Helping Ourselves Indirectly Helps Others, Though not the Goal nor a VirtuePosted on 05/23/2010
Further development planned.
Altruism as ObligationPosted on 02/07/2011
The prairie dog foraging outside its family’s burrow sees a coyote or a swooping bird of prey and calls out a warning alarm. The sound also attracts the attention of the skilled predator.
The alarm-calling prairie dog increases the likelihood to a certainty that he’ll be eaten, but he’s given his relatives a better chance to safely reach the burrow’s haven.
Kin-selection self-sacrifice among animals who share a high number of genes from common ancestry maximizes the inclusive fitness of the group, assuming that all members will exhibit the same alarm-calling behavior in the face of danger. Species selectively ensure this conforming behavior by discriminating against outsiders (nonrelatives) and recognizing “insiders as individuals, thereby increasing the likelihood that they” will sacrifice for the group (Barash, p. 89).
Sociobiologists call this kind of self-sacrifice in the wild, altruism. But the sacrifice need not always be the life of one’s group members in exchange for the life of all others in the group, as in the extreme example of the yelping prairie dog. “The cost of altruism may be low if the individual is highly adapted to provide assistance…. In addition, just as altruism is increasingly likely in proportion as the beneficiary can in fact benefit, it is also more likely in proportion as the altruist is losing little” (Barash, p. 88).
Surviving prairie dogs huddled in the burrow don’t think, “look how many of us survived this time because of our brother’s brave sacrifice.” They can’t think, “we’re like sitting ducks,” or “what’s a duck?” or “life is a suicide mission.” Prairie dogs can’t calculate a zero-sum gain or loss. They don’t estimate the value of their life versus the lives of those they save: “As with other behaviors encountered in sociobiology, no implication is made regarding conscious awareness on the part of the performing individual” (Barash, p. 77).
Predators aren’t thinking, “eat, wait 10 to 20 minutes, repeat stalking, eat another loud critter.” But if the hunting’s easy, they communicate this secret to their own relatives, until the prairie dog’s altruistic behavior just made the prairie dog’s backyard a hunting ground.
We know that operant conditioning doesn’t depend on the predator’s understanding of it, just that predators are rewarded with an easy meal-for-one every time the prairie dog calls out a warning, increasing the well-nourished predator’s chance of passing the learned behavior to its offspring. The prairie dog meal won’t be making more offspring, though its altruistic self-sacrifice will persist in the group despite the lost dog’s gene contribution, not only if the outcome continues not to be extinction through predation, but also if the behavior contributes dramatically to the productive success of the group (Barash, p. 75).
It’s either life or death for animals, and those are the two primary options to which their instincts are directed, with room in between to play, look for dinner, have sex, and raise their young.
A human attached the word, altruism, to describe an observed animal behavior. Altruism is also cited to describe virus behavior. Less virulent viruses live longer and have a greater likelihood of being transmitted to other hosts through contact or the reproductive success of their host. Sociobiologists apply the label, altruistic reproductive constraint, to the natural evolution into nonvirulent strains by highly toxic virulent viruses that kill their hosts and die when their host dies. Since viruses aren’t thinking how to maximize their chances to survive, altruism must be defined by its consequences: as “an act that reduces the personal reproductive success of the performer while increasing the reproductive success of others.” (Barash, p. 77).
Humans are not wildlife. Humans think things through, observe the behavior of animals and develop theories about that behavior, make conclusions, research, compare possible outcomes, plan, and control their environment to the smallest detail. Humans hold other humans responsible for their own safety because humans have evolved not to have self-sacrifice as the only option in our arsenal of coping mechanisms. Before we self-sacrifice, we want to know that the prevention of the certain deaths of others will be directly tied to our own sacrifice, even on the battlefield following the orders of military commanders. We take a hit for the team, with the hope that our self-sacrifice will benefit others, while having no ability to predict the future or the actions of others involved in an endeavor.
Altruism, from the point of view of the individual who is considering whether or not and to what extent he should put himself out of pocket to provide a benefit to his fellow humankind, does not obligate the individual. In fact, family members may try to persuade against an incipient altruistic act if they determine that the act of giving by one family member will have a harmful ripple effect to the standard of living of the entire family. According to Libertarian lecturer and essayist, David Kelley, in “the conventional sense, altruism means kindness, generosity, charity, a willingness to help others. These are certainly virtues, so long as they do not involve the sacrifice of other values, and so long as they are a matter of personal choice, not a duty imposed” (Kelley) by laws and government.
Sacrifice entails surrendering something that you value and want for yourself, and even a tiny sacrifice is still a sacrifice. “A sacrifice is the surrender of a greater value to a lesser one, or to a non-value. In other words, you perform a sacrifice when you give up something of great value to you for the sake of something less.” (Rand, OSARI, p. 150) Throwing oneself onto a live grenade because five fellow soldiers would otherwise lose their lives or a significant part of their lives, is not a sacrifice, but an act of heroism, by Ayn Rand’s definition of sacrifice.
Otherwise, giving is only an act of showing another person their value in one’s life.
Only when other humans demand self-sacrifice of the individual as the right of the society of humans does the concept of altruism take on horribly dark connotations. Read more
Subhead Here
Posted on 05/23/2010
New paragraph here.
Subsub head here
More here
More here
Subhead here
Posted on 05/23/2010
Another paragraph here
And here
And here
And here :
- List item here
- List item here
- List item here
- List item here
- List item here
- List item here.
- List item here.
- List item here.
- List item here.
Ordered List
- Example
- Example
- Example
- Example