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A friend and I have been having a thoroughly enjoyable discussion/argument on this topic. So enjoyable and interesting that with his permission I am inviting all of your-all's comments.
What, exactly, is altruism? Is it defined by intentions or results? If a person does a good deed but then trumpets about it, is he altruistic? Or--if someone meant to do good but unintentionally causes a disaster: is that altruism? Is it possible that someone becomes a movie star for altruistic reasons?
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I think the classic definition of altruism requires the altruist to completely deny self-interest for the interests of others. Final outcome is totally irrelevant. Self-sacrifice is the ultimate good. I don't think that's the way most people who value the common good over the needs of the self would define it today. I don't think I've answered your question. But, perhaps you-both'll want to make sure you're singing from the same dictionary before you get too far into this argum^H^H^H^H^H umm, discussion.
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Ok Jackie, I will give it a go... What, exactly, is altruism? Is it defined by intentions or results? I agree with Fald, that the means define altruism; it is the intent that defines it. However, if the end is not achieved, then the effort will not be *recognised as altruistic, will fall by the wayside and might even be derided as do-gooding. And so, the results are important for the recognition of the lofty ideal behind the act.  If a person does a good deed but then trumpets about it, is he altruistic? No...that is clearly opportunism if someone meant to do good but unintentionally causes a disaster: is that altruism?*This might be meddling dogooder-y! Seriously though, it might depend on the scale of the disaster and the planning that went into the effort to help. A knee jerk reaction to help, that results in chaos, would be an interfering annoyance. But a well planned effort devoid of motives, that goes all wrong could still be called, 'a heroic but frutiless effort of altruism'. Is it possible that someone becomes a movie star for altruistic reasonsFramed the way you ask it, I will have to say no. But, he/she could have acted in a movie with a social message that has the potential of bringing about great societal change; he/she might have acted in it gratis, for the sake of the cause and inadvertently ended up becoming a movie star. I guess then, his act of altruism paid rich dividends!!! Inadvertently, of course!
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Pooh-Bah
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Dworkin would define altruism as being an unconcious chalking up of favours owed to one to aid one's longer-term survival through eventual repayment. I think he would also say that if one believed one was being truly altruistic, then one is sadly mistaken. We are programmed to act selfishly - "The Selfish Gene" - according to Dworkin and pure altruism, with no hope of any payback is contrasurvival.
Personally, I think that this is horsepucky, like all sociobiology, but there you are!
Damn. remembering post-grad pysch classes at 1.17 a.m.! What next?
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you-both'll A take-off on you-all? As to the dictionary-singing, that was the whole point: the yes-buts. [back to the fray with a grin e] If a person does a good deed but then trumpets about it, is he altruistic?
No...that is clearly opportunism Aha--but what's wrong with telling a few people about it, if the action, say was done purely for the benefit of group A, and the people you tell are group B? That doesn't negate the benefits in any way that I can see. Who is or was this Dworkin dude, anyway? Rather unfortunate name...
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you-both'll
Yes. It's the explicit dual number. And I've heard it used spontaneously in the wild by a Southron girl.
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in the wild by a Southron girl Faldage!!! My turn to be shocked!
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In reply to:
Who is or was this Dworkin dude, anyway? Rather unfortunate name...
Actually, his name is Dawkins, author of "The Selfish Gene".
See: http://www.world-of-dawkins.com/Dawkins/Work/Books/selfish.shtml
More deserving of fame in AWAD circles, perhaps, as the coiner of the word "meme".
Bingley
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Sorry, yes that's Dawkins. It was late. I was tired. The tired bit hasn't really changed, that's all.
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Hi, could you please define horsepucky for me  ?. You can be frank about it, I am no sociobiologist, and I also have some sneaky suspicions about them. I gather the "selfish gene" is already outdated.
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Intent determines altruism in humans. If the sole purpose that a person did a particular thing was so he could say "See, I did *this*," then the thing is not altruistic. If the person did it for selfless reasons and then bragged about it as an afterthought, the deed is no less altruistic, imo.
I - and perhaps others - write as if altruism and selfishness were binary choices. But there are gradations between these extremes and a single bit is insufficient to convey the myriad possibilities.
I qualify the above with the phrase "in humans," because it's not clear to me that bees, for example, have intent, though their behavior is commonly recognized as altruistic.
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could you please define horsepucky for me?. You can be frank about it, I am no sociobiologist, and I also have some sneaky suspicions about them. I gather the "selfish gene" is already outdated.Sure, Werner. It's a polite way of saying bullshit! I was being controversial. My dislike of sociobiology stems from an abhorrence of "science" that in many cases proves its theories by begging the question and other forms of dodgy logic. My dislike of sociobiology is also known to many on the board! I've always felt that the major attraction of sociobiology to otherwise quite smart people like Dawkins is because adopting allows you to avoid rigour ... 
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>>>My dislike of sociobiology is also known to many on the board!Really Cap? How could we possibly know that, what with you being all timid-like, and introverted, and reticent to voice yer opinion an all.
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Yes, he always has been a shrinking violet...
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"Regard for others as a principle of action; unselfishness" is the way OED defines it.
Wonder how long they discussed before coming up with that definition?
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the "selfish gene" is already outdated
The "selfish gene" isn't outdated, wsieber. It's just got a new spin doctor.
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Trumpeting a good deed ... That's clearly opportunism
Right on, maahey.
If I want to do good
And I try to do good
That's "altruism".
