“Whoever wishes to teach us a truth let him not tell it to us (1) … let him place us in such a way that we may discover it ourselves” (2). Ortega y Gasset.

I have some truths to teach but I have not succeeded in getting some philosophers and other thinkers to see them. I am going to try to tell them now according to the advice of our eminent philosopher. (For my C.V. click on The Autor).

Some years ago, I had the intuition that human beings, like the rest of living beings, have the implicit priority purpose that our species survives. And the vital imperative to try to do so (*). Without prejudice to the fact that we humans may also have other transcendent purposes.

I justified this discovery by the behavior of all living beings. And specifically of those most similar to us: those of social and sexed species, that is to say, of biological species, according to Mayr’s definition (3). Composed and represented by their living organisms at each moment. (see Mayr if you wish).

I start from the fact that all known biological species try to reproduce iteratively through their organisms. With strategies adaptive to their environments according to their nature and circumstances.

From this common behavior it seems that it can be deduced that the objective pursued by all biological species is their survival, to endure in time, to survive. Even if, in order to do so, they must evolve into another or other species.

These ideas and their possible applications seemed to me very important and I was surprised that they were not already said and used. And I have seen that many wise thinkers and scientists counted on them, but they did so without making them explicit or considering the importance of using them as a basis for other hypotheses.

Lately I have seen them explicitly corroborated for living beings and animals by two biologists: Jacques Monod (4) and Natalia López-Moratalla (5). I suppose they are based on their expertise in molecular and cellular biology and biochemistry. (See Monod).

For my part, my hypotheses about the survival of our species as a basic objective or purpose and the vital imperative as a priority duty, I deduced them by analogy of human beings with the rest of living beings. And of our species with the rest of the known biological species.

Hypotheses that are permanently confirmed by the behavior of our species, common with that of the rest of species, consisting of living and reproducing iteratively. And so far with great success in achieving the goal of survival, since Homo sapiens has become a numerous and dominant species.

My final “truth” is that if the objective or purpose of our species is to survive, and if, like all other living beings, we have an implicit vital imperative to try to do so, for the purposes of our individual and group behavior: whatever is good/better for the achievement of the basic objective, i.e. for the survival of our species, will be good/better.

This idea, being a common law of behavior and applicable to all men of all times, is the basis of the universal ethical principle that is perennially operating implicitly. But it seems that it must be made explicit, assumed and used, so that it can be the basis of the partial ethics of the different human groups and collectives.

This “truth” is complemented by that of broad altruism as the main means adopted by our species to try to achieve the basic objective. (6) The term altruism also raises doubts. (See Summary)

These two truths and the universal ethical principle have important and urgent theoretical and practical utilities and applications. (6) and (See Tasks, utilities and applications).

My request to philosophers and thinkers is that, without prejudice and to the best of their knowledge, they try to “see” my truths and spread them. I hope you find this work useful. I remain at your disposal and will appreciate your comments at jcorrallope@gmail.com

In my Web you will find the books, and abundant information, which you can see in the index of the cover page. At https://supervivenciayaltruismo.org/en/

José Corral. May 24, 2021

(*) The term species is polysemic and gives rise to many doubts. For our idea it means the whole taxon and the actual populations, groups and individual organisms that compose it at any given time.

Texts cited

(1) Ortega y Gasset. Meditaciones del Quijote. Obras completas. Volume I Madrid, Revista de Occidente 1963. Pg.335
(2) Id. Id. p. 336.
(3) Ernst Mayr. Así es la biología. Barcelona. Penguin 2016, p. 147
(4) Jacques Monod: El azar y la necesidad. Barcelona. Seuil. 2016, 26-27
(5) Natalia López Moratalla. Cuestiones acerca de la evolución humana. Pamplona. EUNSA,2008 p. 53. And in Inteligencia artificial. Madrid. Digital Reasons 2017, p.50
(6) José Corral. Survival and altruism. A universal principle of ethics. Madrid. Letras de Autor, 2016. ps 43 to 58 and 79 to 117.