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Post 0

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 6:32amSanction this postReply
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Great article Joe! I think this gets down to the root of the problem. People so often support ideas, laws, etc that, at the root, are corrupt or harmful. The thing is they don't work to understand the root of the issue at hand. I've thought it would be useful to have a simple test to give to someone to help them understand what they really believe. I suspect most would be surprised to find that helping people wasn't really what altruism was all about. I'm also sure that their are some who think that sacrifice and suffering is what it's all about and is what is right.

Ethan 


Post 1

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 2:28pmSanction this postReply
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Joe,

This is one of the best -- if not the best -- of the articles I've seen since I've been on this site. Superb insights and some very valuable instruction for Objectivists on how to communicate ideas.

- Bill

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Post 2

Monday, August 27, 2007 - 11:19pmSanction this postReply
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So-Called Altruism in the Animal World

A side issue to the general misunderstanding and willful deceit by intellectuals over the meaning of altruism is its current use by biologists (and psychologists) to mean something entirely different from what it means in ethics.

You may see articles in popular science magazines about altruism in the animal kingdom. How is it possible that a bee will forgo reproduction and die for the hive, or a monkey will call out an alarm signal to the troop, warning others of the danger of a leopard or a hawk, but bringing lethal attention upon itself?

Such behavior is quite regularly called altruistic. However, it is properly called kin selection. The action of animals in such situations is the product of hardwired responses that while perhaps dangerous or lethal to the individual are helpful or lifesaving to its close kin. In the biological realm, animals cannot make the conceptual choice to pursue their own happiness. Their actions are to a large extent genetically motivated, even if there is an amount of learning and non-verbal cognition going on among higher animals. The relevant calculation is not a conscious one based on the animal's chosen values, but a reflexive one based on benefit to the animal's close genetic relatives.

For example, the alarm calls of monkeys are startle reflexes. They do not think about whether to warn their relatives, but they cry out involuntarily upon seeing the proper stimulus. So far as nature is concerned, the individual organism is always expendable so long as his genetic line flourishes. If I have a 10% chance of dying because I call out a warning, but save the lives of five nephews who each share 1/4 of my genetic endowment, then it makes sense for me to call out at a 10% risk of my own death compared to the possible loss of one of my own nephews who shares 25% of my gene line. If I call out ten times over a lifetime, but save all five nephews, I have lost 100% of my genetic "self" but have saved 5 x 1/4 =125% of my bloodline by doing so.

This line of reasoning or genetic calculation is only validly called kin selection, and should never be called altruism. Altruism would be me as a monkey calling out to the leopard because the leopard is hungry - not to save my kin but to feed my enemy.

Also, keep in mind that we really share much more in common with our close relatives than just 50% or 25% of our genes. Humans and chimps only differ in their genes by a few percent at most. Since all living humans share an ancestor less than 200,000 years ago, and probably more like 75,000 years ago, we all share more than 99.9% of our genetic endowment. Now, of course, humans do think. And a gene that made one sacrifice oneself for random strangers would still tend to breed out of the gene pool rather quickly. (And the existence of such a gene per se is a fantasy anyway - one might have a high or low level of oxytocin or other neurotransmitters by genetic endowment, making one more or less likely to be cuddly and empathetic or cold and sociopathic - but blood chemical levels simply don't translate directly into action, and especially not into complex actions such as learning CPR.) In any case, many humans will be willing, when faced with a split second stimulus, to risk their own lives to save others, and our social nature and our close genetic kinship makes this understandable from a genetic point of view.

But true altruism, self-sacrifice without any return is as unheard-of in animals as it is evil among humans. So long as such people as Peter Singer are considered professional ethicists and so long as scientists either accept false common notions or evade philosophical education altogether, we will keep hearing of altruism from scientists as if it were an expected part of the natural world. It is not, and the notion should be fought tooth and nail, for the good of the species.

Ted Keer

(Edited by Ted Keer on 8/28, 1:27am)


Post 3

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 12:07amSanction this postReply
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Thanks Ethan and Bill.  Glad you liked it.  It's not really a new topic, but I had mentioned the outline of the argument in a conversation recently and got very positive feedback.  Thought I'd offer it.

