Form Of Altruism Research Articles

Lead, Follow, or Get Out of the Way: A Critical Analysis of Pacing

Pacing, a phenomenon whereby seasoned runners assist other runners toward pre-determined goal times in races of various lengths, is a common practice, yet it has received very little sustained philosophical scrutiny. This paper aims to take steps in that direction with a particular focus on pacing in amateur distance running. We begin with Peter Arnold’s analysis of the three views of sportsmanship – as a form of social union, as a means in the promotion of pleasure, and as a form of altruism – to examine how well pacing fares in each. Additionally, we incorporate the concepts of the ‘dynamogenic agent’ from William James and the ‘intermediate man’ from John Lachs, which raise questions of autonomy, authenticity, and assistance. Furthermore, we provide descriptions of how the unique qualities of pace groups in running exemplify sportsmanship in ways that bolster Arnold’s analysis. While we write from an analytical position with regard to the topic, we also write from our own Emersonian ‘angle of vision’, as one of us has experience as a pace group leader while the other has raced with pace groups in pursuit of running goals.

Dissociating Facets of Self-Reported Altruism in India and Germany: Preliminary Evidence

Altruism may not be a unitary concept but have multiple facets that are differentially subject to cultural influences. We compared helping, sharing, moral courage, and altruistic punishment between members of Indian (Eastern) and German (Western) cultures using self-report data taken in an online survey. We found higher self-reported willingness towards sharing and helping in the Indian sample, alongside higher feeling of oneness reflecting the experienced overlap between oneself and other individuals. By contrast, moral courage, and to some degree also altruistic punishment, were higher in the German sample. Our results demonstrate cultural differences in the appreciation of different forms of altruism and support the differentiation of gratifying types of altruistic behaviour from competitive, punitive ones. Future studies will need to replicate the results with behavioural observations.

Epicurean Education and the Rhetoric of Concern

There has been a large amount of scholarly controversy over the precise nature of the motivations at play in the Epicurean accounts of justice and friendship, and whether any form of altruism or other-concern is compatible with Epicurean hedonist ethics. This paper addresses this tension between self- and other-concern from a novel angle, by examining the motivations behind Epicurean educational practice. What emerges is a rather complex motivational picture that reaffirms the Epicureans' philosophical commitment to egoism, but at the same time shows it to be more nuanced and sensitive than one might expect given their theoretical postulates and the reaction of ancient critics such as Cicero.

The Global Spirit of Philanthropy and Altruism: Meanings, Experiences, and Some Biological Roots

ngos and the voluntary nonprofit sector are ultimately based on altruism and philanthropy in humans. Altruism may be defined as unselfish concern for the welfare and satisfactions of others. Research in the past 30 years has demonstrated that 30-50% of a person’s tendency to feel and practice altruism is based on our genes anddna. Because philanthropy is a broad, more universal form of altruism, such research indicates that philanthropy in humans also has evolutionary roots in ourdna. Such research supports the conclusion that there is a Global Spirit of Altruism, hardwired into the human species as a feeling, attitude, and behavior tendency. Similarly, there has been a Global Spirit of Philanthropy emerging in humans over the past two millennia, and especially in the past two centuries.

Begging the Question: A Qualified Defense

This discussion examines two of the central notions at work in Sterba’s From Rationality to Equality: question-beggingness, and the notion of a rational requirement. I point out that, against certain unreasonable positions, begging the question is a perfectly reasonable option. I also argue that if we use the sense of “rational requirement” that philosophers ought (and tend) to have in mind when defending the idea that morality is rationally required, then Sterba has not succeed in defending this idea. Rather, he has at most demonstrated the rational preferability of morality over two other positions: an extreme egoism, and a very particular form of altruism. But another position exists: one that holds altruistic reasons to exist, and to be capable of justifying sacrifices, but that also holds that they do not require us to sacrifice our interests in the way that morality sometimes does require.

Monetary values for risk of death from air pollution exposure: a context-dependent scenario with a control for intra-familial altruism

We extend the individual dynamic model of lifetime resource allocation to assess the monetary value given to the increase in survival probabilities for every member of a household induced by improved air quality. We interpret this monetary value as VPF (value of a prevented fatality), which can also be expressed as a flow of discounted VOLY (value of life years) lost, and account for potential altruism towards other household members. We use a French air pollution contingent valuation survey that provides a description of the life-length reduction implied by a change in air pollution exposure. By privatising the public commodity air pollution, we succeed in ruling out any form of altruism (towards others living today and towards future generations) except altruism towards one's family. We estimate a mean VOLY of €2001140,000, a 30% premium for VOLY in perfect health w.r.t. average expected health status, and a mean VPF of €20011.45 million for the respondent, all context-specific. In addition, we find an inverted U-shaped relationship between his/her age and VOLY/VPF, and significant benevolence only towards children under 18.

