Dawkins’ catchy phrase, “the selfish gene,” hints that even altruistic behavior is explained by genetic self-interest. One is kinder to kin, to those of one’s kind. Yet, genetic theory alone does not explain human behavior. One also learns to like those perceived as like oneself.

Whatever the grouping—from family to nation state—people are motivated to uphold the changing interests of their kind against those of outsiders. This made sense for small tribes competing for ecological space. Translated into competing national identities, it results in world wars and ethnocides. For a theoretically united humanity, for whom there are no outsiders, it makes common sense to be kind to everyone—a Christian ideal.

Of course, the ideal is never the reality. While legal institutions and human rights evolve toward global community, economic institutions evolve toward further class extremes. Genes and religion still dominate reason. (Why did capitalism arise specifically in Christian Europe?) Western modernity is still permeated with patriarchal gender tensions. Yet, our very individualism attests to free will. Free even from the morals of the group, we are thus ultimately isolated from any absolute source of guidance. While there are good social arguments for being well disposed to one’s fellows, these seem contingent on changing circumstance, prevailing ethos, and personal sympathies. A deeper commonality might be the ephemeral human condition: “We are such stuff as dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.”

The hourglass empties even for those now setting forth in life. Sickness and death, physical and emotional suffering, are built in to the price of admission, prerequisites for the momentary joys and satisfactions we may find. The pathos of our common lot makes one reluctant to add to the burden others already bear in their tacit contract with biology. While that doesn’t necessarily improve behavior, it does give pause. Conflict may be inevitable, but it always bears the stain of moral failure and remorse.

The limiting view and self-interest involved in pitting one’s will against others’ renders us pathetic by definition. Opposing aims are vain to start with. The sad stories and histories that drive us, and drive us apart, and which we project onto others, merely testify to our fundamental conditioning as products of natural and personal history, creatures of habit, fumbling with free will. That we are meat machines is the insulting truth that bad behavior rubs in our faces. The only way to prove one’s dignity is to actually exercise that free will in spite of that conditioning.

Are we mini-gods or dinosaurs mired in biology? No dignity is found in rotting flesh. The only consolation is the slack we cut ourselves and each other, simply flaunting the worth of consciousness under the very nose of mortality, asserting dignity against all odds. Respect for others rubs off on self. Acknowledging the fit and value of other pieces of the puzzle supports and helps complete one’s own larger picture and contribution. Seeing through to the core of what they too face, one recognizes the same hapless voyager, in a sinking lifeboat from the start. What can we achieve in this ark, this crusading armada of marvels and horrors? All culture attempts a beachhead outside the bounds of time and matter, to war against the finality of flesh. Yet even the dust that makes the stars eventually returns to space. If all ends in ash, why not at least be kind in the brief moment along the way? It may be the only original act.