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The Drive For Altruism Is Hardwired
Dekortage writes "The Washington Post is reporting on recent neuroscience research indicating that the brain is pre-wired to enjoy altruism — placing the interests of others ahead of one's own. In studies, '[G]enerosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex... Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.' Such research 'has opened up a new window on what it means to be good,' although many philosophers over recorded history have suggested similar things."
Altruism != generosity even if they go hand in hand.
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If it's so "basic" to the brain then why is it the exception in human society and not the rule?
Sure you've got the basic need as a parent to provide for the family and to others of your pack/tribe. But "altruism" in its known sense as just giving to somebody you don't even know? If it's so "basic" we'd all be in the homeless kitchens in Thanksgiving (in the US) instead of at home.
It also works the other way around. And no, I'm not kidding. A good marriage is based on both sides giving.
Science is simply confirming what has already been known for a very long while.
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What does this say about people who complain about the BSD license? (BSD isn't as free as GPL. etc) Do GPL supporters have defective brains?
Ok, just to be 100% clear, I don't believe that, I just think the parent posted something that utterly misses the point and just buys into more of the "if you're not with us, you're against us" / "anyone who doesn't agree with me is stupid" mentality that is all too prevalent today.
This kind of thinking has to be ingrained early in childhood, by both word and deed. Those of us who teach this to our children are constantly frustrated by the parents who don't. And those who don't are in a decided majority.
Not that it would matter. No matter how inclusive and positive a group is, at some point someone will feel slighted as not all resouces are infinite. Once one person is turned against the group it becomes more and more likely that the system will break down. I'm not entirely certain that the societal limit isn't awfully close to the monkeyspace size.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
If you're a Christian, is it impossible to be altruistic? If you do good deeds, don't you ingratiate yourself witht he Lord, thereby increasing your chance of being admitted to heaven?
Nope.
It is axiomatic of Christianity that we've all "earned" nothing more than death, and it's only by divine grace that we are reunited with God. The religion is not about "getting in" to an afterlife paradise for being good (though many so-called believers behave that as if it is). It's about maintaining a loving relationship with your creator, both in this life and beyond.
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I see alot of people discussing what this means... It's all very simple. Way back in time when we all lived in small tribes we were surrounded mostly by people who we shared DNA with. Most of the people around us were immediate or extended family. We can also assume that a group of people who are sometimes generous with each other will survive better than people who are strictly selfish. If we put those two facts together and stir it with some evolution... what do you get? People who help each other are more likely to survive as a group. So if we have two tribes, one family that has only selfish tendencies and one that has generous tendencies; the generous family is more likely to survive as a whole. There's no secret here. Nothing ground breaking has happened, simply more evidence for evolution.
According to evolutionary theory: since society benefits the individual evolution ought to favor traits that help form and maintain societies. For instance: faith and altruism. I would imagine other animals that live in colonies or collectives have similar mechanisms. Perhaps not faith, but feel reward for performing whatever their limited role is before dying without the opportunity or even ability to reproduce.
What's most surprising is that scientists are still surprised by this, as if they have never heard of evolution or thought about it's affect on society. Perhaps these are the same scientists who agree that emotions are in primitive parts of our brain yet insist "primitive" animals don't have emotions.
The idea that, if you get in competition with them over resources, they may in turn be more altruistic to you, as opposed to Joe down the street?
Except that for Christians admission to heaven is not based on deeds at all. There is nothing that anyone can do in and of themselves the garner passage beyond the pearly gates. Thats the cusp of real Christian understanding. Jesus paid the price, it was by His sacrifice that we have salvation. Doing good deeds, says nothing of the heart, only prooves our depravity.
Neither. Evolution "cares" most of all about genes. An extremely interesting view of "altruism" from evolution's point of view can be found on Richard Dawkin's "The Selfish Gene".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Selfish_Gene
For one, the research doesn't show that altruism is "hardwired", despite what Shankar Vedantam writes in the Washington Post. The brain has very little "hardwired" responses, especially for such complex and abstract behavior as "altruism". There are organs, nerve bundles, and the like, and surely some consequential neural connects at all scales of influence are determined by human genetics in a very consistent behavior (eg, the 12 cranial nerves). But even those "hardwired" connections aren't well understood, nor are the possibilities that environment after conception can make them very different.
For another, just because altruism stimulates (some of) the same brain parts that sex and good food stimulate, doesn't mean that altruism is not "higher moral behavior". If higher moral behavior didn't stimulate neurons that we feel as pleasure, then higher moral behavior wouldn't feel good. Why not? Does god hate pleasure? Must all pleasure come from doing wrong? What kind of sick, immoral person thinks like that?
This is just another journalist copout: we're not really good, or even responsible for what we do, because "we're wired that way". It's stupid, immoral, and should feel awful. But journalists like Vedantam and their editors seem to like it.
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Not true:
Or I should say, only partially true. You're saying that altruism is a selfish endeavor, meaning, giving away something is only done because the brain will reward you with pleasure. True. However, you're missing the bigger picture of this article: altruism is not just about pleasure, it's about survival.
