Psychological egoism refers to the belief that all human behaviour is motivated by self-interest. This is a difficult idea to consider. We like to think that most of our actions are altruistic; that we do good things because we are good people. And yet, with a little introspection we can easily identify how we’ve gained from even our most generous moments.
If we are honest with ourselves, it is hard to deny that we do, very much, care about our interests, and that these drive many of our behaviours. Even our charitable actions are sometimes driven by our need to avoid negative emotions such as guilt or remorse. At work our day-to-day decisions comprise political calculations that take into account what will deliver against what the optimal outcome is for us.
The need to better our circumstances and to improve our standing makes us, like many other primates, an exceptionally competitive species. We compete against one another on several levels for various results we deem favourable to our needs. However, our social norms have made hiding our selfish impulses an unspoken criteria to be accepted. In fact, we have grown so effective at hiding our self-centeredness that we rarely recognise it as a variable in our decision making.
Cooperation exists because of competition
Compared to other species, each and every human is a genius. We adapt well to changing situations and are able to organise ourselves to overcome threats and obstacles. While it’s true that a single human is no match for a lioness out on the savanna, bring together 20 humans who are willing to work together to drive that lion away, and chances are that lioness won’t be around for long.
Against other species humans are exceptionally well placed to compete. It is other humans that pose the greatest threat to us. Access to status, mates and power have all led us to compete and to organise against one another. And we’ve learnt that we stand a better chance of attaining our goals when we work within groups than if we go it alone.
How we compete has become more civilised
A lot of research has been done on how humans compete and what role cooperation plays relative to competition. The popular view is that culturally we have, as a species, opted for cooperation over direct competition. It’s ironic that our self-interest has led to greater cooperation between us. But, it makes sense. Being political animals, we have learnt to create alliances between individuals thereby forming tribes and interest groups. The idea that we can and do cooperate with strangers in order to attain mutually beneficial outcomes sounds noble, and gives the impression that our species have thrown off the shackles of self-interest for the greater good of all.
Yet, our willingness to work together does come with a few caveats. In an ASU study, by researchers Carla Handley and Sarah Mathew, observed that humans cooperate more with groups and individuals that share their cultural beliefs and norms. So, as long as our cultures resemble one another, and our needs align there’s a better chance we will collaborate to reach a shared outcome.
There are small compromises made by individuals within and between cooperating groups in order to attain what is perceived as a more important or larger goals. These compromises might be to overlook small cultural differences, less significant and inconvenient outcomes or longer term implications that will have to be dealt with, in order to reach what is deemed a more important objective now. We see this when political parties form coalitions, when companies agree to cooperate on specific projects and when nations sign treaties to support one another against a common threat.
But, it’s through cooperation that we’ve hidden our true intentions
Robert Greene wrote the book, 48 Laws of Power, which was first published in 1998. The book lays out in very blunt terms how to attain power in business and in life. The book has been described as a ‘bastard’s handbook’, and a ‘psychopath’s bible’. And it’s easy (and easier) to dismiss the book as nothing more than a distorted, slightly sick caricature of human behaviour that can’t be taken seriously. However, what Greene does is lay bare what most people do in their public and professional lives in order to get ahead. And it is hard to think, never mind admit, that we are capable of behaving this despicably.
Some of the laws are:
- Law 2: Never put too much trust in friends, learn how to use enemies
- Law 7: Get others to do the work for you, but always take the credit
- Law 13: When asking for help, appeal to people’s self interest, never their mercy or gratitude
- Law 20: Do not commit to anyone
- Law 32: Play to people’s fantasies
- Law 34: Be royal in your own fashion. Act like a king to be treated like one
Now, reading them as they stand, they make us feel uncomfortable. Whomever follows these rules must be manipulative, or Donald Trump. However, if we replace the above with more socially acceptable language, all of a sudden the laws seem quite familiar, and far more palatable.
- Law 2: Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer. Trust must be earned
- Law 7: Surround yourself with successful people
- Law 13: Don’t be afraid to ask for help and let the people who helped you see the impact of the aid they’ve delivered.
- Law 20: Under promise, over deliver
- Law 32: People respond to stories, not facts
- Law 34: Dress for the job you want, not the job you have
The difference between the two lists is that the second list takes other people’s feelings into consideration. If I tell you that I will never commit to anyone, you won’t trust me or consider me a reliable ally. However, if I tell you that I like to under promise and over deliver, that creates the impression that I know my limitations and that I will never commit to anything I can’t deliver. What the second list does is obscure our intentions to make us seem worthy of consideration for collaboration and unlikely to renege on an agreement.
