Are We Innately Selfish? What the Science Has to Say

While intra-species cooperation is not a uniquely human ability, one of the reasons why our cooperative behavior is so different from that of other animals is because of our willingness to cooperate with those outside our social group.¹ In general, we readily trust strangers for advice, work together with new people, and are willing to look out for and protect people we don’t know—even though there are no incentives for us to do so.

However, while much of our success can be attributed to cooperation, the underlying motivations behind this unique ability are yet to be understood. Although it is clear that we often display cooperative and pro-social tendencies, is cooperation something that we are naturally hardwired to do? Or is it that our first instincts are inherently selfish, and it is only through the conscious repression of our selfish urges that we are able to cooperate with others?

Indeed, these questions have been debated by philosophers for millennia. For the longest time, the pervasive view was one of pessimism towards our species—that is, that we are innately selfish.

Plato compared the human soul to a chariot being pulled by two opposing horses: one horse is majestic, representing our nobility and our pure heartedness, while the other is evil, representing our passions and base desires. Human behavior can be described as an eternal tug-of-war between these two horses, where we desperately try to keep our evil horse under control.²

The moral philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer argued for a similar perspective, writing that “Man is at bottom a dreadful wild animal. We know this wild animal only in the tamed state called civilization and we are therefore shocked by occasional outbreaks of its true nature; but if and when the bolts and bars of the legal order once fall apart and anarchy supervenes it reveals itself for what it is.”³

Adam Smith, the father of economics, also echoed this view, famously writing in The Wealth of Nations: “It is not the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”⁴

These philosophical beliefs about our selfish human nature inspired many of the teachings we encounter in everyday life. For instance, in Christianity, the Seven Deadly Sins and The Golden Rule teach us to repress our innermost selfish desires in order to think about others. Another example is in economics, where the very foundation of neoclassical economics is the idea that we are selfish, rational decision-makers.

You may be inclined to agree with these ideas. Everyone has heard of stories of cheating, lying, and stealing—all of which display the worst of our human nature, where our selfish impulses reveal themselves.

But despite the legacy of these beliefs carrying on into modern times, the idea of our innate selfishness is being increasingly challenged. Insights from the behavioral sciences are beginning to suggest that we have a cooperative instinct, and that our selfish behavior only emerges when we have the time and ability to form strategies about our decisions.