Evolutionary Altruism and Psychological Egoism

Abstract

This chapter focuses on evolutionary altruism and the thesis of psychological egoism. Evolutionary altruism is a historical concept. If a trait is an example of evolutionary altruism, this implies something about how it could have come into existence. When groups compete against groups, psychological altruism can evolve as a group adaptation. The trait exists because it is advantageous to the group, even though it is disadvantageous to the individuals possessing it. The chapter examines the ways in which evolutionary altruism and psychological altruism are related. Altruism can evolve by group selection. It is essential that groups vary with respect to their local frequencies of altruism. The chapter also analyzes the difference between psychological egoism and psychological altruism. It assumes a distinction between self-directed and other-directed preferences. The self-directed involves preferences about what happens to one's self; the other-directed concerns preferences about what happens to others. This distinction is not entirely unproblematic because many preferences appear to be inherently relational.