In the process of cooperating with others we have mastered, almost unknowingly, the ability to obscure our most selfish intentions from ourselves and others and adopt the positive attributes associated with cooperation; attributes such as trustworthiness, camaraderie and friendship.
This is not to say that all our friendships are predicated purely on selfish outcomes. Many friendships are true and loving. But it would be naïve to say we don’t gain something from having friends. We rarely consider what we get from our closest friends. However, good friendships are symbiotic in nature which in many ways makes them more powerful as both parties are incentivised to keep the friendship going. And by not overlaying a transactional lens over our closest friendships they retain their magical qualities.
What are we cooperating and competing for?
It’s worth taking a few moments to examine what it is we’re competing for. In the book, Elephant in the Brain, Kevin Simler and Robin Hanson identify 3 factors that underpin our self-interests.
The first is sex. At our most base level we are wired to procreate and to continue our lineage. For that we need to attract healthy sexual partners with good genes who are willing to reproduce with us.
The second factor is status. In their book, Simler and Hanson argue that we constantly measure ourselves against others. In all our interactions with other people a hierarchy is established based on the status of the people involved. Status is sometimes overt and easily identifiable, i.e. when having a meeting with your boss at work, everyone knows their role and an unspoken hierarchy is adhered.
However, status also plays a role when we interact with our close friends, people whom we might deem to be our equals. Here, hierarchy is established subtly. In most cases we don’t even notice it. Within a group of friends there will be members of the group who are of a higher status; they tend to set the tempo for the conversation or dictate the speed at which a group walks when they’re together. And people with lower status, who will adopt the conversation tempo and the walking speed without giving it any thought.
Having a higher status bestows privileges. It gives one more options when it comes to mating partners and it ensures you have more choice when it comes to potential friends. It also sees more people admiring or wanting to endear themselves to you.
The final factor Simler and Hanson refer to as politics, however, I’m going with Robert Greene on this one – power. Power, similar to status, gives us more options when it comes to sexual partners, but it does more than that. It also allows us to rule. We can impose our will on others to ensure the outcomes we want. Power is an effective way to guarantee our prosperity.
These factors are interlinked and they all influence one another. But, most importantly, each competition ends up being a zero-sum game; for every winner there’s an equivalent loser.
But we’re focusing on the wrong things
In his book, Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari makes this sobering statement:
“Most top predators of the planet are majestic creatures. Millions of years of dominion have filled them with self-confidence. Sapiens by contrast is more like a banana republic dictator. Having so recently been one of the underdogs of the savannah, we are full of fears and anxieties over our position, which makes us doubly cruel and dangerous.”
Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind – Yuval Noah Harari
Harari makes the point that humans leapt to the top of the food chain over the space of 100,000 years. Our cognitive powers increased at such a rate that our ecosystems and we as a species didn’t have the chance to adapt to our position of dominant species on this planet. And, from my perspective, our desires and what we compete for reflect this reality. When we boil our aspirations down to their essence, what we want is no different to what most primates want; to have physical security, sex, to lord over others and to be admired.
It’s our urges and desires combined with our frailty as a species that have led us to cooperate with our fellow humans, which most people would agree is a good thing. However, as Hadley and Mathew highlight in their study, our cooperation doesn’t scale effectively to deal with global problems.
Pandemics, climate change, food and water security, over population, nuclear war are just some of the issues that pose a genuine existential threat to both our civilisation and to us as a species. And we are tackling these problems with a giant evolutionary handicap; our most fundamental desires haven’t caught up with our standing or our responsibilities on this planet. We’re facing huge challenges of our own making and we can’t move beyond playing zero-sum games at an individual, group, and geo-political level.
This makes for an exciting opportunity. It falls on us to think about what we should want. Instead of fame and power, how to adopt a more enlightened set of needs that would serve us and this planet better.
I propose we upgrade our desires to incorporate a more intergenerational perspective. That we come to understand that we can and should want to make things that are larger than ourselves. Some of our species’ greatest achievements required visionaries with extraordinary conviction to start projects that they knew they would never see completed in their lifetime. Projects that would take decades, sometimes centuries to be completed. Cathedrals, space explorations, the layout of some cities are just a few examples of initiatives that have persevered and seen their eventuation over several life times. This is cathedral thinking. And I believe that we need to evolve our self-interests so that we think bigger, so that we have dreams that are appropriate for a species who have a responsibility to a whole planet and all the living beings on it.
It is time we became the species this planet needs us to be.