General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Is compassion required to be a human being? [View all]Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)That is, it's innate, but expressed only towards your own kind "normally." The tricky part is where hte borders of "your own kind" lie. Most other animals that display altruism have a broad variety of it - vampire bats will share meals with any other bat in the colony, which cna be hundreds and hundreds of bats, while most canines keep their altruism to the immediate family - and are prone to kicking out ivergent-looking members of the family (melanistic wolves, for example) - there are also many cases of this trend being broken, though mainly from captivity ("animal odd couples," basically)
Humans are a social animal, evolved from social animals. we're innately altruistic. But like any other animal we come with "programming" (if you will) that can turn this altruism on or off, depending on circumstances like who would be on the receiving end of the altruism.
So humans are altruistic... but most of us still eat other animals. Humans are altruistivc, but there are still no shortage of bigots. Humans are altruistic, but selfishness is still rampant.
Sociopathy is the inability to feel compassion or empathy, it's where something is missing, whatever genes or brain structures are involved are different. Greed and hate however, are developed behaviors, which is something else wholly - thus a person can be a loving spuse and excellent parent to their children... and still think that lighting a cross on someone's front lawn is a good idea.