Before proceeding let me clarify that I am advocating for neither selfishness nor altruism as a moral code. This is merely an attempt to logically answer which trait is more practically viable without treading into the subjective area of morality.
Let me also define these words here, as this distinction is pivotal for arriving at the solution
Selfishness: Quality of being concerned for one’s own welfare with disregard for other’s welfare
Example: If a bear chases you and your friend, and you run as fast as you can without any concern for your friend’s speed/chance of survival, that is you being selfish.
Altruism: Quality of being concerned for other’s welfare at a risk/ cost to one’s own welfare.
Example: In the same chase, if you try and carry/ pull along your fat and slow friend, despite being aware of your reduced speed/ chance of survival, you are being altruistic.
We are born selfish!
Well, if you are someone who strongly believes that man/woman just jumped out of the sky onto this flat earth (sarcasm intended :P), then you can go ahead and skip this whole section. I say so, because I intend to base my justification on scientifically proven Darwin’s Evolution theory (‘Theory’ doesn’t mean the same in colloquial and scientific context)
Let me simplify evolution and natural selection, so that it’s relevant to the topic here: We live in an environment. Those who are well adapted favorably to the environment is more likely to survive than those who aren’t. This means that genes, which has those favorable traits will be passed along to next generation, while incompetent genes will perish soon. This passed on genes will further mutate and adapt itself better based on its prior experience.
Imagine a bunch of brilliant software engineers, who have spent more on an ergonomic chair than average annual salary in a third world country. Now, let’s time transport 100s of them back to 2 millions years ago, when we were hunter-gatherers. We can safely assume that they might be unfit to either hunt/ collect their food, thus they wouldn’t get to mate before they die of hunger/get hunted. Thus, our software engineer’s genes wouldn’t get to witness the progress of humanity from there. Software engineers gone extinct, until they resurrect back in our current era due to evolution.
Our genes are smart enough to know the environment and mutate itself to keep surviving even at the cost of other species/organisms. The purpose of our biological/physical existence (which is made by the information stored in your genes) is just to propagate our genes further, just as our ancestors have done. Please note that I didn’t mean your conscious existence or your choice to have/not have kids. Your physical body is totally unaware of your choices/ consciousness. To rephrase, you are physically made the way you are because your genes wants to replicate itself further.
If you haven’t already, I would greatly recommend to read this gem of a book named ‘The Selfish Gene’ by Richard Dawkins.
“We are survival machines-robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes” — Richard Dawkins
If we were to remove our consciousness, then we are nothing but selfish molecules floating around. Thus yes, we are born selfish. A new born baby is more selfish than the most selfish, self-centered adult you can imagine (let that sink in). Since we are born selfish, it’s the responsibility of our parents, their upbringing and our unique experiences to teach us to be generous and cooperative.
Altruism won’t work
Altruism is where you benefit someone else at your expense. Though this might sound natural, it’s not
Donating enough money to charity, so that you have to down your standard of living- If this doesn’t sound practical to you, then altruism isn’t practical too.
Working in a team, where you need to work on a project all by yourself compensating for the incompetent/lazy slackers, but the reward is equally distributed- If this doesn’t sound practical to you, then altruism isn’t practical too.
Logically, true altruistic genes, if they ever exist, would go extinct almost immediately. Whenever they try to do increase the survival odds for any recipient, they are reducing their odds for survival.
Who will live longer and end up with healthy kids? Person A, who works 80 hours a week for all his life or Person B, who works 20 hours a week for the same pay as A?
Cooperation/ mutualism is the answer
Without a doubt, selfish traits of our genes have preserved our genes so far. However, almost every species is as selfish as we are. Then how did we, a physically weak species, reach the top of food chain? - We have developed consciousness, invented money, created nations (and religions), drafted laws, built corporations, because we figured out that large-scale cooperation and team work is much more efficient than a solo fight against the vagaries of our nature.
Now, when we are part of this team (state, nation, religion, race, organization, humanity), we are still selfish, as it’s for our own good we are cooperating.
Apparently , altruism is never going to work out for a species, where all of its members aren’t equally competent. We can also clearly see that selfishness has already evolved from 'I' to 'we’.
We are born selfish, but the selfishness need not be contained to just self.
