I think a useful definition of empathy describes it as the ability to feel what another person is feeling.
It for example says: “With social relations expanding beyond the circle of close kin, kinship obligations were no longer enough to ensure mutual assistance and stop free riding. There was thus selection for pro-social behavior, i.e., a spontaneous willingness to help not only kin but also non-kin.”
Group selection is not a well accepted phenomena. Especially for a short timeframe of 10,000 years.
Furthermore the author shies away from going outright to the logical conclusions. If the author thinks that those people in towns evolved to have more empathy, that basically means that Black people have less empathy than white people. Is that what the author is arguing? That’s certainly an interesting claim.
The author doesn’t seem to be aware of the tradeoff between dominance and empathy. More testosterone equals more dominance and makes people less empathic. Given differences in penis size and some studies, Blacks might have higher testosterone than Whites. Of course that’s a highly controversial debate.
I don’t think it’s arguing for group selection, more as empathy as an adaption for understanding the mental states of other people so that you could better navigate reciprocal social obligations. So long as effective mechanisms existed to punish free riders, it would be a beneficial adaption.
I don’t think it’s arguing for group selection, more as empathy as an adaption for understanding the mental states of other people so that you could better navigate reciprocal social obligations.
Regular old natural selection? Behaving socially benefitted the individual. Doing things for other people didn’t just help them—it got their help in return.
The argument the article made was that empathy reduces free riding. Engaging in free riding almost per definition doesn’t produce disadvantages for the individual who engages in free riding.
Punishing free-riders isn’t what I would consider under empathy. I would think that highly dominate people with a lot of testosterone will rather engage in punishing free-riders than empathic people.
I didn’t mean that an empathic person would be more likely to punish free-riders. I meant that an empathic person would be less likely to free ride, and thus be less likely to be punished (or more likely to be rewarded).
How universal is empathy?
The article seems to miss the point many times.
I think a useful definition of empathy describes it as the ability to feel what another person is feeling.
It for example says: “With social relations expanding beyond the circle of close kin, kinship obligations were no longer enough to ensure mutual assistance and stop free riding. There was thus selection for pro-social behavior, i.e., a spontaneous willingness to help not only kin but also non-kin.”
Group selection is not a well accepted phenomena. Especially for a short timeframe of 10,000 years.
Furthermore the author shies away from going outright to the logical conclusions. If the author thinks that those people in towns evolved to have more empathy, that basically means that Black people have less empathy than white people. Is that what the author is arguing? That’s certainly an interesting claim.
The author doesn’t seem to be aware of the tradeoff between dominance and empathy. More testosterone equals more dominance and makes people less empathic. Given differences in penis size and some studies, Blacks might have higher testosterone than Whites. Of course that’s a highly controversial debate.
I don’t think it’s arguing for group selection, more as empathy as an adaption for understanding the mental states of other people so that you could better navigate reciprocal social obligations. So long as effective mechanisms existed to punish free riders, it would be a beneficial adaption.
I think.
Then why use the word “selection”?
Because it was selected?
What kind of process do you mean with selection if you don’t mean group selection?
Regular old natural selection? Behaving socially benefitted the individual. Doing things for other people didn’t just help them—it got their help in return.
The argument the article made was that empathy reduces free riding. Engaging in free riding almost per definition doesn’t produce disadvantages for the individual who engages in free riding.
It does if others have adaptations for punishing free-riders, or for rewarding non-free-riders.
Punishing free-riders isn’t what I would consider under empathy. I would think that highly dominate people with a lot of testosterone will rather engage in punishing free-riders than empathic people.
I didn’t mean that an empathic person would be more likely to punish free-riders. I meant that an empathic person would be less likely to free ride, and thus be less likely to be punished (or more likely to be rewarded).
I dunno, I hear that oxytocin makes you nicer towards your in-group but less nice towards your out-group.
Would you predict that whites produce less oxytocin than blacks?
I have no idea.
… normal selection?