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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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The principle or practice of unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others. For those that didnt know.
So I guess chicks that put a man's sexual interests ahead of her own...REALLY lights up her own pleasure response!!!
I gotta make a note of this one...sounds like material to submit for an investigational grant!!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
what they are saying is people are only generous because it feels good. That is, if it did not give them that feel good feeling, they would not be generous. Thus, everyone is generous for their own selfish purposes. Ergo, everyone is 100% selfish.
Go ahead, try to follow my logic. I dare you.
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Well, I wasn't, but that's because it gave me more pleasure for someone else to get it.
I'm broke; give me money :)
Get off my launchpad!
It is thus logical that a truly superior human will learn to abandon any primitive altruistic tendencies.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
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.
I know it may be slightly warm and fuzzy, but imagine a world where we lifted each other up, instead of constantly tearing each other down. Not to say that due criticism would be curtailed, but instead that our efforts be focused on others, instead of ourselves. The world would be much easier if we weren't constantly bombarded with what could be summed up as "drama" from others and instead worked together. It's just really hard when everyone around you is a stranger, the idea of family has been all but lost, and the world is going at a pace that you can hardly keep up with.
...that's similar to that when you get food and/or sex from doing "good things", doesn't that possibly mean that doing good things is historically/genetically programmed into us as one common way to get more more food and sex? And if you are doing good deeds in anticipation of that "dinner and a movie," it isn't really altruistic, is it?
warning, possible flamebait follows:
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? So, even if you don't really "get" anything for doing good deeds, you're still going to get a reward for it in the afterlife right? Which would mean it wasn't really altrustic.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
"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."
So, if altruism creates pleasure in the brain, is it still considered altruism? You ARE getting something out of it, after all.
I knew I should have paid more attention in my humanities courses, particularly Philosophy.
More Twoson than Cupertino
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.
Altruism is also observed in vampire bats, curiously, who remember who shared blood with them previously, and who did not. Altruism is a simple kind of savings scheme. When you are lucky, you share. When you are unlucky, you borrow. It depends on a good memory and a set of rules that have to be instinctive, so everyone agrees with them. (No point if everyone randomly invents "good" and "bad" behaviour.)
Guilt, on the other hand, is waiting for the blow to fall. We don't feel guilty when there's no risk of being punished, and we don't act altruistic when there's no-one watching.
So even if the moral compass is in-built, it only activates in the presence of others.
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If I want to give money to a charity, that's selfish, but by denying my selfish desire and refusing to give to charity, I become altruistic.
these people were obviously conditioned to expect food and sex in exchange for sums of money.
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?
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
Humanity is a social animal. We form packs. We are hardwired to be pack-supporting; you see a huge natural disaster and people rush to the area to help...They don't turn and run the other way. A child gets lost in the mountains, and you get hordes of volunteers tromping around and getting themselves lost in the search.
This is not behaviour that is smart for the individual. Risking your own life for others? Not something you see often in the animal kingdom. But it is something that occurs among humans, and it is a big part of what we consider "good".
Philosophically, ethics falls into two distinct branches: relativism, and objectivism.
Relativism basically states that good and evil are relative...Relative to you personally, relative to your culture, relative to your psychological state. It fits with people's differing views on what is right and wrong; I think it's right, you think it's wrong, we're both correct. Basically it's worthless. If you're a relativist, morals are meaningless, because you can only apply moral judgements to yourself, and what the hell point is there in that?
Objectivism states that good and evil are objective...That there are things that everyone should agree are right and everyone should agree are wrong. Logically, objectivism must be correct, because the alternative is relativism, and relativism is worthless. But no one agrees about right and wrong, so how can it be right?
But when you look at it in terms of humanity as a social animal, it becomes a little clearer. The "Robin Hood" story is a classic example: Stealing is bad, except when you're stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, right? Obviously the group that is being stolen from (the rich) still think it's bad, but since the vast majority of people are not rich, historically it's been considered good.
