goodness_

I personally believe that there are many reasons why human beings are willing to help each other, but it is the combination of these reasons that make human beings willing to help one another. The reasons I shall discuss are altruism, and what people get in return for helping others, and the combination of both.

Firstly, I think that altruism or blood relation is one critical factor that helps us decide whether we help others. Most of us would agree if faced with a situation where two people are in danger and one of them is related to you, you would help the person related to you. This behavior is also evident in bees. Why do bees work so hard and sacrifice themselves? It is because of blood relations, and to ensure the survival of their own kind.

Secondly, another factor which affects us to decide whether we would help someone else is what we get in return. Why do people help beggars on the street who are unrelated to us? I personally feel that people have a mindset that goodness begets goodness and kindness begets kindness, something similar to karma. They help beggars on the street because they hope that the god above or fate will grant something good in return for their act of kindness.

However, I do not view points as factors on their own. I think that the combination of both these two factors helps us decide whether or not to help someone. This is proven in Hamilton’s Rule, which states that altruism evolves whenever Relationship times the benefit received would be more than the cost of the act of kindness. This has been proven in thousands of experiments in both nonhumans and humans alike.

Therefore, I believe that the combination of factors: altruism and what we get in return for an act of kindness helps us decide whether to help someone else.