The Roots of Cruelty

Paul Bloom writing in the New Scientist of 16/10/10 states the following “It is no surprise that modern humans can be selfish and cruel, but this kindness poses a deep puzzle.” Personally I am not puzzled by human kindness nor am I surprised by selfishness or cruelty. However even if I am not surprised by cruelty I am puzzled by this phenomena and it is this puzzlement I wish to explore in this posting.

The reason for my puzzlement lies in the fact that whilst it seems possible to give evolutionary reasons for the roots of empathy and in certain contexts selfishness, I can see no evolutionary reasons for the roots for cruelty. Cruelty can be defined as cruel behaviour or actions. The Cambridge online dictionary defines such actions as extremely unkind and unpleasant causing pain to people or animals intentionally. The way we define and use words is important as our definitions partially determine our reactions and for this reason I want to be more precise about the above definition. It is quite common to talk of nature or animals being cruel, but we never speak of nature or animals being unkind or unpleasant. In what follows I will regard being unpleasant as a mild form of unkindness. Perhaps being unkind is not an essential element of cruelty. In practice we censure cruel people but don’t censure animals. In addition we don’t censure surgeons who intentionally cause us pain. It follows we have two different concepts of cruelty. The first concept does not involve unkindness and for that reason is philosophically uninteresting. In what follows I will only consider the second concept.

If I am going to be unkind to someone I must understand him to some degree. I must have a theory of mind. Accepting the above means cruelty cannot have a long evolutionary history. It follows most animals, with a few possible exceptions such as chimpanzees, cannot be cruel in my second sense. Nevertheless natural selection does select for some features which only have a short evolutionary history. For instance it seems clear natural selection would favour creatures possessing a theory of mind. A theory of mind appears to have a short evolutionary history. A theory of mind appears to be a precondition for a capacity to feel empathy. Someone might object to the above by suggesting dogs feel empathy for their owners and argue dogs do not have a theory of mind. I would question whether dogs feel genuine empathy and would suggest dogs merely react their owner’s feelings in an appropriate way. It therefore seems probable that the capacities for feeling empathy and acting cruelly only became possible at around the same time in our evolutionary history. It is now becoming generally accepted that natural selection favours creatures with a disposition to feel empathy. A disposition for empathy appears to clash with a cruel disposition. Someone might now argue because of this clash natural selection cannot favour creatures with a capacity for empathy and also favour or be indifferent to creatures with a disposition for cruelty. A moment’s reflection shows his argument to be unsound. Consider a peacock. A peacock’s tail feathers clash with his survival but are nonetheless selected for by natural selection because of their usefulness in attracting mates. It follows even if natural selection favours creatures with a capacity for empathy it is still possible that it might also favour or be indifferent to creatures with a capacity for cruelty.

However until very recently in human history I see no obvious reason why natural selection should select for cruelty. Indeed until the emergence of large societies it is possible to argue natural selection would select against a trait for cruelty. Before the emergence of large societies people lived as hunter gathers. Research has shown these societies were largely non hierarchical and had an egalitarian structure, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunter-gatherer . In such societies being cruel to gain power or amass wealth would be pointless. Prima facie in such societies cruelty appears to offer no advantages to individuals. Indeed being cruel would appear to be a disadvantage. In the light of the above it is far from obvious that cruelty is deep rooted in us due to natural selection. In practice of course no one can deny cruelty exists and perhaps given the society we live in I should not be puzzled by this. However my argument suggests the roots of this cruelty lie in our society and not our nature. Moreover if we do not have a natural inclination for cruelty I see no reason why our society must of necessity have a Hobbesian or Machiavellian nature. Accepting my suggestion permits the comforting belief that the roots of cruelty are shallow and we need not accept cruelty as inevitable.