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
Compassion for humans is a survival trait
Having compassion for our children, family, and friends is what allows us to operate in family groups. Humans don’t survive long alone, we thrive as a species because we are able to work together and care for each other when injured and sick.
We don’t abandon each other to the weather when we are sick and injured.
Our compassion also extends to animals likely because we are hardwired to feel that way, after all we treat pets as if they are our children, feed them and care for them.
This is what likely lead us to domestication animals like dogs, and cows in the first place.
Where this ends is when we are hungry. We are perfectly capable of killing one of the animals under our care to eat them.
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