Mill came up with the theory of Utilitarianism to attempt to explain this sort of thing: in a nutshell, whatever makes the majority happy is right, and whatever makes the majority unhappy is wrong. Politicians live by this one, because they never have to actually consider the greater good, they just have to make 51% happy until the next election. So adding a tax on gasoline to reduce consumption and using the money to pay for better public transit and research into cleaner energy, while probably the "right" thing to do, would never fly because it would piss off 80% of people and the guy'd get canned in the next election by someone running on a "repeal the gas tax" platform.
So utilitarianism clearly needs some work...Reduce "good" into "happy" and you end up with nothing but bread and circuses, because that would make people happy, and happy == good. This, in a nutshell, is the problem with democracy.
So we have a hardwired inclination toward altruism. It definitely explains a few things. The problem is, humanity has a lot of hardwiring. We have tons of instincts, reflexes, automatic responses. Most people learn to override those things as part of their day to day life. Can't live purely on instinct. So what value is it to have a piece of altrustic hardwiring in a society that preaches just the opposite? Altruism is an irrational response, from the point of view of the thing that's about to put its squishy coropreal self in harm's way.
Still, it's nice to know that, if you're trying to be altrusitic, if you're trying to be selfless, you're instinctive responses are going to be in line with your conscious actions. Maybe everyone...most everyone...really does have some good in them, whether they like it or not.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
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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make install -not war
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.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
I've tried that bit about generosity being as pleasurable as sex, but the hookers still insist on cash in advance.
Have gnu, will travel.
Philanthropy Expert: Conservatives Are More Generous
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America -- and it's making him nervous.
The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income.
In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives -- from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services -- make conservatives more generous than liberals.
The book, titled "Who Really Cares: The Surprising Truth About Compassionate Conservatism" (Basic Books, $26), is due for release Nov. 24.
When it comes to helping the needy, Brooks writes: "For too long, liberals have been claiming they are the most virtuous members of American society. Although they usually give less to charity, they have nevertheless lambasted conservatives for their callousness in the face of social injustice."
For the record, Brooks, 42, has been registered in the past as a Democrat, then a Republican, but now lists himself as independent, explaining, "I have no comfortable political home."
Since 2003 he has been director of nonprofit studies for Syracuse University's Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.
Outside professional circles, he's best known for his regular op-ed columns in The Wall Street Journal (13 over the past 18 months) on topics that stray a bit from his philanthropy expertise.
One noted that people who drink alcohol moderately are more successful and charitable than those who don't (like him). Another observed that liberals are having fewer babies than conservatives, which will reduce liberals' impact on politics over time because children generally mimic their parents.
Brooks is a behavioral economist by training who researches the relationship between what people do -- aside from their paid work -- why they do it, and its economic impact.
He's a number cruncher who relied primarily on 10 databases assembled over the past decade, mostly from scientific surveys. The data are adjusted for variables such as age, gender, race and income to draw fine-point conclusions.
His Wall Street Journal pieces are researched, but a little light.
His book, he says, is carefully documented to withstand the scrutiny of other academics, which he said he encourages.
The book's basic findings are that conservatives who practice religion, live in traditional nuclear families and reject the notion that the government should engage in income redistribution are the most generous Americans, by any measure.
Conversely, secular liberals who believe fervently in government entitlement programs give far less to charity. They want everyone's tax dollars to support charitable causes and are reluctant to write checks to those causes, even when governments don't provide them with enough money.
Such an attitude, he writes, not only shortchanges the nonprofits but also diminishes the positive fallout of giving, including personal health, wealth and happiness for the donor and overall economic growth.
All of this, he said, he backs up with statistical analysis.
"These are not the sort of conclusions I ever thought I would reach when I started looking at charitable giving in graduate school, 10 years ago," he writes in the introduction. "I have to admit I probably would have hated what I have to say in this book."
Still, he says it forcefully, pointing out that liberals give less than conservatives in every way imaginable, including volunteer hours and donated blood.
In an interview, Brooks said he recognizes the need for government entitlement programs, such as we
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.