Precision Rescue Behavior in North American Ants

Altruistic behavior, in which one individual provides aid to another at some cost to itself, is well documented. However, some species engage in a form of altruism, called rescue, that places the altruist in immediate danger. Here we investigate one such example, namely rescuing victims captured by predators. In a field experiment with two North American ant species, Tetramorium sp. E and Prenolepis imparis, individuals were held in artificial snares simulating capture. T. sp. E, but not P. imparis, exhibited digging, pulling, and snare biting, the latter precisely targeted to the object binding the victim. These results are the first to document precision rescue in a North American ant species; moreover, unlike rescue in other ants, T. sp. E rescues conspecifics from different colonies, mirroring their atypical social behavior, namely the lack of aggression between non-nestmate (heterocolonial) conspecifics. In a second, observational study designed to demonstrate rescue from an actual predator, T. sp. E victims were dropped into an antlion's pit and the behavior of a single rescuer was observed. Results showed that T. sp. E not only attempted to release the victim, but also risked attacking the predator, suggesting that precision rescue may play an important role in this species' antipredator behavior.

Toward a Behavioral Ecology of Rescue Behavior

Although the study of helping behavior has revolutionized the field of behavioral ecology, scientific examination of rescue behavior remains extremely rare, except perhaps in ants, having been described as early as 1874. Nonetheless, recent work in our laboratories has revealed several new patterns of rescue behavior that appear to be much more complex than previously studied forms. This precisely-directed rescue behavior bears a remarkable resemblance to what has been labeled empathy in rats, and thus raises numerous philosophical and theoretical questions: How should rescue behavior (or empathy) be defined? What distinguishes rescue from other forms of altruism? In what ways is rescue behavior in ants different from, and similar to, rescue in other non-human animals? What selection pressures dictate its appearance? In this paper, we review our own experimental studies of rescue in both laboratory and field, which, taken together, begin to reveal some of the behavioral ecological conditions that likely have given rise to rescue behavior in ants. Against this background, we also address important theoretical questions involving rescue, including those outlined above. In this way, we hope not only to encourage further experimental analysis of rescue behavior, but also to highlight important similarities and differences in very distant taxa.

BASIS FOR EFFECTIVE COMMUNITY-BASED HEALTH INSURANCE SCHEMES: INVESTIGATING INEQUITIES IN CATASTROPHIC OUT-OF-POCKET HEALTH EXPENDITURES, AFFORDABILITY AND ALTRUISM

Background: Community-based health insurance (CBHI) schemes should be designed so that they are affordable,provide financial risk protection against catastrophic costs and harness community solidarity in form of altruism so as to ensure high levels of enrollment and use of the services. This paper presents information about the socio-economic status (SES) and geographic differences in affordability, catastrophic costs and altruism within the context of instituting effective CBHI schemes. Methods: The study took place in a rural, urban and semi-urban community in two states in Nigeria. Aquestionnaire was used to collect information from 3070 randomly selected householders. Contingent valuation method was used to elicit altruistic willingness to pay. Catastrophic health expenditures were examined at 40%, 10% and 5% thresholds based on household non - food expenditures. Affordability was measured as proportion of total household expenditure that will be consumed by the existing per capita monthly premium for CBHI, which is 500 Naira. Data was examined for links between affordability, catastrophic costs and altruistic WTP with SES and geographic area of residence. Results: Households are currently spending between 1139.6 Naira (US$ 9.5) and 3846.5 Naira (US$ 32.1) monthly on healthcare, and this was mainly as out-of-pocket expenditure. At the 40% household non-food expenditure threshold, 28.7% of households incurred catastrophic healthcare costs. Incidence of catastrophic costs was least in the urban area and amongst the highest quartile. A monthly premium of 500 naira (US$ 4.2) was found to be less that 3% of households’ monthly expenditures. The mean altruistic WTP was 202.7 Naira (US$1.7) per year. Conclusion: There were high levels of catastrophic costs, but with appreciable levels of affordability and altruistic WTP for CBHI, coverage can be increased and financial risk protection assured for most people that need CBHI

