From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Mon Aug 05 2002 - 21:39:41 MDT
Peter writes
> >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.
>
> Are we disagreeing about anything other than whether the term selfish
> is a good label for the causes of these habits?
I think so.
> I go about deciding whether to label these behaviors as altruistic by
> observing whether they look like consistent policies of being nice to
> people.
You label a behavior because it looks like a consistent policy?
That hardly even parses, but what you surely mean is that you
deem (without contrary evidence) all nice behaviors as altruistic.
On the other hand, I label a behavior altruistic if there appears
to be no self-interested motivation behind it whatsoever. The
two examples I provide above qualify, provided that the subject
believes his actions unobserved by entities that could affect
him later.
Lee
> >> 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 [convincing people that heaven exists]
> >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.
>
> Well, I believe the same about heaven. Is that a good reason for concluding
> that heaven exists?
No, certainly not. But if it were true that heaven existed, then
some harm would be done by convincing people that it did not exist.
Likewise, indeed some harm is done by convincing people that it's
not real anyway, only you and I believe that the truth is worth it.
But in a related way, it does no good (and some harm) for people to
believe that all acts are selfish. In this case, the assertion is
true (instead of being about heaven) that many of us act altruistically
from time to time, and some (little, perhaps) harm is done when
libertarians and others convince themselves that all their acts
are (and should be) self-interested.
Lee
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