Actually, it was a good way to introduce this new category for articles.  I wanted to create a category just for people to focus on presenting arguments for Objectivist ideas.  I want it to be about refining arguments, and finding powerful ways to communicate them.  The goal would be to create a stockpile of arguments for people who find it difficult to communicate some of the ideas.

Thanks again for the compliments.


Post 4

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 6:43amSanction this postReply
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Joe wrote:
So while the point of the altruism is to help other people, it's easy to see that personally benefiting from the action corrupts the moral status of the act.  The larger the personal gain, the less praiseworthy the act it.  The only way to have your motives be pure is if you don't gain at all from your act.
I mostly agree, but think there is another dimension to it. Helping others is usually evaluated in material terms (but not always, such as simply spending some time with somebody you barely know in a nursing home). I'd say the larger the personal material gain, the less praiseworthy the act. On the other hand, personal psychic gain does not make the act less praiseworthy. It's fine to feel good about the act.


Post 5

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 7:32amSanction this postReply
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Merlin:
Joe wrote:

So while the point of the altruism is to help other people, it's easy to see that personally benefiting from the action corrupts the moral status of the act.  The larger the personal gain, the less praiseworthy the act it (sic).  The only way to have your motives be pure is if you don't gain at all from your act.
I mostly agree, ...
I think you have misinterpreted what Joe said. Joe was speaking from the point of view of the altruist who believes that the value of the act is determined by how much sacrifice is made. Objectivists will agree that a compassionate act should be judged independent of the value to the donor.

Sam


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Post 6

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 9:17amSanction this postReply
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I was also thinking about some of the results of altruism:

1)  Now being a moral or good person is judged by how much you "help others"
2)  If you help yourself or do well in life, you are considered greedy and selfish

and by the way, the hard core altruists will even take you to task for doing it because you like it. 


Post 7

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 10:56amSanction this postReply
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Sam wrote:
I think you have misinterpreted what Joe said. Joe was speaking from the point of view of the altruist who believes that the value of the act is determined by how much sacrifice is made.
That point was very clear to me.
Objectivists will agree that a compassionate act should be judged independent of the value to the donor.
My post was about judgment by an altruist, not an Objectivist. Maybe you misinterpreted what I said.

Kurt wrote:
the hard core altruists will even take you to task for doing it because you like it. 
I don't doubt that, but don't believe the majority would.



Post 8

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 12:16pmSanction this postReply
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Merlin:  Sorry if I misinterpreted you.

Sam


Post 9

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 12:34pmSanction this postReply
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Merlin, I disagree somewhat. I think it would be fine, under altruism, to feel good about helping other people. So I do agree that it's not all personal benefits that are looked down upon.

But I don't think it's simply material gain. If you helped someone in order to get them to like you, and you achieved that, it wouldn't be moral either. Helping a beautiful single woman would not be considered much of virtuous act. There are clearly other motivations.

Even if you limit it so your only gain is your own feelings, I think there would be differences. If you helped someone because you knew it would upset someone else (you help your enemy's enemy), that wouldn't be moral. If you help someone you care about, like a family member, it probably wouldn't count.

I mentioned in the article that you only get credit for doing it if you're motivated by the "right" reasons. There are all kinds of wrong reasons. The only right reasons is the desire to help other people for the sake of helping other people. Anything else would diminish the moral act.



Post 10

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 12:21pmSanction this postReply
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I completely disagree with Kurt Eichert.  If you help yourself or do well in life, you are considered SUCCESSFUL by NORMAL people. 

That is what is wrong with society today!  People just cant give credit where credit is due.  If I make $1 million before im 40 someone should congratulate me for being successful, not assume I am greedy and selfish because I am not giving any to them


Post 11

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 4:25pmSanction this postReply
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Joe, classically, Altruism has seen doing good for others because you enjoy it as lacking virtue. Not only do the scriptures ask "what good is it to love your neighbor?" because "even the gentiles do this," Kant himself explicitly said that an act is morally praiseworthy only so long as it is done from a sense of duty, and against one's own inclinations. The scriptures are open to interpretation, but Kant's deontology is explicit and undeniable.

