have a kindness and warmth about them may not be the most courageous and those who are
courageous may not be the kindest or warmest of individuals. Upholding moral behaviour and
working to create a more just world is clearly linked to compassion but the emotions here are again
complex – what is central though is motivation.
The link between the triggers for compassion and emotion are complex and context dependent. So
while we typically associate compassion with the emotion of loving kindness we must be cautious
not to over-identify the triggering of compassion motives and behaviour with these emotions
because sometimes it can be fear that generates compassionate action – such as running into the
burning house to save a child. It was with both sadness and anger at government procrastinations
that Sir Bob Geldof and Midge Ure developed Band Aid and Live Aid to raise money for the North
African famines3. However, again core to compassion is the fact that evolution has created styles
of relating where individuals have an interest in the well-being of others, are able to understand the
feelings and needs of others, and therefore how act to reduce distress and increase well-being.
Individuals who struggle with being able to think about, mentalise and theme tune with the feelings
of others can struggle with compassion even if they are compassionate and motivated. So threat
emotions can function as entry points to compassion – they signal the presence of suffering and
injustice and cue us to act.
Getting Smart
Most mammals will, of course, be enacting their motivational repertoires according to basic
emotional experiences and relatively basic cognitive processes. Human compassion, however,
utilises certain types of human competencies for thinking, imagining, having empathy for others
and so forth. For example, many animals will care for their young but with a few exceptions, caring
for the old, sick or non-kin individuals is rare. However, the fossil record shows that about one
million years ago, humans were surviving who had severe injuries and diseases and they could
only have done so if they had been looked after. Caring in human evolution suddenly explodes into
this capacity for understanding suffering, understanding what to do and extending caring to
humans who could not have made a contribution but who presumably were loved and valued
Compassion moves beyond basic caring.
When it comes to human regulation of motivation and emotion, evolution tells a very fascinating
story. About two million years ago, there were changes occurring in primates, such that they began
to become smart. We can trace the evolutionary stages of becoming smart in the fossil records. It
was a range of changes in things like the thickness of the skull that enabled brain growth, the
movement of the larynx that enabled speech and the massive expansion of the cortex15. Recent
work comparing chimpanzee and human DNA is discovering a range of genetic changes that seem
to have played role in giving us a
new type of brain
that can analyse and process information in
completely new ways to chimpanzees and other primates
What this means is that humans
now have brains that are capable of imagining, reasoning, anticipating and planning. We can run
simulations in our mind and be very active in problem solving, creativity and innovation, and
imagining what's going on in the minds of others. We have what Suddendorf & Whitten
call a
collating mind
, one capable of using symbols and integrating a phenomenal amount of information,
to derive insights into higher conceptual rules and processes. For example I can understand that
you understand that he doesn't understand what I'm saying. I can develop desires and then find
highly creative ways of fulfilling them. Humans can understand the link between sexuality and
reproduction and deliberately interfere with it with contraception. Equally, we can use this
intelligence for cruelty, for building weapons and to soak up the vast resources in the research
manufacturer and the selling of weapons.
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