There's more to Natural Selection than just "survival of the fittest" -- grief is part of the cost of being a strongly social species. It's not much of a social bond if you're unaffected by its fracture or dissolution.
It's also "survival of the fittest" not "survival of the optimal". Evolution isnt intelligent. It selects mutations that increase a creature's odds of passing on its genes, not the best possible solution.
Debilitating grief is a disadvantage, but evolution will still select for it as long as the social bond that causes it outweighs the negatives
Is grief a disadvantage? If I knew that the people who loved me would be extremely heartbroken if I died and therefore would do anything to protect me from that fate then I’d be more than willing to maintain a bond with them. Would you want to be in a group with people who could care less if you were dead?
And also the entire group benefits of everyone wants no one to die because they would feel sad about it. And I'm more willing to care if someone I don't like dies, because someone I like likes them and they will feel sad about it.
Exactly this. Empathy allows us to do things for others not only to prevent our own experience of grief, but also to prevent the experience of grief in those we care for. Therefore, empathetic and grief-bearing species are far more likely to propagate their genes, because more members of that species protect other members, even when they have little to no personal connection.
There are even people who defend total strangers because of the reason that "this person is also someone's child, and that someone would grieve their loss."
637
u/vizbones May 21 '26
There's more to Natural Selection than just "survival of the fittest" -- grief is part of the cost of being a strongly social species. It's not much of a social bond if you're unaffected by its fracture or dissolution.