Why Buddhism is True: The Science and Philosophy of Meditation and Enlightenment

by Robert Wright

From natural selection’s point of view, there’s no reason for people to give much weight to such a possibility—the possibility that niceness and goodness are largely situational, not dispositional, properties. After all, the essence model—the belief that each person has a generally good or a generally bad disposition—works pretty well. If someone is consistently nice to you, it makes sense to get into a relationship of reciprocal niceness—in other words, a friendship. And a belief that the person is essentially good does a fine job of drawing you into that friendship. What’s more, this belief will make it easy for you to go around saying that this person is good—which is handy, since speaking highly of a friend is part of the reciprocal altruism that constitutes friendship. Seeing essence-of-good in your friends lets you discharge this part of the deal effortlessly. It frees you from the nagging awareness that, for all you know, when you’re not around, your friends spend their time bilking elderly people. If, on the other hand, someone is consistently mean to you, then seeing essence-of-bad in him is what leads to optimally self-serving behavior on your part. Not only will you avoid doing favors that would probably go unreciprocated anyway; you’ll go around saying, with conviction, that he is a bad person. And it makes sense to say that your enemies are bad people, since the more you can do to undermine their stature, the less they’ll be in a position to hurt you.