Reply #33: Isn't "survival of the fittest" an ultimately selfish system?

[Jim__]

And, if it is, does that make it wrong?

Simply stated, "survival of the fittest" tells me to have children with as many women as I can. How to implement that command, of course, is not so simple. If I rape women, other people in the society may kill me. So, the message of society, the message of group living, is the same as the religious message. Follow the rules, or suffer punishment. Rules and punishment are necessary for social living. You can believe in the honesty of people who say they just want to help people and don't expect a reward, but it's difficult to prove that they're telling the truth, e.g. to an extremely empathetic person, watching someone else suffer presumably can be a form of personal suffering and aiding that person can be a form of relief. Religious people can, of course, make the same claim about helping other people just to help them.

It's quite possible that all of our "good" acts, supposedly altruistic acts, are really, ultimately, selfish.