Take this altruistic concept back to a primitive, tribal society level. One hunter brings back a deer to the village. He can hoard it all to himself and ensure the survival of himself and/or his family, OR, he can divvy out the deer to the entire tribe even though this means he'll get less for himself. Why would he do this? According to you, it's simply because it feels good to give, but the point of this article (imho) is to show that it's actually beneficial to his survival. And his survival is 100% dependent on the survival of the tribe.
So, yes, it is selfish, but it's selfish on a tribal/societal level. Sharing ensures the survival of the tribe, therefore sharing ensures the survival of the individual (because it's really hard, if not impossible, to survive on your own in a hostile world).
That's my two cents.
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Speak for yourself. Some of us find our personal code of ethics important to follow whether someone is watching or not.
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Meanwhile, the Ayn Rand tribe would have left the sick and injured to die, reducing their tribe's size and its genetic diversity (and hence their adaptability) as well as possibly losing the benefit of those who might have recovered if cared for. This would have damaged the tribe's survival chances relative to the altruistic tribe.
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I'm all for thoughtful criticism of Rand, but
1) Rand would have advised helping them for a price, NOT leaving them to die. In her novels, the downtrodden one always makes it worthwhile to be helped.
2) You can screw it up just as badly in the opposite direction. When the successful can expect to be expropriated, expect a lot less innovation. There are lots of examples of stagnant societies where anyone who produces more than others can expect to either "share" most of it (an effective ~80% marginal tax rate) or be expelled.
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By the standard you're using, can any act ever be altruistic? Someone always receives a reward in doing good for someone else either by having pride in being a person who can choose doing something for someone else over doing nothing, or that by doing something to improve humanity in general everybody is better off including the one doing the act.
If we didn't get something out of giving, we wouldn't do it.
I can say without cynicism that if I didn't get incredible joy out of caring for my infant son (who is teething, very expressive about it, and quick as a ninja monkey) I don't know that any force on earth could make me change a dirty diaper- yet somehow it's strangely enjoyable and I come back for more.
It's pretty obvious if you think about it that we get a LOT out of contributing to others. My most-satisfying jobs have all been ones where I helped people out, my least-satisfying ones have been the ones where I couldn't tell that I was making any difference for anybody. I once put together a program to teach at-risk teens how to kayak, and when I told people what I was doing and asked for their help, they thanked me for creating the opportunity to donate gear, time, money and expertise. My experience asking for help to put the program together was quite surprising- I had thought it would be hard, they wouldn't want to, but it was the opposite: people are hungry for any chance to help others.
If you look broadly, people are willing to die in order to make a difference. People join the army in time of war to serve. They strap bombs to themselves and blow themselves up in a crowded market, in order to serve. People will open their checkbooks and donate money, they'll give blood, they'll use their vacations to go build houses for people- there's not much people won't do for the chance to make a difference for others.
If there's one thing I won't stand for, it's intolerance.
A truly superior being will understand why nature has given us both altruism and selfishness and will use logic to apply either one when most appropriate. Both have their merits.
It only takes one man to change the Wisdom of the Crowd to Tyranny of the Masses.
It is co-operation. The human being is a social animal because if you don't watch each other's backs, the sabre tooth tiger will first eat the other guy and then eat you. (A simplistic example of why if we are all selfish, we will all just die out).
NO! Watching each other's back against a threat in a pack setting IS selfish. That's the whole point. It's selfish to act in your own self interest - that's the concept's MEANING. When a threat that's bigger than you requires teamwork for you to survive (large predators, seasonal weather, etc), then there is both cultural and biological evolutionary pressure to do the things that help keep that team (the family/clan/tribe/pack/herd) glued together and aware of the other members' status/condition. Each member of the pack can face vulnerable circumstances (pregnancy, injury, etc), so cultivating - at that small family/tribe level - some reciprocal ass-covering is entirely, productively, and rationally selfish.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
Actually, the most selfish are those who insist on working directly with the charity -- even though an extra hour of work would provide them with the money to do far better good for the masses. Slate had an article on this late last year. Simply not donating would be rather neutral, because no party would benefit, and thus both would benefit equally. Check out the blockquote:
True science means that when you re-evaluate the evidence, you re-evaluate your faith.
I was wondering when the defense of selfishness would begin. As capitalism and the free market are based on the Selfish Actor theory, which has been proven to be inadequate even before this finding, perhaps we need to rethink our economic system. Spin it all you like, people don't act in their own rational self interest, this has been shown over and over again in hundreds of different kinds of experiments. Our system is based on the premise that they will. Therefore, our entire economic system is based on a false premise. By focusing on the selfish aspects of our behavior, it actually encourages them. People would rather be selfless, but in a selfish system, being selfless means you get taken advantage of. So people choose to be selfish because our system requires it.
The natural world and systems such as our economy are incredibly complex. One could find evidence of almost anything if one looked at them carefully enough. People look to nature and natural systems, and for the most part, they see what they want to see. Selfish people want evidence that the world is selfish in order to justify their feelings. So they look at the world, they see selfishness, and they discount everything else.