A review on self-destructive defense behaviors in social insects

Colony defense is a necessary but dangerous task for social insects, and nest defensive behaviors often lead to a premature death of the actor. As an extreme form of colony defense, self-sacrificial behaviors have evolved by kin selection in various social insects. Most self-sacrificial defensive mechanisms occur in response to an acute threat to the colony, but some behaviors are preemptive actions that avert harm to the colony. Self-sacrifice has also been observed as a form of preemptive defense against parasites and pathogens where individuals will abandon their normal colony function and die in self-exile to reduce the risk of infecting nestmates. Here, we provide an overview of the self-destructive defense mechanisms that eusocial insects have evolved and discuss avenues for future research into this form of altruism.

Equitable decision making is associated with neural markers of intrinsic value.

Standard economic and evolutionary models assume that humans are fundamentally selfish. On this view, any acts of prosociality--such as cooperation, giving, and other forms of altruism--result from covert attempts to avoid social injunctions against selfishness. However, even in the absence of social pressure, individuals routinely forego personal gain to share resources with others. Such anomalous giving cannot be accounted for by standard models of social behavior. Recent observations have suggested that, instead, prosocial behavior may reflect an intrinsic value placed on social ideals such as equity and charity. Here, we show that, consistent with this alternative account, making equitable interpersonal decisions engaged neural structures involved in computing subjective value, even when doing so required foregoing material resources. By contrast, making inequitable decisions produced activity in the anterior insula, a region linked to the experience of subjective disutility. Moreover, inequity-related insula response predicted individuals' unwillingness to make inequitable choices. Together, these data suggest that prosocial behavior is not simply a response to external pressure, but instead represents an intrinsic, and intrinsically social, class of reward.

Do Samaritan migrants really work for the development of local communities? Evidence from Cameroon in Central Africa

The aim of this paper is to analyze how Samaritan migrants really work for the development of local communities in Cameroon. We have used the game theory approach that is based on the Samaritan’s Dilemma. The Samaritan Dilemma shows the superiority of collective responsibility on the individual or personal utility. Therefore, one of the solutions to development problem is to introduce and encourage other forms of altruism among individual and collective migrants who give, share and help local families and communities. In Cameroon and for many Central African countries, the Samaritan migrants constitute a major source of foreign direct investment (FDI), market development, and new technology transfer. Key words: Samaritan migrants, altruism, well-being, local communities, cooperative game.

Motivators of enrolment in HIV vaccine trials: a review of HIV vaccine preparedness studies

HIV vaccine preparedness studies (VPS) are important precursors to HIV vaccine trials. As well, they contribute to an understanding of motivators and barriers for participation in hypothetical HIV vaccine trials. Motivators can take the form of altruism and a desire for social benefits. Perceived personal benefits, including psychological, personal, and financial well-being, may also motivate participation. The authors performed a systematic review of HIV VPS using the Cochrane Database for Systematic Reviews, Medline, PubMed, Embase, and Google Scholar. The authors independently searched the literature for individual HIV VPS that examined motivators of participation in a hypothetical HIV vaccine trial, using the same search strategy. As the denominators employed in the literature varied across studies, the denominators were standardized to the number of respondents per survey item, regardless of their willingness to participate (WTP) in an HIV vaccine trial. The authors retrieved eight studies on social benefits (i.e., altruism) and 11 studies on personal benefits conducted in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries, as well as 19 studies on social benefits and 20 studies on personal benefits in the non-OECD countries. Various different forms of altruism were found to be the major motivators for participation in an HIV vaccine trial in both the OECD and the non-OECD countries. In a large number of studies, protection from HIV was cited as a personal motivator for participation in a hypothetical HIV vaccine trial in the OECD and the non-OECD countries. Knowledge of motivators can inform and target recruitment for HIV vaccine trials, although it must be remembered that hypothetical motivators may not always translate into motivators in an actual vaccine trial.

Evolution of restraint in a structured rock-paper-scissors community.

