperation may have reinforced altruistic behavior that is deeply ingrained in human nature.
First, the basis for my belief that human nature is altruistic lies in our “animal nature,” which includes humans. We tend to think of putting others first, a virtue we often refer to as caring or morality, as if it’s exclusively human. However, recent research has shown that it can be found in the behavior of all animals, not just primates, including humans. One of the most prominent examples is the work of Frans de Waal, a Dutch researcher who studied primates.
Here’s what happened in his study Two monkeys are separated in a room and one is fed by pulling a string. At the same time, the monkey on the other side of the room is given a painful sound when it pulls the string, which is then heard by the monkey being fed. In this situation, the monkeys initially pulled the string because it brought them food, but after a few repetitions, they realized what was going on and stopped pulling the string, showing that they had “empathy” for the other monkey’s situation.
Another study involved chimpanzees. When food is dropped in a chimpanzee’s cage, there is initially a huge fight for the food. Afterwards, the chimpanzees that are pushed out of the fight and don’t get the food will go to the other chimpanzees and engage in begging-like behaviors, such as jiggling and shouting. It’s interesting to note that the other chimpanzees would look on in disbelief, throw the food away, and walk away. The chimpanzees were using their superiority to help them survive without receiving anything in return.
A wide variety of studies have confirmed this cooperative and sharing behavior in birds, elephants, primates, and other animals. Moreover, these attitudes are not limited to simple comfort and sympathy, but rather a sophisticated attitude of understanding the situation and perspective and thinking about what kind of help would be most helpful to the other person. What I’m arguing here is that morality, empathy, and altruism are not exclusive to humans, but are innate mammalian instincts that have been around for tens of millions of years.
From this perspective, altruism in human societies is more pronounced in cooperative systems based on social contracts. The guild system in medieval Europe, for example, is a prime example of how people sought economic stability and social protection through mutual cooperation. Guilds helped their members survive and prosper through a variety of cooperative activities, including joint management of resources, sharing of skills, and collective defense against external threats. This system of cooperation served not only the interests of individual members, but also the prosperity of the entire society.
It would seem, then, that humans, as the most advanced stage of animals and the so-called creators of the universe, should also exhibit the most developed altruism. However, if we look around us today, we can see that this is far from the case. I found the following quote from the translator’s preface to de Waal’s book to be fitting. “Empathy is not cultivated, it is desensitized.” Then we need to look at what desensitization is. As I mentioned at the beginning, I would say that it is modern society, especially capitalism.
A recent study by Canadian neuroscientist Obi found an experiment that supports this. To summarize the results of the experiment, the neural circuitry of empathy is destroyed when a person has power. In the experiment, people were divided into two groups: those who were considered socially powerful and those who were not, and were asked to write the letter E on their heads. The powerful people drew the E the way they saw it, while the powerless people drew the E in the right direction as seen by others.
There is also a famous case where this actually happened. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, US President George Bush traveled to Beijing to cheer on Phelps. He was photographed raising the American flag, but the flag was reversed, meaning that he was holding it from his own perspective.
The theory of social evolution, also known as social Darwinism, which is at the root of capitalist ideology, also explains why humans are becoming increasingly selfish. The gist of this theory is that humans embrace the survival of the fittest through competition, and that the losers are evolutionarily destined to disappear. This is perfectly in line with the basic way modern economics views people. Competition can make society more prosperous. In other words, economics, which is built on the ideas underlying this philosophy, and capitalism, which is what drives society today, has made discrimination so commonplace that human nature has become increasingly selfish.
If this situation continues, the capitalist class that survives will lose more and more empathy, as shown above, and the class that survives in such a society will lose more empathy than the previous class, creating a vicious cycle. This situation can never be good for humanity. Humans are more capable of being selfless than selfish.
The best example of this is what’s happening right now with “crowd sourcing”. The best results are achieved when many people take a collaborative approach. One of the most famous examples of this is the sinking of the Exxon Valdez in Alaska in 1989. For 17 years, experts from all over the world couldn’t find a way to clean up the oil, so the US government hired a company called Innocent Incentives. It’s a company that runs a platform that takes intractable scientific problems from companies and governments and makes them publicly available on the internet, harnessing the power of the public by offering prizes for solving them. Surprisingly, within three months of the problem being posted, a breakthrough method for removing the oil was found. It’s a prime example of how the power of the masses can be stronger than a few experts.
There are also examples of how powerful human collaboration can be in algorithms. Professor Robert Excellent’s “Iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma (IPD) experiment” is one such example. In this experiment, algorithms were given a strategy to win a certain game and pitted against each other. Surprisingly, the strategy that won the competition twice in a row was a very simple one: “Tit for tat”. Translated into English, it’s an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. In this strategy, you always cooperate with your opponent at the beginning of the turn, and in the following turns, you cooperate with them if they cooperated with you in the previous turn, and betray them if they betrayed you. This shows that when humans are altruistic, they can achieve a richer situation than in any other situation.
However, another thing I noticed about the above strategy is that it does not just continue to be altruistic, i.e., it is not a strategy of being nice to the other person, but a strategy of being angry with the other person. This got me thinking about what conditions would be needed to create an altruistic society.
In game theory, there is a model called the “deer hunting model”. In this model, 10 hunters are hunting deer to feed their tribe. If one of the 10 hunters betrays, the hunt is wasted because the deer can escape in that direction. However, if a rabbit appears in front of one of them, that person will have a problem. Should he continue to participate in the deer hunt, or should he switch to the rabbit hunt? Game theory tells us the answer If all members of the group can trust each other, it’s in their interest to continue hunting deer, and if not, it’s in their interest to hunt rabbits. In other words, mutual trust is crucial for human cooperation and altruism.
The interesting question is how we form these beliefs. Historically, rituals and traditions that reinforce a sense of community solidarity have fostered trust among humans. For example, many traditional societies valued rituals such as communal meals and festivals to promote cooperative behavior. These traditions were more than just about maintaining social norms. They strengthened the bonds between people and created an environment where people could trust each other within the community. So, to restore altruism in the modern world, we need to move beyond individualistic thinking, rediscover the value of community, and work to build trust.
It is also important to think about how to utilize the altruism of human nature as technology has enabled new forms of cooperation. The internet and social media have created an environment where we can connect with people around the world in real time, but if these technologies are not used for altruistic purposes, they can become just another tool of self-interest. In the end, strengthening the altruistic side of human nature is more than just moral precepts and social institutions; it requires deep insight into how to utilize the new age of technology and culture.