There is no evidence that evolution and capitalism are effective because they involve selfishness. It is equally valid to say that they are effective despite this fact, and are effective because of the inherent cooperation involved. Do cells in your body compete with each other? Do divisions of a corporation compete? No, they both cooperate, and that is why a body and a whole corporation are more effective than a cell or a corporate division: cooperation, not competition.
But you keep on telling yourself that selfishness is natural, right, and good if that lets you sleep at night.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Well...atleast we don't have slums around here (yet) and it's not like people who earn more would actually do more work (and thus produce more), often quite contrary.
There can be other motivators for innovation (when you have _enough_ income to begin with) than money, like happiness. Shitloads of money wont buy it, but altruism might well do so. Sharing IS benefical to society as whole, no matter what your multimillionaire overlords might want you to believe.
PS. I'm not saying things are perfect here and they are surely going for worse (mainly because politicians are beginning to favor big business instead of public as whole). Just from my POV - seeing the slow but gradual change here in finland - I consider social democratic market economy better for society as whole than straight out capitalism.
That's true of the simple PD, but it's not the case in the iterated PD where you have the same actors interact repeatedly - the most successful strategy is a simple "tit-for-tat" response to whatever the other actor did in the previous iteration. Therefore all it requires is for us to evolve a way of remembering what someone did to us before (face recognition and memory) and we can maximise our overall interactions no matter what strategy the other person takes. More complex simulations of this sort of situation on 2d grids show that different strategies come to dominate different areas ("countries") of the grid, but "nice" strategies (i.e. those that initially choose to cooperate) invariably dominate most of the board.
The Shaker said, "God would know." That's a guilt culture right there.
No, that's a shame culture. In a guilt culture, the joiner would reply, "*I* would know."
I wrote a paper a few years back for a philosophy of biology class defending altruism as an adaptive trait. Generally we look at selection as a process that takes place within a group for (or against) an individual. The problem with altruism, obviously, is that self sacrifice is not adaptive for an individual. Coming from Wyoming I tend to think of prairie dogs as an example of this. The one that stays above the surface screaming its little head off to warn the others is more likely to get snagged by a predator. However, if the process of selection includes the fitness of the group and not just that of the individual then altruism is really no problem at all. Within the herd the individual is going to share genetic traits with much if not most of the others. Just as a parent is often willing to risk it's own life for its offspring, which makes sense for individual selection, an individual risking its life for all its cousins is still protecting at least some of its own genetic traits. In effect the act of sacrifice is actually selecting for altruism as it allows the herd, with all its altruistic tendencies, to live on. Altruism is an adaptive trait, ergo "hard-wired", and should present no problem for evolutionary theory and no advantage for ID "theory".
Must be nice to be a Dutch banker. Here in the USA, professionals who make lots of money are salaried, meaning they could work round the clock until they died and not get paid a penny more than working 40 hours.
Theoretically, you could get an extra job, but since working the same job for someone else would get you fired at BOTH workplaces, its much easier and better to volunteer your time and effort to a deserving organization who needs it.
Couple that with the fact that working hard at the same or similar job all the time leads to declining health and an early demise, and volunteer work that makes you feel good about yourself and gives you a break from the daily grind starts to sound pretty great after all.
The best option? Give some of your money AND some of your time.
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Finally, an explanation for writing Free software. What else could a programming geek possibly use for stimulating his brain pleasure centers?
You answered your own question. "Liberals" want to get taxed so everyone covers the cost of social programs. "Conservatives" want to be able to choose whether to pay or not.
You know, I'm so glad that people are busy learning pseudo-philosophy like the "conservative" "liberal" distinction. Basic logic skills are highly overrated.
It's been a long time.
The same idea applies to the salaried individual if you realize that you can still use your spare time to make more money in your field of expertise. I, for instance, am salaried, but sometimes I do some on-the-side work (with my employer's permission) and can set billing rates considerably higher than what I'm making per hour. Of course, I have to pay taxes, etc. But the opportunity for the salaried banker to go out and make more money with his spare time than the good he's doing by ladelling stew is still there. Maybe he could do peoples taxes, give investment advice, write for a financial periodical, etc.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
IANA Economist but here go my € 0,02.
It's far more efficient to have a properly managed welfare system than to have a system where people are unprotected and dependent on the generosity of the fortunate.
Compare the USA with rich European countries or Canada, which have a welfare system. The poor are much better protected in the latter than the former, despite all the private money that goes to social works. And we are only talking about rich countries.
Altruism is hardwired in the brain most likely because it provides a competitive advantage, evolution made the rest. Being physically inferior to most large animals, the humans had a need to work for each other to survive. Without altruism, we would never have evolved into intelligent beings and have a society, culture and science.
This should be considered attentively by the ones advocating reckless capitalism is the key for progress (in Continental Europe those are called neo-liberals or ultra-liberals). Opposite to the beliefs of the "fashionable" economists, a society based only upon individualism and selfishness is bound to decay into barbarism.
Clarification: The word "liberal" has a different meaning for Anglo-Saxons. In Continental Europe, a liberal is a right-wing guy that advocates free market. Left-wingers here are called "socialists", or the like.