Abstract
In The Descent of Man (1879), Charles Darwin proposed a speculative evolutionary explanation of extended benevolence—a human sympathetic capacity that extends to all nations, races, and even to all sentient beings. This essay draws on twenty-first century social science to show that Darwin’s explanation is correct in its broad outlines. Extended benevolence is manifested in institutions such as legal human rights and democracy, in behaviors such as social movements for human rights and the protection of nonhuman animals, and in normative attitudes such as emancipative values and a commitment to promote the rights or welfare of animals. These phenomena can be substantially explained by cultural evolutionary forces that trace back to three components of what Darwin called the human “moral sense”: (1) sympathy, (2) our disposition to follow community rules or norms, and (3) our capacity to make normative judgments. Extended benevolence likely emerged with “workarounds,” including political ideologies, that established an inclusive sympathetic concern for sentient life. It likely became as widespread as it is now due to recently arisen socio-economic conditions that have created more opportunities for people to have contact with and take the perspective of a broader cross-section of humanity, as well as other species.
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Notes
- 1.
Full title: The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex.
- 2.
To be sure, existing democracies do not institute perfect political equality. All too often, the wealthy have disproportionate power to influence politicians’ decisions. Many democracies disenfranchise adult citizens convicted of a criminal offense. And, democracies typically prohibit minors and non-citizen adults from voting. The point is only that political equality among adult citizens is achieved to a greater extent in democracies than in nondemocracies.
- 3.
Polity, Freedom House, the Boix-Miller-Rosato code, and V-DEM.
- 4.
For a discussion of the debate surrounding the “new pessimism” about democracy, see Welzel, Inglehart, Bernhangen, and Haerpfer (2019).
- 5.
The 2020 V-Dem Report also notes that the recent decline in democracy has mobilized resistance: pro-democracy protests reached an all-time high in 2019.
- 6.
The goal of the WVS is to collect data on the beliefs and attitudes of people around the world. Since it was launched in 1981, the WVS has polled 150,000 people in 100 countries containing 90 percent of the world’s population (Welzel, 2013: 58; Inglehart, 2018: 5). It collects statistically representative samples of all residents living in every country surveyed.
- 7.
I do not claim that extended benevolence will remain as widespread as it is forever. The recent rise of nationalist-populism in the West might augur the demise of extended benevolence. It is too soon to tell. My aim is merely to establish that the existence of extended benevolence can be explained from a Darwinian—i.e., cultural evolutionary—perspective.
- 8.
International human rights treaties are international legal agreements in which the governments ratifying the agreement commit to respecting the human rights of their people. They include the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR), the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).
- 9.
Tomasello stresses that chimpanzees and bonobos, our closest evolutionary cousins, do not have a second-personal morality because they do not form joint commitments. They do collaborate with others to acquire food, mates, and social dominance. And they do exhibit helping behavior which suggests that they feel sympathy for others in need. However, their sympathy is limited to those with whom they have collaborated in the past. And, crucially, they do not exhibit resentment elicited by a perception of unfair treatment (Tomasello, 2016: loc. 431–692).
- 10.
Our species may well be older. Recent excavations of fossils from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco have been dated to 315,000 years ago (Boyd & Silk, 2018: 325).
- 11.
The impartial perspective generated by social norms does not guarantee equal status in society. Of course, social norms can allow for gross inequalities in power, prestige, privilege, and wealth. Instead, the impartial attitude that arises from social norms is the attitude that everyone ought to comply with prevailing norms.
- 12.
There is accumulating evidence that early Homo sapiens were engaging in symbolic and ritual behavior by around 70,000 years ago (Boyd & Silk, 2018: 327–330). Perforated shell beads were excavated from the Grotte de Pigeons in Morocco. This site is dated to 82,000 years ago. Some of the shells were painted with red ocher, and may have been worn on a cord or attached to clothing. Today, African peoples commonly use red ocher for symbolic purposes (Boyd & Silk, 2018: 329). At Diepkloof Rock Shelter in South Africa, 60,000-year-old ostrich shell fragments were found. The shells were decorated with geometric patterns, and are believed to signify group identity in the same way that pottery decorations do for modern foragers today (Ibid.).
- 13.
There is considerable evidence that sympathy is an adaptation. Chimpanzees and humans may share a common ancestor that possessed a capacity for sympathy. In experimental settings, chimpanzees have been observed helping conspecifics who they observe to be in need. For instance, chimpanzees help conspecifics trying to get food and tools (Tomasello, 2016: loc. 596–618). In addition, human beings seem to be born with a capacity to sympathize. As Tomasello notes, infants as young as fourteen months help unfamiliar adults to fetch out-of-reach objects, and they comfort others who show signs of distress (Tomasello, 2016: loc. 929–952). To explain why a sympathetic capacity might have enhanced the reproductive success of our ancestors, evolutionary theorists have cited the mechanisms of kin selection, mutualism, direct reciprocity, social selection, and cultural group selection (Tomasello, 2016: loc. 225–414).
- 14.
Welzel identifies internet connectivity as a form of connective opportunity. It may be suspected that internet connectivity does not promote extended benevolence, but rather antipathy between different ideological groups who segregate themselves in digital “bubbles.” While this question is certainly deserving of further study, a recent analysis by Jha and Kodila-Tedika (2020) found a strong positive correlation between the use of Facebook and democracy ratings in 125 countries. Evidently, there is no tension between social media and democracy–one form of an extendedly benevolent institution.
- 15.
It is an open question whether extended benevolence will ever be outmoded by alternative cultural variants that do promote the reproductive success of individuals or groups. While this is possible, it is not inevitable. Whether or not it actually comes to pass depends on the relative strength of natural selection against extended benevolence compared to the cultural evolutionary forces that favor extended benevolence.
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This research is supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore, under its Academic Research Fund Tier 1 (RG70/16).
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Luco, A. (2021). The Cultural Evolution of Extended Benevolence. In: De Smedt, J., De Cruz, H. (eds) Empirically Engaged Evolutionary Ethics. Synthese Library, vol 437. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-68802-8_8
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