I tried to consider the evolutionary background of human instincts. All the traits appear to work well for hunter-gatherer tribes. Communal hunting and defense have advantages over a lone hunter. Compassion and nurturing, in a group setting, increases the chances of survival for future generations. Aggression and greed can help a tribe increase or defend territory. However, in a tribal setting members had to get along. Too much aggression and greed and one would not get along with the tribe. If bad enough, the offending person would be shunned and forced to live on his own with a diminished survival potential. This all fits nicely in an instinctual framework.
Daniel Quinn, with his Ishmael books, gave me some guidance. He attributed many changes in human behavior to the advent of agriculture. Agriculture allowed societies to change from hunter-gatherer tribes to city dwellers with rulers and armies. Intensive agriculture started ten or fifteen thousand years ago. Compare that timeframe with the one or two million years that humans and their close ancestors evolved their "instincts."
In the millennia of agriculture all the tribal instincts remained, but aggression and greed were allowed to flourish instead of being kept in check. Kings, emperors religious fanatics and plutocrats, are usually the most ruthless in any society and many people today think that is the way it should be. In many cases the psychopaths, instead of being shunned, have risen to the top. In some social groups, that is even touted as an Ayn Rand ideal.
Few can deny that it was through the use of agriculture and fossil fuel that the human population exploded. If it were locusts devouring resources like this, the situation would be called an infestation. Infestations, though, are usually self-limiting; once the overpopulating creatures eat the readily available food supply they die back. In the case of humans things have gone a bit further; there are the problems of nuclear weapons, climate change and a buildup of a toxic stew of pollution in all of the earth's air, water and land. It is hard to read a day's worth of news without seeing the word Armageddon.
If humans were rational animals, they could get out of this. The problems are well known, and the solutions fairly simple, but humans are not acting like rational animals. They shout and wave their hands but, as a whole, they are digging an ever-deeper hole. Even National Geographic, in an article titled "The War on Science," got one thing right with the statement, "Science appeals to our rational brains, but our beliefs are motivated largely by emotions, and the biggest motivation is remaining tight with our peers." The rest of the article cherry-picks corporate pseudo science and ignores peer reviewed science that goes contrary to NG's corporate sponsors. The article itself is part of the war on science, which is a great example of how the ruthless can manipulate human instincts.
Validation of Hypothesis
My research into the relationship between instinct and reason led me to read some of the works by two of the pioneers of propaganda, Walter Lippmann and Edward Bernays. They, in turn quote Wilfred Trotter, Gustav Le Bon, William McDougall and Graham Wallas. Early in Bernays' book, Crystallizing Public Opinion, he says "The mental equipment of the average individual consists of a mass of judgments on most of the subjects that touch his daily physical or mental life.
These judgments are the tools of his daily being and yet they are his judgments not on a basis of research and logical deduction. For the most part they are dogmatic expressions accepted on the authority of his parents, his teachers, and his church, as well as of the leaders of his social, economic and other circles. Later Bernays quotes Trotter's description of herd instincts:
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