The Key Lies In The Advantages Of Group Cooperation

The key lies in the advantages of cooperation. Groups can take advantage of specialization and of economies of scale, which provide advantages is securing food, providing protection, and so on. The basic tension is that the ultimate cause, to pass on our genes, is basically selfish. The only rational reason to form a group beyond our kin is that it provides an advantage to each individual that he or she would not have alone. Once an extra-familial group is formed, the problem is that while the group as a whole would better off if everyone cooperated, there an incentive for the individual to free ride, cheat, and defect in various ways. For example, a band of hunters may discover it easier to hunt woolly mammoth as a group. Once an individual is face to face with the tusks of the mammoth, he might decide it is better for him to fall back and let the others do the hard, dangerous work since he knows he’ll enjoy the spoils either way. If enough people make this calculation, no one eats that night. Worse still, if one individual realizes how easy it would be for him to simply wait until everyone is asleep and rob them blind, then group trust quickly dissolves, leaving them in a Hobbesian state of nature.

Not only are deviants and bullies forcibly taken out of the gene pool in this way, groups that succeed in promoting group cooperation outcompete lesser groups. Individuals that felt empathy, shame, pride, who were loyal, and who observed the group’s dictates reaped the benefits of group life and thus passed on more of their genes. Through millions of years of evolution, we’re left with moral instincts that preserve group