animals besides apes have been seen to do this too, in limited conditions.
But again, we are talking about hunter-gather units of at most a score or so
of individuals. They had a personal relationship with each other in all
likelihood. In any event, we see precious little charity of this sort in our
world today at a tribal level. If you doubt this, I will recommend you read up
on a the potato famines in Ireland of 1845-52 where between 20-25% of the
population starved or emigrated while the elites of English and Irish still
exported food from Ireland for profit. Where was this supposed genetic
propensity to save our own tribe then? And there are many other examples,
far too many to list.
The real test of whether this is true is a simple one. Your neighbor loses her
job and is going to lose her house to the bank for non-payment of the
mortgage. How many people helped in this situation? Many people would
help their immediate family members, and perhaps some extended family
members and maybe a very few close friends, but not much beyond that.
That is the size of your “tribe.” How many people would you donate a kidney
to? I asked one atheist this, and he said, “anyone who needed it” so I
offered to drive him to the nearest hospital, since the waiting lists are years
long. He didn’t take me up on the offer.
Our dying girl, with wide imploring eyes and outstretched hands, is not part
of our tribe, and we would derive no benefit from helping her. She has no
money to pay us, and can offer us nothing in return for our charity. And as
for the perspective of supposedly having some inherited tendency to help
others, we know from history and our own societies that no such genetic
compunction exists. So, we would just pass by.
Second Argument: we should help her because it is the good thing to
do. There is a natural difference between good and evil founded on
the premise of treat others as you would wish to be treated – often
called the Golden Rule. Since we would want water were we in her
condition, we should give her water as that would be the good
outcome in this situation.
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