Higher Cooperation

Every living thing is imbued with an elemental drive to survive and to procreate. This is fundamentally a selfish urge. All Earth’s creatures act in their own self-interest, in order to live and to succeed in the struggle to send their genes into the future. But if we go overboard in our selfishness, we’d end up the lone survivor on an isolated island, unable to reproduce at all. So our self-interest must somehow be checked in favor of the wider interest of the survival of the species. We all innately know that we must cooperate at some higher level.

Even plants are able control their selfish urges. Recent research shows that the fierce competition between plants for light and nutrients (think weeds in the garden) is not wholly unbridled. Clever experiments have shown that a plant will send out its roots and leaves as fast and as far as it can, trying to get the jump on its competitors. If others of its own species surround a plant, however, it will check its growth, so as not to be a threat to them. Its root system will be limited—giving adjacent same-species plants an opportunity to flourish and to propagate the species. Even plants cooperate at a higher level.

Plants and animals behave this way because an evolutionary process drives them to do so. They can’t “think” about cooperation or competition; evolution has simply infused them with the appropriate “wisdom.” Even cognizant animals (such as Homo sapiens) are often not aware of the consequences or meaning of our actions that promote cooperation—we just do it. (Creatures who were possessed of an unlimited selfishness died out long ago—maybe when they found themselves all alone on that island, with no potential mates.)

But we humans are able to be aware of the consequences of what we do—of the impact of our actions. It’s something that separates us from most other animals. We can look back at what we did and connect the dots. This is a way for morals to enter the picture, when we come to understand the benefits of certain positive behaviors. Morals can give us good reasons to check our self-interest, if we choose to heed them.

And we can also understand—unlike plants and animals—that what we do impacts not only nearby but distant beings as well. We can come to appreciate the exquisite balance and interconnections between all creatures. We can come to revere the many facets of this wonderful creation. Yet, too often we seem to act selfishly, even to the point of harming ourselves and other species—despite our capacity to be moral animals and cooperate at a higher level. Can we learn to act as wisely as plants and animals?