When an animal sees a creature weaker than itself, it’ll take it as an oppurtunity to kill and eat said creature. However, when a human sees a creature weaker than itself, like lets say, a small animal dying of heatstroke on the road during a hot summer day, the human will often help the creature, despite having no benefit in doing so. Why is this? For literally every animal except herbivores, the natural instinct would push you to kill and consume said creature without a second thought, why are humans different? O**bviously I know this isn’t universally applicable**, hunters enjoy killing creatures that are defenseless, but MOST people, from my experience atleast, don’t feel any bloodlust or hunger or any instinctual push to kill when confronted with a weak creature that is struggling, but rather compassion.
In: Biology
Really cool question and I can’t wait to read from others who know more. my hunches for possible reasons though are we have used animals as tools for a very long time. So caring for animals could be helpful to our success as a species. And I wonder how much has to do with the other animals ability to express itself through facial emotions. I think the care for a sick dog on the road would be different than a bug struggling or a fish out of water.
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