Welcome to Econ Talk, part of the Library of Economics and Liberty.

I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

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Today is January 7th, 2021, and my guest is author and psychologist, Michael McCullough,

the University of California, San Diego.

His latest book in the subject of today's conversation is The Kindness of Strangers,

How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code.

Michael, welcome to Econ Talk.

Thanks for having me, Russ.

I've really been looking forward to this for a while, so thanks for having me.

The fundamental question of this book is, why do we help strangers?

Why do we care about the poor when they're not related to us?

Your book starts with an exploration of the evolutionary possibilities for that phenomenon.

The fact that your subtitle says How a Selfish Ape Invented a New Moral Code suggests

that that approach is not going to be entirely successful.

But why don't you start by talking about the evidence that there might be a genetic basis

for our an evolutionary natural selection basis for our compassion?

Sure.

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