Year: 2024 | Month: June | Volume 13 | Issue 2
The Empathetic Eve: A Neurophilosophical Origin Story of Compassion
Curt Anderson
DOI:10.46852/2249-6637.02.2024.5
Abstract:
Compassion is an evolutionary, moral force that is a necessary output of vertebrate evolution and that vertebrates, including
humans, exhibit it as a result of suffering for oneself and others. It predates the Anthropocene, and is engrained in the emergent
properties of the vertebrate brain, particularly through the evolution of the oxytocin pathway in the mesolimbic system. I suggest it
can be cultivated and enhanced but is entrenched in our genetics and epigenetics as a response to help relieve suffering from oneself
and others. Here, I present an origin story for the role of compassion across all species.
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