From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Fri Aug 02 2002 - 18:41:43 MDT
Peter writes
> [Lee wrote]
> >It's [unfortunate]
> >to attempt to lump together sincere acts of anonymous charity,
> >for example, with self-serving behavior. Our language---indeed
> >I would speculate ever language on Earth---evolved a very clean
> >distinction between self-serving behavior, and acts of noble
> >intent. Both are real, I say, even though of course complexities
> >and mixed motives can and do arise.
>
> If this distinction is clean, can you describe how I could go about
> making an educated guess about which category a typical act of apparent
> charity falls into? For instance, can you suggest any evidence that
> someone on this list (possibly yourself) has engaged in an act that
> you would consider genuinely altruistic?
Suppose I commit an act of thoughtfulness towards my boss. It may
be that (on my explanation) that I didn't get the genes for sincere
altruism, and that my motives are not mixed: I am doing so only to
advance my position by buttering up the boss or by being cautiously
polite to other large nearby and therefore dangerous mammals.
On the other hand, perhaps I have the genes for sincere altruism.
This would mean that part of my circuitry cares what happens to
(some) others completely regardless of the effect on me, my kin,
or any of my prospects. I say that The Origins of Virtue and
other recent books permit this possibility.
But you can't know from just observing me. Perhaps a carefully
crafted experiment could be undertaken wherein I could be given
an opportunity to do something nice or helpful to my boss that
would in no way affect my own success, and that moreover, I would
be completely unaware that anyone could observe my action (or even
trace it down). Then if I acted altruistically in this case,
you'd know.
But what did I way all that? The best examples are those given
by Ridley (tipping at restaurants you know you'll never visit
again) and by me (allowing someone out of a crowded parking
lot even though it delays your own journey a bit). IF you
could observe (secretly, of course) these behaviors, then you
could announce the experimental probability of the actions of
altruistic genes.
> I reject your language because it discourages people from adopting
> language (i.e. altruism = having a consistent policy of helping people)
> whose distinctions are easier to observe and more directly related to
> the kind of behavior I want to encourage (is there any advantage to
> having people not personally benefit from acts that genuinely help
> others?).
I don't have any serious problem in ordinary daily life with describing
someone's quite public act as charitable. So a certain politician
publicly gives a lot of money to some orphanage. If he wants to claim
that as a charitable contribution on his taxes, even though he indeed
got great political reward, it's okay. But if we are seriously trying
to *explain* how our minds an brains work, his act is probably not
even a little bit altruistic, whereas the former examples were.
> >The other reason is much more conjectural; it could very
> >well happen IMO that by repeatedly announcing to oneself
> >that every act one does is for a selfish reason, less
> >cooperative behavior in one could develop. I actually
>
> I can sort of imagine how describing cooperation as selfish (i.e. describing
> the benefits of cooperation) could reduce cooperation, but it's hard to
> see how this is more likely than, say, the hypothesis that convincing
> people that good behavior will be rewarded by a trip to the Christian
> version of heaven will cause them to act nicer.
I think that in some cases it does cause people to act nicer.
And so likewise I worry that some people may be less altruistic
because they've convinced themselves that their altruistic
urges are irrational.
Lee
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