The Nature of Good Deeds

What separates humans from other animals? How were creatures with small teeth, short claws, and thin hair able to dominate the world? What does it mean to be human? A religious person might answer ‘a soul’. A scientist might answer ‘tool use’. A philosopher might answer ‘rationality’.

 Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle theorized on this centuries ago. Plato called us ‘featherless bipeds’, until he was proven wrong by a plucked chicken.

Others have suggested much grimmer explanations. In the 60’s naturalists proposed that the only thing that separated us from apes was that humans murder their own kind, and animals do not. These theories came to prevalence in the wake of the assassination of JFK and Martin Luthor King, so murder was prominent in the cultural conscious at the time. With that in mind, it might not be hard to see why people were pessimistic on the nature of humanity.

Not long after, however, Jane Goodall’s research proved this wrong. She immersed herself in chimpanzee communities and observed behaviors that we previously thought were tied to humanity. Tool use and complex social interactions existed in our common ancestor and still shows up in chimps today. But, of course, another trait that we share is killing. Goodall witnessed chimpanzees kill each other in fights, their sharp teeth and strong arms making these skirmishes violent and sometimes deadly. She observed several fights between family groups, and even recounts seeing adults killing juveniles while doing her research.

Beyond chimps, many species have been observed to kill their own kind. It turns out, killing is not all that uncommon in the animal kingdom. It isn’t what separates us from the rest of nature. So, what does?

Last year, a team of anthropologists uncovered bones of 36,000 year old humans from a cave in northern Israel. The bones of one particular individual told a fascinating story.

The foot of this ancient human showed signs of a fracture, but one that had healed remarkably well over time.

It’s unlikely that a hunter/gatherer with a broken foot could have survived on his own. He must have had a community taking care of him. Fellow humans that provided him food, water, and shelter while he healed, even though he wouldn’t be able to give them anything in return.

This isn’t the only discovery like this either, there’s even evidence of early humans caring for permanently disabled family members. Altruism has been in our nature since the Stone Age, when we were roaming the plains and painting on cave walls. We are a naturally cooperative species. We form groups, teach the next generation, and nurture each other. That has not only kept us alive, but it has allowed us to build on generations of knowledge and get to where we are today.

I’ve been reading through other submissions for this contest and there are some very genuine and heartwarming stories. People have been opening up and discussing very vulnerable times in their lives and reminiscing on the people who helped them get through it. Stories of people who lost their community but were taken in by another, people who didn’t live up to the expectations of their community but were cared for anyway, people who were sick or injured but were eased through it by the people who put their own life aside to attend to them.

It can be hard to discuss parts of our lives where we needed help. There is an attitude in our culture that we need to be tough and independent enough to get by on our own. There’s a particularly vicious perspective that individuals could solve all their own problems as long as they work hard enough. This tends to give those who believe it a free pass to not think or care about people in need, but humanity’s strength has always been in our ability to help those who can’t help themselves.

In the face of hard times and cruel people, it’s easy to think that humans are just naturally selfish creatures. Easy to think that beneath the veneer of what is socially acceptable, we’re all trying to look out for ourselves in a ‘survival of the fittest’ world. But science says otherwise. In reality, the evidence shows that our empathy and willingness to put others above ourselves is what sets us apart from animals.