From its beginnings in Ancient Greece，the Western intellectual tradition has had a decidedly individualistic orientation.This is true both in philosophy，especially in the analytic tradition of the Anglophone world，as well as in psychology since its birth as an academic discipline in the 19th century.
But things are beginning to change.In philosophy，an important new paradigm has emerged in the last few decades that attempts to characterize human shared （or collective） intentionality.Influential philosophers such as John Searle，Michael Bratman，and Margaret Gilbert have uncovered some of the many ways in which human activities that，on the surface，seem individualistic are in reality only possible because of the underlying social relationships and cultural conventions，norms，and institutions that support and structure them.The “deep structure” of uniquely human psychology is essentially social and cultural.
In psychology，the change is being instigated by evolutionary approaches.When looking at the evolution of the human species in comparison with that of its nearest primate relatives，it is clear that the most important differences derive from humans’unique forms of social interaction.In particular，humans seem to be much more inclined to engage in various kinds of cooperation，including unique forms of cooperative communication.This enables human groups to create all kinds of things collectively that no individual could create on its own.This applies most obviously to things such as computers and skyscrapers，but it also applies to more basic human competencies such as conventional linguistic communication and individual self-regulation via the society’s moral norms.
Why We Cooperate is based on my Tanner Lectures delivered at Stanford University in 2008.The argument here-formulated for a more general audience-is that in comparison with other primate species humans are inordinately cooperative.Young children seem to be cooperative from the beginning，and indeed adult socialization and training does not seem to have much effect.This is not to say that adult socialization is not important-it is-but only for older children；it does not create young children’s generally cooperative nature that shows up both when they go to some trouble to help others fulfill their goals，and also when they collaborate with one another to achieve common goals.Much of the research reviewed in this book illustrates the unique waysin which humans are adapted for cooperation.