We are
machines programmed by our genes to reproduce them. Our ability to feel good or
bad is equally programmed by our genes. We will feel good when we behave in the
way that would have promoted our genes reproduction in our evolutionary
history. I can’t conceive of a more logical choice for such a machine than to
try to feel good as much as possible for the longer part possible of its
lifespan.
That’s certainly what all animals do, including us. We know however
that humans can come up with a large variety of strategies to achieve this goal
and that these strategies are not all equally valid. The best guide I can come
with for a human is: what course of actions would make the highest contribution
to your happiness integrated over your lifespan.
This technically selfish morality
does not necessarily translate into asocial behaviors.
Since we are social
animals, our happiness directly depends on the quality of our relationship with
others.
Which “others” will have the highest influence on your happiness? 1) your
kin and 2) your peers. Our natural empathy for our kin, naturally extends to
our peers (because in our evolutionary past, your peers were usually exactly
the same as your kin). So your happiness will at least depend on your
relationships with your kin and your peers.
Now, in our multimedia society, our
empathy also gets triggered by other stimuli. For instance, we see suffering
people on TV and we feel off course bad (in our evolutionary past, this would
have been adaptive). A problem with that, is that your power to do good is
not great enough to erase these sad pictures of suffering people from your TV.
Hence, whatever you do to help them, you will not increase your happiness a
bit. Indeed, there will still always be sad pictures on your screens and the
people you helped not being your peers (you have no interaction with them), the
quality of your relationship with them will not improve (since there is no
relationship to speak of).
Our empathy also extends to anthropomorphic animals.
Examples of such animals are those we artificially selected to increase their
compatibility with us (dogs, cats, horses,…) as well as baby animals which look
similar to baby human (big eyes…). This is a side effect of our natural ability
to feel empathy for kin and peers. This side effect is not necessarily
contra-productive with respect to happiness. The way you treat your dog/horse
will have an impact on your actually existing relationship with him. This side
effect might however also be contra-productive with respect to happiness once
it extends to all animals, despite the fact that you have no relationship with
them. This for the same reasons as discussed above for humans on TV.
The question “which others” requires another
answer as above if you become a public person. Since you are known from
everybody you better not do things that would have a negative impact on your
relationship with everybody. By the way, this includes rat lovers, so you
better not do things that would harm rats either. If you are a politician, it
is even worse because your impact on others is much larger. In that case, you
must be even more careful with the “others” at large (at least within the
circle where you are known/active).
