Does ‘The Traitors’ prove we’re all secretly selfish, evil people?

For decades, Alan Carr has been one of British TV’s most unfailingly friendly faces. He’s carved out his niche thanks to a persona modelled on your best friend after a few chardonnays; fun and occasionally rude, but always deeply, resolutely kind. Which is precisely why his maniacal turn on Celebrity Traitors was such a headline-grabbing event.  

The highly successful reality show is essentially a glorified game of heads down thumbs up: out of a group of contestants, a select few are secretly designated as “the traitors”, able to dispatch other contestants. The non-traitors must work together to identify the bad apples in their midst – if they do, then they walk home with prize money. If they don’t, then the traitors win. 

Almost as soon as he discovered he was a traitor, Carr went to work dispatching his other contestants with a single-minded intent. In an early shocking moment, he even booted off his real-life good mate Paloma Faith, the speed and severity with which he went about his work rivalled only by his masterful manipulation of those around him. Time and time again, he actively leveraged his kindly persona, playing up his inherent trustworthiness. And in the face of accusations, he pleaded his innocence.  

It worked. Carr ended up walking away with the biggest haul of the season – but not without breaking down in tears, a sudden flash of guilt overwhelming him. 

Which begs the question: does self-interested behaviour actually benefit the self? And moreover, is it really true that when given the slightest motivation for unethical action, most of us would sell out, and “murder” our best mate? 

The social contract and the state of nature

The question of what incentive people have to remain ethical is oft-debated in the annals of philosophy. One answer, provided by the theorist Jean-Jacques Rousseau, is based on the perceived inherent nastiness at the heart of human beings. According to Rousseau, we organise ourselves into societies where we all agree not to harm or steal from one another, in order to avoid what he called “the state of nature.” 

According to Rousseau, the state of nature is a fundamentally lawless societal structure, where individuals do what they want, when they want: this, he says, is how it goes in the natural world, where birds steal each other’s eggs, and lions tear sick zebras limb from limb. There’s total freedom in the state of nature, sure, but it’s not particularly pleasant.  

The social contract is a means, therefore, of playing to people’s self-preservation drive, rather than their compassion for their fellow human beings. In the social contract, we all collectively agree not to harm or steal from the other, but only because we want to ensure a world where they don’t harm or steal from us. On this picture of human nature, we’re all chomping at the bit to go full Alan Carr, and betray those around us for our own good – but we don’t, simply in order to avoid getting Alan Carr’d by someone else. 

One second away from nastiness

This belief in our fundamentally selfish nature was reinforced throughout the post-war period, where a number of psychological studies aimed to prove that human beings will unleash unkindness with only the lightest of pressures. The most famous such study was the Stanford Prison Experiment, where a group of unassuming civilians were ordered to roleplay being either a jailor or an inmate. Quickly, the jailors went mad with power, escalating the roleplay to such a dangerous level that the whole experiment had to be aborted.  

The Stanford Prison Experiment was precisely so shocking because the jailors didn’t even have a pot of gold waiting for them at the end of the experiment: they appeared to wield their power for no other reason than they enjoyed it.  

A similar conclusion was reached with the Milgram experiment. In that trial, a group of random civilians were ever-so-gently pressured into delivering what they believed were fatal electric shocks to other civilians that were getting answers in a test wrong (the whole thing was actually a set-up; no-one was harmed). Almost all of them went along with the proceedings happily. 

Take these conclusions, and the likes of Alan Carr don’t seem as much like the exception to the rule, but the rule itself. 

The better angels of our nature

But should we accept these conclusions? For a start, it’s worth noting that participants in the Stanford Prison Experiment were explicitly instructed to behave badly: it wasn’t something that they came up with by themselves. And in the face of Rousseau’s fundamentally lonely and cruel picture of humanity, let’s consider our extraordinary capacity for empathy. 

Because here’s the thing: while we do have evidence that people can be led away from their fundamental values by either money or pressure from an authority figure, a la the Milgram experiment, we also have a great deal of evidence that most people feel an automatic, unthinking empathy towards their fellow human beings. Even Philip Zimbardo, one of the key architects of the Stanford Prison Experiment, advanced the theory of “the banality of heroism”. According to such a view, we all have unbelievable reserves of courage and fellow-feeling within us – heroic acts aren’t, actually, outside of the norm, but something that we’re all capable of. 

It is worth noting, after all, that people who are led to act in a self-interested way are exactly that: led astray. Without intervention, people have a fundamentally collective view of humanity. Sure, we can be manipulated. But we all have a natural, unthinking goodness.

Which might then explain Alan Carr’s tears at the end of the traitors. While it’s true he was incentivised to behave “badly”, he knew that it was bad. And in an era where individualism and egomania is being pushed down our throats more than ever, we should remember that within us lies a strong sense of right and wrong, and a deep reserve of concern for our fellow human beings – Rousseau be damned.