Are Humans Inherently Evil?
9. No: Cooperation As An Evolutionary Advantage
THAT SAID, it's pretty likely that we wouldn't have gotten to where we are today just through selfishness and competition - natural selection also favours those who work together. Humans are highly social creatures and we are specially adapted for cooperation, because when we were evolving, it is what helped us to thrive.
This "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" attitude is basically the positive side of the "I won't murder you if you don't murder me" agreement that we discussed earlier. This propensity for altruism may not just be a cynical tactic to get other people to do what you want, but rather a hard-wired instinct that has been bred into us by natural selection.
The groups that work together are more likely to survive, and are therefore able to have lots of lovely, altruistic babies and so the cycle continues. Selflessness is in your blood.
This does, of course, mean that if you ever hold the door open for someone, or buy a homeless guy a coffee, you're just bowing to the pressures of your genes and aren't actually a good person or anything.
Just kidding, keep doing what you do.