The Evolution of Psychology (Thoughts on Pinker's interview)

How did reciprocal altruism evolve? Why? Is there an inherent selfish agenda present in the nature of humanity? What are our motivations and why is the mind incapable of fully understanding them? If we do consider that humans are naturally self-serving beings and that even the reason behind universals such as The Golden Rule (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you) are appreciated because we want good for ourselves and not because we naturally want to do good for others, does that lead to cynicism of human nature? Does it lead us to be more accepting of betrayal, infidelity and dishonesty because if these things have a natural basis then maybe they are ok? Just because we can do something does not mean that we should. The view of altruism as an effect of evolution makes sense: Individuals evolve to become the type of person people would trust, love and engage with, therefore securing some degree of survival. There is a logical basis to morality in that it is beneficial to all who support it and promote it in their lifestyle, perhaps this is why religion is so successful. At heart, religions mostly promote morality and the improvement of the human spirit, they just tend to get garbled with a lot of superficial details that cause conflicts between “competing” faiths.

If we can become aware of our underlying motivations, as evolutionary psychology encourages us to do then perhaps we can prevail over our natural tendencies toward selfishness and aggression. Even the founding fathers seemed to have an awareness of the natural state of human nature, they created checks on themselves so they would not become overrun with tyranny.
It seems that we naturally treat our family and neighbors well, the idea is that (hopefully) evolution is progressing in the direction of treating all people well, and even all animals well. There has been tremendous progress in the notion that “all men are created equal” over the past 1000 years, hopefully at some point in time we will stop viewing animals as a lesser species and instead just learn to view them as a different species, still deserving of some consideration of decency.