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Altruism Why do elder horses protect the foals despite the fact that they are often not related? Why do baboon troops put the young baboon males in the front to protect the group from predators? Why do young men go to the front to save their country from war? The traits described above are forms of altruism. Individuals sacrifice their own fitness to protect that of others.
Yet when you look at it in the Darwin evolutionary scheme of things, why would this occur? Would not these genes be weeded out over time? Are the armies of warriors or the honeybees which sting once and die the exceptions to the rule? Alternatively, do they define the norm? If someone is unselfish, and has this gene, they will die, thus not passing it on. However, with the honeybee, the soldiers do not have the capability to reproduce in any case.
Why do the elder horses protect others offspring? This represents a theory known as inclusive fitness. Although the foals may not be directly related to the elders, chances are that they are indirectly related and contain some of the elders genes. When a population increases to a number larger than the ideal, the fertility of its members decreases drastically and the mortality increases. Conservationists look at this as an internal evolutionary counter, which automatically turns off and on fertility without considering the surroundings. However, consider it, if you live in the over-populated ghetto, you have a higher chance of dying than living in the barren fields of Switzerland.
There are multiple factors, which control a population. There are societal, biological, and environmental differences, which control how a group acts upon its surroundings. Fertility, and mortality are over-determined, they cannot be attributed to any single circumstance. Just because one species acts a certain way, we cannot generalize to say that all species are altruistic due to an alternative evolutionary practice. Darwin's theory of evolution has held up as the model for many years, but without further studying, we cannot proclaim that humans, or any other animals, are altruistic by nature. Altruism can be defined as a pro-social behavior according to which an individual enjoys helping others.
This behavior does not benefit an individual, however it brings moral satisfaction. The positivist egoist, whose theory is called psychological egoism, offers an explanation of human affairs, in effect a description of human nature, which he or she believes to be wholly self-centered and self-motivated. In its strong form, the theory asserts that people always act in their own interests, even though they may disguise their motivation with references to helping others or doing their duty. Opponents exploit counter-factual evidence to criticize the theory-surely, they claim, there is a host of evidence supporting altruistic or duty-bound actions that cannot be said to engage the self-interest of the agent.
Psychological egoists may then attempt to question the ultimate motive of acting benevolently towards others; they may retort that seemingly altruistic behavior necessarily has a self-interested component, that if the individual were not to offer aid to a stranger, he or she may feel guilty or may look bad in front of a peer group. At this point psychological egoism's validity turns on the question of moral motivation. But since motivation is inherently private (an agent could be lying to him or herself or to others about the original motive), the theory shifts from a theoretical description of human nature, one that can be put to observational testing, to an assumption about human nature. Probability of empirical negation (since motives are private), and therefore it becomes a closed theory.
A closed theory is a theory that rejects competing theories on its own terms and is non-verifiable and non-falsifiable. If psychological egoism is reduced to an assumption concerning human nature, then it follows that it is just as valid to hold a competing theory of human motivation, psychological altruism for example. Psychological altruism holds that all human action is necessarily other centered and other motivated. A parallel analysis of psychological altruism results in opposing conclusions to psychological egoism, and again arguably the theory is just as closed as psychological egoism.
If both theories can be validly maintained, it follows that the soundness of either or both must be questioned. A weak version of psychological egoism accepts the possibility of altruistic or benevolent behavior, but maintains that whenever a choice is made it is by definition the action that the agent wants to do at that point. A person wants to help the poor, therefore A is acting not necessarily altruistically; if a person ran into a burning building to save a kitten, it must be the case that this person wanted to save the kitten. Rational egoism claims that the promotion of one's own interests is always in accordance to some reason. In the strong version, not only is it rational to pursue one's own interests; it is also irrational not to pursue them. In the weak version, it is rational to pursue one's own interests but there may be occasions when not pursuing them is sometimes irrational.
However, altruism does not rely on rationality. It may be seen as just the behavior that comes not from mind, but primarily from soul. Altruism can be also seen as the relationship between the desire to help someone in some situation in order to bring pleasure to the person in need. Altruistic behavior also is viewed as paying a debt virtually in accordance to the previous experience of a person who is altruistic. This person might have experienced some help in the past and this might served as the reason for acquiring such a type of personality.
Nevertheless, altruism is not just about help, it is about the perception of the world. Some people are hostile to others and their single motive in doing something for others is to obtain something that can be valuable for them. Altruist in contras does not even think about some material value of his actions aimed at providing assistance to others. There many people who are altruistic, however, they do not show this altruism in their everyday life. For example, if to take a situation in which an old woman accidentally dropped the keys from her vehicle and due to poor vision (she might also forget her glasses in the car) cannot find them will be noticed an altruist she might have some assistance. The person probably will help that woman to find her keys and this will make this person happier.
Altruism is primarily about happiness in social interactions. However, it is suggested that human nature is completely and exclusively egoistic. People are entirely selfish and devoid of any genuine feelings of sympathy, benevolence, or sociability. They are always thinking of themselves in everything they do. Each individual is preoccupied exclusively with the gratification of personal desires (felicity or happiness). Ones success in maintaining a continuous flow of gratification is the means of ones happiness.
The object of the voluntary acts of every man is some good to himself. Whenever man renounces his right, this right is considered for some right reciprocally transferred either to him, or for some other good, he hopes for from the outcome. This presents us with the old saying: "Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. " It will be difficult to find an action that the psychological egoist will acknowledge as purely altruistic, however. We usually try to benefit in any action we choose.
For example, if I helped my friend out of trouble, I may feel happy afterwards. Nevertheless, is that happiness the motive for my action or just a result of it? Perhaps the psychological egoist fails to distinguish the beneficial consequences of an action from the self-interested motivation. After all, why would it make me happy to see my friend out of trouble if I did not already have some prior concern for my friend's best interest? Would not that be altruism? People usually see altruism on a primitive level, such as giving some assistance to somebody, especially if it is not hard.
I think that is actually right. If to take for an example a case in which some millionaire would build a school (for example) I do not think that it would be absolutely right to consider this person altruist, because this person might have some benefit out of his action. This benefit would be popularization of his persona. Altruism holds each man as his brother's keeper; in other words, we are each responsible for the health and well-being of others. Clearly, this is a simple statement of the safety-net'' theory. This is incompatible with individualism, yet many people who are individualists uphold altruism as the standard of morality.
What is going on? The first confusion is to confound altruism with kindness, generosity, and helping other people. Altruism demands more than kindness: it demands sacrifice. An altruist may sacrifice a minute of his time or maybe even something really important. It all depends how altruistic the person is.
If it would be an example with an old woman that have lost her keys almost everyone would help her, nobody would mind to lose a minute for helping others. However, if a person would risk something really important it would bring that person to a doubt whether to help another person or not. I think that altruism is a good feature of a character. If everybody would be altruist, the world would become more kind and people would pay more attention to the problems of others. This would eventually make people happier. Sources: Austin, David, "Altruism.
Comment on article, " Social Service Review, 68, 3, (Sept, 1994), pp. 437 - 440. Kitchen, Philip, "The evolution of human altruism, " The Journal of Philosophy, 90, 10, (Oct, 1993), pp. 497 - 516.
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