It is not immediately clear how costly behavior that benefits others evolves by natural selection. By saving on inherent costs, individuals that do not contribute socially have a selective advantage over altruists if both types receive equal benefits. Restrained consumption of a common resource is a form of altruism. The cost of this kind of prudent behavior is that restrained individuals give up resources to less-restrained individuals. The benefit of restraint is that better resource management may prolong the persistence of the group. One way to dodge the problem of defection is for altruists to interact disproportionately with other altruists. With limited dispersal, restrained individuals persist because of interaction with like types, whereas it is the unrestrained individuals that must face the negative long-term consequences of their rapacity. Here, we study the evolution of restraint in a community of three competitors exhibiting a nontransitive (rock-paper-scissors) relationship. The nontransitivity ensures a form of negative feedback, whereby improvement in growth of one competitor has the counterintuitive consequence of lowering the density of that improved player. This negative feedback generates detrimental long-term consequences for unrestrained growth. Using both computer simulations and evolution experiments with a nontransitive community of Escherichia coli, we find that restrained growth can evolve under conditions of limited dispersal in which negative feedback is present. This research, thus, highlights a set of ecological conditions sufficient for the evolution of one form of altruism.

Why reciprocal altruism is not a kind of group selection

Reciprocal altruism was originally formulated in terms of individual selection and most theorists continue to view it in this way. However, this interpretation of reciprocal altruism has been challenged by Sober and Wilson (1998). They argue that reciprocal altruism (as well as all other forms of altruism) evolves by the process of group selection. In this paper, we argue that the original interpretation of reciprocal altruism is the correct one. We accomplish this by arguing that if fitness attaches to (at minimum) entire life cycles, then the kind of fitness exchanges needed to form the group-level in such situations is not available. Reciprocal altruism is thus a result of individual selection and when it evolves, it does so because it is individually advantageous.

Altruism in Society: Evidence from a Natural Experiment Involving Commuters

We study social preferences in the form of altruism using data on 959 interactions between random commuters at selected traffic intersections in the city of Brisbane, Australia. By observing real decisions of individual commuters on whether to stop (give way) for others, wefind evidence of (i) gender discrimination by both men and women, with women discriminating relatively more against the same sex than men, and men discriminating in favour of the opposite sex more than women; (ii) status-seeking and envy, with individuals who drive a more luxury motor vehicle having a 0.18 lower probability of receiving a kind treatment from others of low status, however this result improves when the decision maker is also of high status; (iii) strong peer effects, with those commuters accompanied by other passengers being 25 percent more likely to sacrifice for others; and (iv) an age effect, with mature-aged people eliciting a higher degree of altruism.

GenEthics and religion

GenEthics and religion

ALTRUISM AS A THICK CONCEPT

In this paper, we examine different forms of altruism. We commence by analysing the ‘behavioural’ definition and, after clarifying its conditions for altruism, we argue that it is not in ‘reflective equilibrium’ with everyday linguistic usage of the term. We therefore consider a ‘psychological’ definition, which we likewise refine, and argue that it better reflects ordinary language use. Both behavioural and psychological approaches define altruism descriptively and thus fail to capture an important aspect of altruism, namely its normative component. Altruism, we argue, is a ‘thick concept’, i.e. one which embodies both positive and normative components. We discuss and compare various formulations of this normative component.

Beggar-Thy-Parents? A Lifecycle Model of Intergenerational Altruism

This paper constructs a quantitative general equilibrium model with both lifecycle and dynastic features along with uninsurable labor income to assess differences in wealth and intergenerational transfers across countries. The model features both 'pure' and 'impure' forms of altruism and investigates the role of borrowing constraints in accounting for the timing of intergenerational transfers between intervivos transfers and bequests. Under a perfect capital market, the timing of parental transfers is irrelevant. However, under borrowing constraints, parental transfer will be geared towards helping out borrowing-constrained children. The model is calibrated to match the US and Korean economy. Numerical experiments show that tightening borrowing constraints leads to more intervivos transfers geared towards younger children and lower level of bequest. Borrowing constraints also play a role in accounting for the observed differences in the wealth inequality between the two economies.

Lessons from animal teaching

Many species are known to acquire valuable life skills and information from others, but until recently it was widely believed that animals did not actively facilitate learning in others. Teaching was regarded as a uniquely human faculty. However, recent studies suggest that teaching might be more common in animals than previously thought. Teaching is present in bees, ants, babblers, meerkats and other carnivores but is absent in chimpanzees, a bizarre taxonomic distribution that makes sense if teaching is treated as a form of altruism. Drawing on both mechanistic and functional arguments, we integrate teaching with the broader field of animal social learning, and show how this aids understanding of how and why teaching evolved, and the diversity of teaching mechanisms.