From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Thu Aug 08 2002 - 01:04:44 MDT
Monsieur Le gts writes
> In my view, for the purposes of this discussion, there are really only types
> of behavior: those that serve to perpetuate genes, and those that do not.
> So-called "altruistic" behavior is of the first type. In social species like
> homo sapiens, "altruistic" behavior serves to perpetuate genes even if
> sometimes at the expense of the individual who expresses the behavior.
Of course. I was hardly saying that altruism arose as a
biologic miracle. Writers have proposed a number of theories
to explain the existence of altruism. Matt Ridley ("The Origins
of Virtue") is my favorite, but high on the list also are Elliott
Sober's "Unto Others" (who uses Simpson's paradox very nicely),
and Geoffrey Miller ("The Mating Mind").
When I speak of altruism, I am not speaking of some sort of
genetic defect, or cosmic-ray induced distortion, but rather
of an evolved trait. What I want to call *altruism* is what
several others have already proposed it was, namely, "An
altruist is someone who does good things for someone else
without expecting a reward." Do you deny that such acts
occur? What exactly is your problem with the common use
of the word?
Again, you had previously written
> I explain [altruistic] behaviors as being motivated by the
> desire for the subjective experience of reward that accompanies
> socially constructive behavior.
Do you defend this statement (or object to my word substitution)?
> In order to see things clearly, I think we need first to rid ourselves of
> any value judgments we might make about "altruistic" behavior. I do not
> even like that term because in my view "altruism" is a false concept.
> Altruists exist in the same way that unicorns exist.
I am as cold-bloodedly trying to analyze whether altruism
exists as I would be counting neutrinos from the sun. I'm
making *no* value judgments here. How dare you accuse me
of that? :-) (just joking) Do you believe that
Here is a definition taken from the paper
ftp://ftp.vub.ac.be/pub/projects/Principia_Cybernetica/Papers_Heylighen/Memes&Cooperation
txt
"Weak" altruism can be defined as behavior that benefits more to another
individual than to the individual carrying out the behavior. "Strong"
altruism denotes behavior that benefits others, but at one's own cost
(Campbell, 1983).
This might help our discussion. When they're speaking of "one's own
cost" here, they are *not* speaking of cost to one's genes. This
definition is individual based.
> > Now, since everything is driven by this mechanical feature, we lose
> > explanatory power by appealing to it.
>
> Not at all. We lose only the romantic notion of "altruism."
>
> > Yes, but it doesn't *explain* the emergence of altruistic
> > behavior.
>
> On the contrary, it explains it perfectly. You and I act charitably toward
> others for essentially the same reason that we eat, sleep and mate. These
> behaviors of ours all serve to perpetuate our genes, even if not always our
> own personal copies of them. We might fancy ourselves to be "altruists" but
> in reality we are merely the slaves of selfish genes.
I think you switched explanations. You first said that we behave the
way we do because our brains are wired to give us a reward for behaving
that way. Then I say that this doesn't explain anything, because that's
true for everything we do. Now you go back to the explanation that I
agree with, namely that it benefited our genes.
Evidently you're fighting an old war against those who don't understand
yet the idea of the selfish gene. (This is hardly a personal criticism,
as no one fights more old wars than I do.) But we've basically won that
one. We're talking about altruism as a description of people's behavior.
And pure, genuine altruistic behavior does appear to exist.
Lee
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