Podcast Summary

Conversations With Coleman — "The Evolution of Altruism" with Michael McCullough

Host: Coleman Hughes
Guest: Michael McCullough
Date: February 5, 2021

Overview

In this episode, Coleman Hughes is joined by Michael McCullough, Professor of Psychology at UC San Diego, to discuss the origins and development of altruism in humans. The conversation traverses evolutionary psychology, the "selfish gene" concept, and how historical, cultural, and economic changes have dramatically expanded human concern for strangers. The pair investigate the perceived controversy of evolutionary psychology, critique common explanations for societal kindness, and explore the rise of the welfare state and the golden rule in various cultures.

Key Discussion Points and Insights

Michael McCullough's Background and Early Research

• Background: McCullough started in counseling psychology, inspired by existential thinkers like Viktor Frankl. Initially focused on practical help for personal adjustment, he became fascinated by forgiveness through his advisor’s work.
• Forgiveness Research: The absence of serious research on forgiveness and reconciliation led him to focus on the psychology of moving past hostility, which segued into broader interests in prosocial behaviors like cooperation, altruism, and trust.
  • "I got more and more into the pro social side of human psychology. So studying forgiveness easily led me into an interest in cooperation and altruism." (04:53, McCullough)

What is Evolutionary Psychology? (06:02–11:43)

• Definition: Evolutionary psychology seeks to explain human behavior and cognition by considering the mind as composed of evolved, problem-solving mechanisms shaped by natural selection.
• Contrast with Other Psychology: Instead of treating the mind as a "black box," it’s reverse-engineered—analyzing how evolutionary pressures designed specific mental circuits.
  • "Evolutionary psychology, the way I think about it, is an insistence on not black boxing the mind... Instead, we want to assume that there are active tools in the head, computational mechanisms that natural selection designed to perform specific kinds of jobs." (07:19, McCullough)

The Controversy of Human Nature (11:43–13:15)

• Controversial Conclusions: Accepting evolutionary psychology requires accepting a version of "human nature" not infinitely malleable, thus challenging some political and social assumptions.
  • "...there’s nevertheless a conversation to be had about how we are programmed at birth that might put limits on... how you can expect human beings and therefore societies to turn out." (11:50, Coleman)

The Selfish Gene and Altruism (13:15–23:33)

• The Dawkins Revolution: Genes are "selfish" in that those best at replicating themselves become prevalent, but this doesn’t mean individuals are always selfish in behavior.
  • Genes can "build" instincts for caring for offspring, family, and those sharing similar genes, as spelled out by Hamilton’s work on kin selection.
  • "Almost as soon as you are an organism that produces young that require a lot of care, you're going to get unselfishness as a product of these selfish genes." (18:44, McCullough)
• Kin Selection: It’s evolutionary advantageous for individuals to help those who share their genes (e.g., siblings, offspring), explaining universal familial altruism.

Why Are We Kind to Strangers? Two Models (23:33–29:32)

• The Central Puzzle: Why would we be altruistic towards absolute strangers, like giving charity across the globe?

• Two Main Theories:

  1. Stranger Adaptationist Model: We evolved genuine, built-in concern for unrelated strangers because it would have paid off in ancestral environments.
  2. Blessed Mistake Model (Dawkins’ View): Our kindness towards strangers is an evolutionary byproduct: in the ancestral past, helping any nearby person usually meant helping kin or friends. In the modern world, this "help everyone" instinct overshoots, manifesting altruism toward strangers.
  • "[The Blessed Mistake Model] can motivate behavior under situations in which there's no hope of it fulfilling its end goal, which is to cause us to have, you know, to have offspring." (26:46, McCullough)

• McCullough’s Position: He finds both explanations insufficient and sets out to explore new frameworks for understanding kindness to strangers.

Critique: The "Just So Stories" Objection to Evolutionary Psychology (32:17–38:01)

• Common Criticism: Evolutionary psychology is accused of inventing unfalsifiable stories to explain behaviors (working backward from outcomes).
• Reply: McCullough concedes the critique fits some work but argues the field is maturing, with better hypotheses and an emphasis on making novel predictions.
• Concrete Example: Debra Lieberman’s studies show how children's perception of siblinghood correlates with years lived together, demonstrating predictive power rooted in evolutionary logic.
  • "That's a powerful prediction that no one has ever made, ever thought to make about how we come to care about our brothers and sisters. And there it is. First principles." (36:37, McCullough)

History of Kindness: From Family/Friends to Welfare State (38:01–53:01)

