Filial Piety, Longevity and the Start of Humanity

Sheng Hong ()
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Sheng Hong: The Research Fellow, Independent Scholar, Unirule Institute of Economics, Beijing, China

Man and the Economy, 2023, vol. 10, issue 1, 31-61

Abstract: When human ancestors preferred to eat less and did not want to abandon their old parents in the mountains, they did something that violated the previous natural laws; that is, after the task of giving birth and raising children, they should no longer waste valuable resources. However, this brought unexpected results. Older parents can take care of their grandchildren, making families with grandmothers have more children than families without grandmothers. Therefore, filial piety may be the main reason why human beings stand out from the apes. Doing things without utilitarian motives but that may have lasting utilitarian results and recognizing the relationship between the results and the behaviors) is an important characteristic of this kind of filial piety that occurs and persists. Culture is something that transcends today’s utilitarianism, is willing to pay for the value of emotion, aesthetics and morality, and, ultimately, has utilitarian results. This trait has always been accompanied by human development as a human cultural gene.

Keywords: filial piety; longevity; humanity; grandma effect; family (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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DOI: 10.1515/me-2024-2001

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