Why do humans care about other humans?

[theanimal]

This is a question I've been pondering for a bit now. I'm guessing this may be a contentious topic but I am genuinely curious.

Why do humans care about other humans outside their familial/friend circle? It doesn't make sense. Sure, it's the "right" thing to do. But why? Why should we care about the stereotypical "starving child in Africa" or insert whatever other human issue here. Its not a situation that anyone likes but it likely doesn't affect how you live. There will always be weak or diseased members of a species. Its nature's way. Native tribes/bands necessarily didn't concern themselves with others outside their band. A pack of wolves isn't concerned about the well being of another pack 50 miles over. I don't think its because of awareness or intelligence, there are multiple other species that have a very high intellect. I understand the moral or ethical reasons, but I don't think it makes sense logically. Why is it morally or ethically good to have care for fellow human beings in despair (that you don't have relations with)?

Thoughts?


Edit: I should clarify that I'm not talking about exploiting others,as I am in no way for that. I'm just thinking as a general concept.

[DutchGirl]

Just wildly speculating here (which I love now and then)... But maybe it's just a by-product of empathy. Empathy is good, evolutionary speaking, because it motivates you to help the people of your family (whose genes you share, etc) and the people of your clan (who may one day help you or your offspring). But having empathy also means you can feel it for people who aren't directly related to you, and as a result you may want to help them as well, even though it's not useful for you, evolutionary speaking.

[Riggerjack]

OK, it's my turn to be a downer. Why do we care? We don't. Or at least, not much.
Those who care, usually don't care enough to do anything, just enough to posture about caring. This gets the social credit, without much effort.
Even among the hard core, who actually do something, the motivation seems to mainly be social positioning within their own circles.
Nearly all acts of altruism are done for selfish social status reasons.
It wasn't always applicable to helping people in other cultures, that is a result of the enormous wealth our society has built up. The disparity between American poor and third world poor is enough to justify the effort to help at a distance.
Read some Veblen to really open your eyes to the why's of social behavior. He's worth it just for the walking stick.

[Dragline]

I think the evolutionary hypothesis is probably a good place to start.

To illustrate, ask yourself a slightly different question: Why does your dog care about you and your clan and mimic you? Probably because its proved to be a very successful survival strategy for dogs. Dogs have done much better than their wild genetic cousins like wolves. And if it works for dogs, why wouldn't it work for humans? Organized groups of humans do better at surviving than lone wolves. And dogs have done better than say, chimps, who are known to go ape-shit on you at the slightest provocation: http://abc7chicago.com/pets/police-use- ... ey/443226/

Then you get to the more interesting question -- if the foregoing hypothesis is basically correct, why do we still have zero empathy people running around wreaking havoc? I'd hazard a guess there that they enjoy some of the same odd-man out advantages that left-handed people have in a predominantly right-handed society.

Not that the lefties are psychos. But they could be.

There are other metaphysical and/or religious-based explanations, but I'll leave those alone for now.

[jacob]

Going along with the genetic explanation. If a phenotype has a genetic drive towards empathizing with people outside their immediate circle, it would cause a push to expand their circle and make it bigger. Bigger circles beat smaller circles, so there's a drive towards: Tribes. Cities. States. Unions of States. Nations. Unions of Nations. Planets. Like homosexuality what is not good for the survival of the particular individual can be good for the group. Same with genetic traits for curiosity. It kills some but it also extends group power.

On a side-note, empathy with people on the other side of the world (or just far away) vs your immediate tribe (they almost seem mutually exclusive) is one of the main traits that separate left-right (one-dimensional) politics. The former is also often described as "open-minded" and the latter as "closed-minded" in psych literature.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Open-Closed-M ... 465095054/

[Dream of Freedom]

Still on the evolutionary point of view I would add that it is important that your genes survive. Other humans might not have your exact genetic makeup, but they share about 99% of it. So keeping them alive so that they can reproduce too could help perpetuate your genes.

[Ego]

We evolved to feel empathy for and to care about those in our immediate group, those with whom we had a direct connection. That connection provided us the ability to actually understand their situation, to be able to walk in their shoes. Today we are able to feel a form of perverted empathy for those far far away, about whom we know nothing. We cannot begin to walk in their shoes. It is impossible to empathize with seven billion strangers.

There are several good reasons to cultivate one form of empathy for those with whom we have immediate contact and another for the baby in the well.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2013/ ... n-the-well

[Felix]

Caring and altruism are the default mode for humans as this is beneficial for a social species living in small tribes. The whole thing kind of breaks down beyond 150-300 or so people, when our mental capacity to maintain a theory of mind reaches a limit of memory space. This is why charity on a large scale fails as a solution as the biological foundation just isn't there as it is standard in smaller settings.

[chenda]

Matt Ridley's The Origins of Virtue is an excellent introduction to this - to quickly summarise:

Its mutual self-interest. Its in our selfish genetic interest to be selfless and empathetic to one another. Not that people are always cynically making such a calculation consciously, but it underlying genetic reason. Long term, the nice person is more likely to win over the nasty person.

Humans are more likely to be nice to one another if they trust one another - there is a greater likelihood of reward for good behaviour and more consequences for selfish behaviour. And a tendency towards greater empathy towards people closer to you than far away. (i.e. a small local tradagy vs a distant genocide)

Like in the prisoner dilemma game:

''Two members of a criminal gang are arrested and imprisoned. Each prisoner is in solitary confinement with no means of speaking to or exchanging messages with the other. The police admit they don't have enough evidence to convict the pair on the principal charge. They plan to sentence both to a year in prison on a lesser charge. Simultaneously, the police offer each prisoner a Faustian bargain. Each prisoner is given the opportunity either to betray the other, by testifying that the other committed the crime, or to cooperate with the other by remaining silent. Here's how it goes: If A and B each betray the other, each of them serves 2 years in prison
If A betrays B but B remains silent, A will be set free and B will serve 3 years in prison (and vice versa)
If A and B both remain silent, both of them will only serve 1 year in prison (on the lesser charge)

It is implied that the prisoners will have no opportunity to reward or punish their partner other than the prison sentences they get, and that their decision will not affect their reputation in the future. Because betraying a partner offers a greater reward than cooperating with them, all purely rational self-interested prisoners would betray the other, and so the only possible outcome for two purely rational prisoners is for them to betray each other. The interesting part of this result is that pursuing individual reward logically leads both of the prisoners to betray, when they would get a better reward if they both cooperated. In reality, humans display a systematic bias towards cooperative behaviour in this and similar games, much more so than predicted by simple models of "rational" self-interested action. A model based on a different kind of rationality, where people forecast how the game would be played if they formed coalitions and then they maximize their forecasts, has been shown to make better predictions of the rate of cooperation in this and similar games given only the payoffs of the game.'' http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prisoner's_dilemma

[7Wannabe5]

Because God wanted novelists.

The part of your brain that allows you to consider other people is also the part of your brain that allows you to think about future-you. Therefore, your ability or tendency to empathize with people on the other side of the planet may be directly related to your ability to consider what would be the best thing for you-in-the-moment to do for distant-future-you. It is readily apparent how these two different concepts which are really the same brain function come together if/when you think about your legacy. This ability is one of the last to be fully developed in the mature human brain.

[jacob]

... and as such it doesn't develop in all human brains.

This reminds me of Kohlberg's moral levels. The majority develops to level 3 and 4 (in terms of their actual actions). Some get stuck in levels 1 and 2 and tend to spend a lot of time in prison. Some get to level 5. Few get to level 6.

[BeyondtheWrap]

I'd say they don't.

I walk past a lot of people on the street. I find it hard to believe they all care about people on the other side of the planet.