The Path to Altruism

In other words, if enough relatives receive benefits from altruism to outweigh the cost of altruism, then altruism spreads otherwise, it does not.

Biologists call that reciprocal altruism. OK.

Altruism makes us all better off.

Evolutionary biologists have been almost as interested in this type of altruism, as they have been in kinship based altruism.

The basis for this cooperation must be altruism.

Hamilton s Rule, of course, does not explain all altruism.

And we find chimps are capable of true compassion and altruism.

This, Sering says, is surely not on account of any overflowing altruism.

The sales clerk's commercially motivated solicitude does lack true charity and altruism.

Over and over, we see that an analysis of the costs and benefits of altruism, along with the genetic relatedness of interactants, allows us to predict the presence or absence of altruism.

They're enriching others, not out of altruism but as a way of enriching themselves.

In other words, if enough relatives receive benefits from altruism to outweigh the cost of altruism, then altruism spreads otherwise, it does not. Phrased in the cold language of natural selection, blood relatives are worth helping in direct proportion to their genetic (blood) relatedness, weighted by how great a benefit they received.

Instead of asking if blood kinship explains everything or nothing about altruism, Hamilton approached the question differently.

It's a form, if you like, of ecological altruism perhaps something along those lines. Maybe it's that.

We looked at smoking and drinking behavior, and voting behavior, and divorce which can spread and altruism.

But this wasn't really out of altruism. This was just out of interest in doing something cool.

Milton Friedman and other critics often asked if it was the business of businesses to practice corporate altruism.

Among the more amusing results that have come out of experimental economics are those concerning altruism and selfishness.

It's on altruism and chimpanzees where the question is, do chimpanzees care about the welfare of somebody else?

Huxley, in fact, got himself into quite a heated argument over whether blood kinship could or could not explain altruism.

Altruism, where it existed, also was undertaken by the family, which decided how and on what to spend its money.

There is also an added advantage in replacing CSR with PSR there is virtue in diversity of approaches to altruism.

Instead, what is now known as Hamilton s Rule states that altruism evolves whenever r times b is greater than c.

And a story couched in these realist terms is likely to be easier to sell to domestic constituencies than one pitched as disinterested altruism.

Using some beautiful mathematics, in the early 1960 s Hamilton discovered that altruism and blood kinship are not linked by an all or nothing relationship.

Only a civil society, in which active citizens are freely engaged in public life and show altruism and solidarity with others, can keep democracy vital.

As the value of altruism becomes increasingly obvious, the new approach will spread through the economy, benefiting all of society, future generations, and the planet, too.

Given Darwin s ideas about evolution natural selection were correct (and, of course, they were and are), then this sort of altruism should be extraordinarily rare in nature.

Reciprocity can be complex, but an evolutionary perspective has cleared the path to understanding, just the same way it did in the case of blood kinship and altruism.

But they don t disappear, and Darwin was so puzzled by this that he spoke of altruism as a problem that could prove fatal to his whole theory of evolution.

All these rationales for CSR suggest that it should be left to each corporation to determine, just as PSR leaves altruism to each individual s conscience and sense of what needs supporting.

Thus, if we are to engender a more caring world, we must first recognize the importance of altruism and then cultivate it among individuals and promote cultural change in our societies.

Following up on work done by Trivers in the early 1970 s, in 1981, Axelrod and Hamilton used the mathematics of game theory to predict when so called reciprocal altruism should evolve.

The sales clerk's commercially motivated solicitude does lack true charity and altruism. But, seen historically, the market's ability to create a self interested regard for others is surely preferable to the alternatives.

But research over the past 30 years indicates that true altruism does exist and can extend beyond kin and community to encompass the welfare of humans generally and that of other species.

As a populist rhetoric grows more deafening and the climate of fear seems to sweep much of Europe (especially in France), remembering these stories of altruism and sacrifice is more vital than ever.

So, I would say that what seems sometimes to be altruism, in relation to Africa, or in relation to developing countries, is more than that. It is enlightened self interest for us to work with other countries.

But that does not mean that a corporation is the right entity to engage in altruism though its various stakeholders obviously can spend any portion of the income they earn from the corporation and other sources in altruistic ways.

Neuroscientists have identified three components of altruism that anyone can develop as acquired skills empathy (understanding and sharing the feelings of another), loving kindness (the wish to spread happiness), and compassion (a desire to relieve the suffering of another).

In the case of foreign investment and aid flows, the West went further, viewing them as being motivated by altruism, or benign intent, whereas the East regarded globalization in a world of poor and rich nations as implying malign impact.

Now, there's one other result of this dynamic called reciprocal altruism, which I think is kind of good news, which is that the way that this is played out in the human species, it has given people an intuitive appreciation of the golden rule.

Friendship, altruism, compassion, service all the perennial truths that we talked about that are part of all religion and all cultures once you stop trying to see the differences, these are the things in our own self interest, because they free us from our suffering and from disease.