On Human Altruism: The Discrepancy between Normative and Factual Conclusions

Abstract

Altruism is a successful meme in many human cultures, i.e. self-sacrifice in various forms is held in high regard. In philosophy, being is often seen as equivalent to being altruistic; selfishness is often pitted against altruism, usually without being specified. In spite of the fact that social behaviour can be divided into more categories than these two, the duality between selfishness and is often retained in normative statements also by evolutionary biologists. Many biologists since Darwin (1871) have discussed ethics in an evolutionary framework, and there are several lines of reasoning. First, in some of the literature the main purpose has been to try to explain the occurrence of various phenomena, from actions to sensibilities to rules and systems (e.g. Darwin 1871, Fisher 1958, Trivers 1971, Wilson 1975, Dawkins 1976, Alexander 1987). There are also authors who, like Huxley (1894), regards ethics, the moral process, as separate and antagonistic to evolution, the cosmic process The purpose of the present article is to investigate the evaluation of made by some influential thinkers in evolutionary biology, and to compare this evaluation with their factual conclusions. Our aim is not to criticize these authors, which we admire for their contribution to the understanding of evolutionary processes, but to scrutinize some normative statements in order to shed light on the influence of conventional altruistic ethics. Our main point in the article is that works contrary to reciprocity/cooperation, and that by promoting altruism, the opportunity for reciprocity to work is impaired. This reasoning is based on the following premises: 1) humans have a built-in capacity to act in a manner, but also a built-in capacity to cheat and to manipulate others (e.g. Trivers 1971, 1985), 2) direct and indirect learning will affect the degree to which individuals cooperate or cheat, and normative values and rules for behaviour are part of that learning. If normative values and rules have no effect on behaviour, normative ethics is truly empty: statements without influence. During the last decades theoretical and empirical work in evolutionary biology has produced a coherent explanation of social behaviour (Hamilton 1964, Williams 1966, Trivers 1971, 1985, Wilson 1975), the main conclusion being that the evolution of apparent is due to the effect, on either or potential reciprocators, of selfish genes (Dawkins 1976). Thus, in the following we define as an act that is costly for an actor, that does not benefit kin, and where there is no reasonable expectation of reciprocation. Thus, we exclude reciprocal altruism and kin altruism from Several writers have noted the confusion around the term altruism, caused by a use of the term in both a broad and a specific sense, as well as the need to make a clear distinction. For instance, Ruse (1989) uses with and without quotation marks to denote in a broad and strict sense, respectively. Less confusing is the use of terms like ascetic altruism (Lopreato 1981) and promiscuous altruism (Hardin 1993) suggested for in the specific sense. As mentioned we have preferred to just call it (cf. Bronstein 1994) and let other subgroups like kin altruism and reciprocal altruism do without the term Reciprocal is a self-contradiction. That way we avoid the problem pointed out by Trivers (1971, p. 35): Models that attempt to explain altruistic behavior in terms of natural selection are models designed to take out of altruism. Some workers have questioned the existence of strict Wilson (1979), for instance, questions the of Mother Theresa this because of her belief in salvation through Christianity and good deeds (pp. 172-173). If human behaviour is viewed from the per-