[Laneco]

Compassion is hard wired.

There are alot of obvious examples that certain people lack this wiring, but in the range of "normal" humans, this is hard wired. The first domestic animals were probably orphaned youngsters that humans adopted. Pretty tough to tame an adult wolf, but very easy to raise a pup. Those born-wild but nurtered by early humans creatures wound up being cats, dogs, horses, etc.

The compassion thing is why humans took care of sick, elderly, and children. Very early evidence of such compassionate care in the remains of early humans. Severely injured people survived. No way to do that without compassionate care.

Compassion served the purpose of helping our species survive. The long time to raise our young, our relatively long life spans (compared to other animals), and our basic frailty, and our slow reproduction rate, required something extra for us to survive. We had to take care of each other for our whole life, not just the early part of it.

angela