Ted Keer

Post 12

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 7:09pmSanction this postReply
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“It is a duty to preserve one's life, and moreover everyone has a direct inclination to do so. But for that reason the often anxious care which most men take of it has no intrinsic worth, and the maxim of doing so has no moral import [Whoa!]. But if adversities and hopeless sorrow completely take away the relish for life, if an unfortunate man, strong in soul, is indignant rather than despondent or dejected over his fate and wishes for death, and yet preserves his life without loving it and from neither inclination nor fear but from duty – then his maxim has a moral import.” (Immanuel Kant, Foundations of Metaphysics of Morals, ed R.P. Wolff, New York, Bobbs-Merrill, 1969, pp 16-17)

I cadged this from Kasper's thread on SOLO

Post 13

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 10:29pmSanction this postReply
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Ted, Kurt already mentioned that.  I agree with Merlin's response.  I don't think most people think of altruism in that way.  I've never met anyone who came close to agreeing with Kant on that.  If I were arguing with long dead philosophers, I might decide to confront that view.  But I think it would be a mistake to assume or presume that those are commonly held views.  I know if I was trying to discuss the idea with someone, suggesting that they believed that would come off as a straw-man attack.

Post 14

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 10:51pmSanction this postReply
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Well, most people don't understand evolution or relativity either. My father is a strong believer in Lamarckism - the false evolutionary idea that changes to your body due to the environment are passed on to your children - so if you tan a lot you'll have darker children or that the giraffe has a long neck because its ancestors stretched theirs.

I thought it a bit weird that people here were talking not about altruism as Comte and Kant formulated it, but about the general misconception of the term. I'll grant most people are not evil enough to fathom such filth.

Were my comments here on the misuse of the term altruism by scientists out of place? I could slightly revise and expand them and submit them as a separate article.

Ted

Post 15

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 11:11pmSanction this postReply
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Ted, your comments were out of place, in that they had nothing to do with my article.  So submitting them as an article would be great.

And as for not arguing with Comte or Kant, I thought it was clear from the article that this was aimed at discussing it with real human beings.  But I don't think you can simply say that these people don't understand altruism, or aren't altruists themselves, because they wouldn't agree with Kant's formulation.  It's wildly different from saying that they don't understand relativity or evolution.


Post 16

Tuesday, August 28, 2007 - 11:41pmSanction this postReply
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I had thought this was a perfect place, given our previous chat, and my comments then to you that scientists don't use the term the way philosophers do. I'll work on it later, if I have the inspiration. I certainly didn't think that one post was out of place, since it expounded on the topic.

It's late.

Post 17

Friday, August 31, 2007 - 4:00amSanction this postReply
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~ Most people DON'T think of 'altruism' that way; they think of the term as meaning nothing more than benevolent giving to those 'in need.' Not an obvious connection. However, this is before their pulpit-pounders start talking about "give [to us] until it hurts [you]"...which is then relevent here, but, the connection's never made.
~ O-t-other-h, most people don't think of 'selfishness' as anything more than impulsive-desire satisfying, if not hedonistically a la Paris Hilton, then one-or-another of some criminally-immoral enterprise (armed-robbery, rape, sadistic-enjoyments, etc.)

     In short, most people don't think the way Rand did.

LLAP
J:D


Post 18

Friday, August 31, 2007 - 5:48amSanction this postReply
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In short, most people don't think the way Rand did.

in other words, most people don't think, they rote.....


Post 19

Saturday, September 1, 2007 - 6:13amSanction this postReply
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Robert:

     Well put emphasizing.

     If I may add: this is why there seems such confusion about worthwhile and useful meanings of the terms 'altruism' and 'selfishness.' --- Interestingly, one thing everyone agrees on, though, is: they don't overlap.

LLAP
J:D


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