We are hardwired to perform altrusim, but we mostly tend to prefer our groups. This is called ethnic nepotism. A study (I can't find the link; here's a summary) performed several years ago by the political scientist Frank Salter monitored beggars in Moscow and found that Russians preferred giving to beggars in this order: Russians, Moldavians (Eastern Europeans), and Roma (a.k.a. Gypsies).
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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.
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
A discussion of altruism on Slashdot, and no one's quoted from "Star Trek: Wrath of Kahn" yet. Must be 'too obvious'.
[Insert pithy quote here]
Romans 2: 12 All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. 13 For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. 14 (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, 15 since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) 16 This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares. (NIV)
Even the nonreligious "Gentiles" are accountable to God since all have the requirements of the law written on their hearts. It seems these scientists have found evidence to confirm this.
I have heard this statistic many times and tend to believe it, within reason. The import thing to remember about it is that this also includes contributions to some organizations that you are a member of, most importantly your church. My bet is that if you look at donations to your own church as something other than "charity", then this statistic may swing the other way.
Another way of looking at this might be that "Religious Conservatives" spend a lot more money (primarily) improving the well-being of those they consider to be part of their own group, while "Secular Liberals" contribute a smaller amount to people outside of their own group. Both seem like perfectly natural responses.
Also remember that many religions have the concept of a semi-inforced tithe, and many European countries have gone so far as to make this a part of tax law. That sort of thing is going to skew the statics to almost meaninglessness.
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.
Peter Kropotkin pointed this out over 100 years ago
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
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".
Germany and Austria are both examples of countries that have near-manitory taxes based on what religion you are a member of. The taxes are collected based on a percentage of your income, and go to the religious organization that you are registered as a member. You can register yourself as being non-religious and then pay nothing, but you will be officially excommunicated from your church.
For a quick overview of this there is a nice WikiPedia entry.
Particularly when I was working on OpenVPN, I saw a lot of this; most of the folks using the software were doing so for some commercial purpose, and much of the development was either done by the lead maintainer under contract to an organization making commercial use, or (in the case of minor patches) by individual users in the employ of some commercial entity. HylaFAX is similar, in that a strong majority of those involved (in terms of headcount) were directly working for other (non-OSS-centric) employers, and that those most tightly involved in maintaining the software were doing so for personal enjoyment -- but also very frequently under contract. Likewise, a very large number of the folks working on the Linux kernel are paid to do so; for well-established, vibrant projects, it seems to be more the rule than the exception.
In short -- in my experience, the idea of the open source developer being someone who works at night without pay is highly overrated. This holds not only for myself, but also for the many contacts I've maintained from my OSS-centric former employer (who is, incidentally, still in business -- the same business, for that matter).
As you point out his genes actually gain a survivability boost. It probably feels good in order to reinforce the behaviour.
Deleted
Finally, an explanation for writing Free software. What else could a programming geek possibly use for stimulating his brain pleasure centers?
Of course, we're not particularly capitalist. They say that about 30% of all working Americans work either directly or indirectly for the government or military. I don't know what the figure in Canada, Mexico, or the EU is, but I doubt it's much lower despite their vastly smaller military squanderage.
It's pretty obvious if you think about it that we get a LOT out of contributing to others.
That blows holes in the "selfless" claims to "altrusism", doesn't it?
If contributing to others really was selfless, then you would get NOTHING out of it.
In fact, if would be even more selfless if you were HARMED by contributing to others.
In fact, you can take that a step further and be even more selfless if contributing others harmed not only you, but all your loved ones, too, and also helped your enemies to harm more of your loved ones.
Why not go whole hog and realize that it would be most selfless of all if contributing to others harmed you, harmed your loved ones, helped your enemies, and also violated every sense of morality that you had.
For example, if you were to spend all of your money to help the new Neo-Nazi party build and deploy a nuclear weapon against your family, millions of oppressed people, and for the purpose of increasing Neo-Nazi party power worldwide, then that action would be really, really, really selfless of you.
THAT is altruism. The fake "altruism" that people insist upon is actually really selfish in comparison, as you've admitted that you get "a LOT" out of doing it.
I don't make the rules. I just make fun of them.