• Limits of Evolutionary Psychology: It’s good for explaining slow, species-wide change, but not rapid cultural shifts—like why Americans are kinder to strangers now than in 1750.
• The Evolution of Societal Kindness:
  • State of Nature: Pre-modern humans relied only on family, friends, and whatever resources they could store ("the state of nature is friends, family and fat").
  • Rise of Cities & Inequality: Agriculture and urbanization generated large numbers of unrelated people living together, making total indifference or hostility unsustainable; poverty became a collective social and economic problem.
• Legal and Moral Developments: Ancient legal codes began to address exploitation and suffering among strangers for practical reasons (public order, business, etc.).
  • "I see human history over about 10,000 years being a history of looking at second order problems... and asking how do we want to corporately cope with these second order problems?" (42:40, McCullough)

The Golden Rule and Axial Age (43:45–46:50)

• Convergent Moral Innovations: Versions of the Golden Rule appeared in several major civilizations within the same centuries, likely as a response to more crowded, interdependent societies and the horrors of large-scale war.
  • "It's the oddest thing... You see the notion of something like that which is evil to you, do not visit on others... popping up in Axial Age Judaism, Yellow Valley, Chinese religion and Indus Valley Indic religion." (44:31, McCullough)
• Shift to Compassion: For the first time, compassion becomes a central spiritual and societal value; prior, it was a novel and strange principle.

The Rise and Spread of the Welfare State (46:50–53:01)

• Key Historical Drivers: Ideas of distributive justice (rooted in thinkers like Rousseau, Kant, Adam Smith) and fundamental human dignity took hold over the 18th–19th centuries.
  • Policies shifted as people moved to cities, disconnecting from traditional safety nets (family), and governments recognized the value (including economic) of providing for the vulnerable.
• Rapid Diffusion: By the late 19th and early 20th centuries, countries across Europe instituted social insurance programs, which spread and expanded post-WWII, resulting in the massive social spending seen today.
  • "The welfare state starts with these basic social insurances... And following World War II... tax rates stayed very high for a long time... to continue to experiment with ways to Social Security and other things to try to keep people out of poverty." (50:36, McCullough)

Reconciling Evolutionary Limits and Societal Progress (53:01–58:52)

• The Paradox: Our evolved psychology limits empathy for strangers, yet societies have dramatically expanded altruistic policies.
  • "There’s just this casual level of selfishness and attention on ourselves that you point out in the book... And that's just baked into our psychology. There's really no fundamentally, there's no reinventing ourselves." (53:36, Coleman)
• What's Really Driving Societal Kindness:
  • Not so much empathy as reason, debate, and institutional incentives—recognizing social problems and reasoning collectively about solutions.
  • "I actually don't think empathy's done a whole lot of the work through history of bringing us to where we are now... What we've done is we've tried to find our incentives at the societal level." (54:40, McCullough)
• Argument and Reasoning: Institutional progress (welfare, human rights, foreign aid) results from vigorous reasoning, debate, and correction of bad ideas in groups, not primarily from expanding individual empathy.
  • "Only through vigorous reasoning and argumentation, I think, to make a dent in most of these social problems." (55:49, McCullough)
• Evolved Capacity for Reason: Our evolved ability to reason in groups is crucial for social progress.
  • "We talk a lot about the biases and myopias that humans have in their decision making... but a lot of those myopias and biases fall away when you have to argue your case among other people." (57:41, McCullough)

Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Evolutionary Psychology:
  • "Evolutionary psychology is just psychology. But what we try to do is take very seriously the fact that you don't get the mind for free." (09:08, McCullough)
• On the Selfish Gene:
  • "Genes can build care, they build concern, they create parental love... you're going to get unselfishness as a product of these selfish genes." (18:37, McCullough)
• On the Golden Rule:
  • "The idea that the essence of religion was compassion, like that would have sounded really weird prior to the axial age. But it starts, you know, now we, we hear it and it sounds just...second nature." (45:59, McCullough)
• On Institutional Kindness:
  • "Through argument, you can get rid of the bad arguments and hopefully leave the good ones standing." (58:36, McCullough)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• McCullough’s Background & Forgiveness Research: 02:29–06:02
• What is Evolutionary Psychology: 06:02–11:43
• Selfish Gene and Limits of Individual Selfishness: 13:15–23:33
• Kindness to Strangers Theories: 23:33–29:32
• Just So Stories Critique: 32:17–38:01
• History of Altruism and Social Spending: 38:01–53:01
• Golden Rule Across Civilizations: 43:45–46:50
• Welfare State and Modern Altruism: 46:50–53:01
• Reconciling Human Nature and Societal Progress: 53:01–58:52

Conclusion

McCullough skillfully covers the evolutionary roots of human kindness, the explosion of prosocial policies in modern societies, and the ongoing role of collective reasoning and institutional design. The episode emphasizes that while human beings are not naturally saintly, the march towards greater kindness to strangers is a product of rational debate and societal problem-solving, made possible by our capacity for collective reasoning—a capacity shaped by evolution but expressed and expanded through culture.

To Follow Michael McCullough:

• Twitter: @memculla
• Website/Blog: socialscienceevolving.com
• UCSD Department Profile

Book Mentioned:
The Kindness of Strangers by Michael McCullough