interesting article which discusses an association found in several studies with people who value helping others and long term happiness http://www.twodaymag.com/live/view/t...er-of-altruism
how much do you value helping others? what role does altruism play in your life? if you don't value altruism, does this research make you reconsider your position/orientation? why or why not?
(without reading the studies, I wonder how well they sorted out causes and effects. Are people more altruistic because they're happy or does altruism make them happy or both.)
This stuff worries me sometimes. Altruism-- and on a broader scale, sympathy-- always involves an aspect of condescension and reveling in superiority. In the process of giving up some of your power for someone else's benefit, you're proving your power and making it known to others-- and I think that's a driving force in altruistic behavior. Empathy (and sympathy) isn't simply about making other people feel happy; it's about making other people happier so you can feel happier, more powerful. That doesn't significantly/necessarily lessen its value for the 'targets' of altruism, but it creeps me out that martyrs have this necessary dark side. It's just the way these identification processes work, and they do produce good results/spread happiness, but it's icky when you really think about it.
It's hard for altruism amateurs to pull it off without seeming tacky because they can't hide the dark power-mongering aspect with rhetoric. I see this happen a lot on facebook-- all those proselytizers and donors looking smug.
i would say genuine altruism is about helping someone with the intention of making the other person better, and thus society better, and thus the original helper better because they are a member of society. fake altruism is certainly more about getting attention, social cred, and less about helping. certainly many people's 'altruistic behavior' lies somewhere between the two.Originally Posted by Dot
I think nobodies motivation is 100% selfish or altruistic. It's only when put before a situation that requires one to make a choice to act, i.e. when doing nothing in itself constitutes an act of selfish or altruistic behavior, that altruistic or selfish behavior manifests itself. Take for example the harboring of refugees in world war 2. Many good people did not act. Some did. I'm certain there was personal doubt on both sides.
So really, this:
Robert Trivers coined the phrase "reciprocal altruism" in 1971 and put forth the hypothesis that there is no such thing as actual altruism because evolution would not allow for it.
http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.230...21104790042223
Whether or not you believe true altruism can actually exist, the economy likely plays at least some role in the evolution of human "altruism."
Here is rational Wiki's entry on the subject:
http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Reciprocal_altruism
Yes . And kin selection. In a way it is not a new ideas. The whole model of society as pictured by Hobbes even back in the 17th century was based on this concept of enlightened self-interest, and Western capitalistic ideologies have always been based on the principle of moral reciprocity. Although I think in human cases there is also a sort of altruism that is bred primarily from domestication, like with pets. Such domestication - and everyone is domesticated to some extent, but the further up the social hierarchy you are the less this is true, which is kind of the implicit assumption of Machiavelli's Prince - is really what is primarily meant by civilisation.
A complex mix of all three causes is probably what amounts to human morality and altruism, and actually its complexity and overdeterminedness is what I think makes human social reactions often conflicting, contentious and liable to multiple interpretations, unlike most other eusocial systems found in nature.
Die Logik ist keine Lehre, sondern ein Spiegelbild der Welt. Die Logik ist transcendental. - Wittgenstein
That's all fine, but a person's thoughts and actions are not always rational. I don't think 100% rational thought is realistically possible. We're always under the influence of our brain chemistry. Without these rationality-suspending hormones we would not have evolution at all.
When you say "evolution," what do you mean exactly?
Insults are effective only where emotion is present. -- Spock, "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Stardate 3468.1.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
This SEP field is glorious!
Take @Sistamatic 's links, combine them with the monkeysphere and you have got pretty much all you need to know regarding altruism. I'm reciprocally altruistic inside my monkeysphere, outside, it all depends, but much less likely as a rule.
I've been volunteering once a week for the past few years (various food banks). It's been good for me and it has helped people. It's more out of a sense of conviction than a smugness bonus. It's only the short timers who take on the beatific glow. The longer I've committed, the more it feels like I'm not helping anyone at all.
Of course, nothing is completely selfless but that's a false dilemma. Or like Voltaire said "the perfect is the enemy of the good."
Last edited by MoneyJungle; 09-30-2014 at 08:17 PM. Reason: Added paragraph
Glimpses do ye seem to see of that mortally intolerable truth; that all deep, earnest thinking is but the intrepid effort of the soul to keep the open independence of her sea; while the wildest winds of heaven and earth conspire to cast her on the treacherous, slavish shore?
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