If I happen to do good
And I make it look good
That's "opportunism".
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When a mother bird feeds the cookoo's young, is that
altruism? I think it could be argued both ways.
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I don't think so Bill, from the several articles I've read about it, the mother bird thinks that the cuckoo is actually one of her babies hatching from one of her own eggs. So she's not doing this out of niceness to the mother cuckoo.
I'm thinking that when the mother bird plays decoy to distract a predetor from her nest - that sounds more like altruism.
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Actually, I've read a theory that it's the most selfish act of 'em all ~ the mother bird is attempting to distract the predator from her young so that her own genetic legacy will survive. The book to which I refer put it in a larger context, of course...
Dark Nature: A Natural History of Evil by Lyall Watson, in case anyone's interested. It was a good read.
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Sometimes I think that scientists are so limited in their thinking.
The think that the ultimate reason the mother bird does this may be instinctual is one thing, but to reduce her action to only that is wrong.
I don’t believe the mother bird sees a fox approaching, and thinks, hmmmm, let me make sure my genetics survive in these chicklets. I believe she, like most mothers, simply figures out the best way to protect her babies. It has been demonstrated that birds show affection (not to say love since that annoys a lot of people - apparently humans are the only ones that are allowed to have that emotion) and it is that affection that will make the mother bird protect her babies.
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Oh, no... he wasn't letting humans have any more credit than the birds, actually. He roundly regarded the premise of "instinct" as an ingrained genetic response to assure that this particular genetic strain carries on.
I hate the brush-off tone with which many scientists use the word "anthropomorphizing" as much as it sounds like you do, Bel. This book was only so engaging to me because the author painted humans as just another animal, afforded no special byes just because we can walk upright.
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Sometimes I think that scientists are so limited in their thinking.Aren't you possibly jumping to conclusions, here ? If a scientist limits his statements to the area he feels competent of (unlike sociobiologists..), this does not necessarily mean that his thoughts are similarly limited. Personally I suspect that discussing altruism in the animal world is about as scientific as assigning a gender to a motorcar. Talking of altruism only makes sense for beings who can communicate their motives to us, humans. And even there, going farther than the OED's definition quickly leads onto marshy ground.
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I suspect that discussing altruism in the animal world is about as scientific as assigning a gender to a motorcar.
If we're going to examine the origins of altruism in humans we must look at the behavior of animals. Even if you define altruism so as to seem to apply only to humans you'll have to adjust something when you find the so-called human traits appearing in other animals.
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Well, I dunno about animal altruism.
When we owned a farmlet near Dunedin (NZ), Demmy, our 16-year-old dog, had a massive stroke that paralysed her. The vet came around that evening and put her to sleep in one of our outbuildings. We put an old rug over her until the morning, when we were going to bury her. In the morning, a friend who was staying with us offered to give me a hand to move her (she was a heavy dog) down to the spot where she was to be buried. He went out to get some gear and came back in looking a bit odd. "Come and have a look at this," he said.
I went out and looked. The rug had been pushed back from Demmy's head, and a vey dead rabbit had been dropped next to her mouth by one Lizzy, one of our cats.
I can only conclude that Lizzy WAS being altruistic when she attempted to "donate" a dead rabbit to her evidently ill friend, the dog.
Can anybody come up with a different but plausible explanation?
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about as scientific as assigning a gender to a motorcar
Cars do have grammatical gender, e.g., das Auto, but I agree with you, there's nothing scientific about language.
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We *ARE* animals.
I read Wilson's Sociobiology more than a decade ago. I read Blind Watchmaker, but not Selfish Gene, though it's on my list. It's far afield from my education, but I don't see that sociobiology (which Wilson refered to as "proto-science" in Sociobiology) is any less rigorous that the great bulk of sociology or psychology.
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We *ARE* animals. No doubt about that. We also consist of more than 50% water and several pounds of calcium phosphate. But the altruism bit applies essentially to those things which we have in addition to that.
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My father had a Chesapeake Bay retriever when I was three years old. At the beach, Rusty would let me just get the bottomof my bathing trunks wet, and he would trot over to me, take a hold of the seat of the trunks, and drag me out of the water. He knew I couldn't swim, and he, on his own,
decided I needed protection, and gave it to me, no matter
how indignantly I protested, and tried to strike him.
His only reward was my Mother's grateful amusement, which I
doubt influenced his repeating the maneuver when needed.
I think his behaviour was altruistic, in that he gave up his chance to play in the water, with no expectation of
reward.
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My grandparents lived for a while in Paducah, KY, and my brothers and I came to visit for a few weeks. They had a collie looking dog named Babes. We were supposed to play in the yard and not go out the fence, but there was a hole in the wooden fence we liked to slide through. When Babes would catch us sneaking out, she'd pinch the crap out of us with her teeth to get us to come back in. Never a pure bite, never draw blood - but a whole bunch of really painful bruises along one whole cheek of a butt.
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Dear FF: I can remember when collies were smart, before the
AKC ruined them as they have so many breeds, breeding for
looks. You didn't say so, but I think your example is also
a manifestation of altruism on the dog's part.
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I diagree, Bill. I think that when dogs act "protectively" towards children or adults in their owner's family, they are being instinctively protective towards members of their "pack". Dogs aren't stupid, and they can pick up what is allowed and what is not, what is dangerous and what is not, within the group, at a certain level. They then apply that knowledge without, I think, a great of reasoning when those situations arise.
Elsie, my shepherd bitch, attacked a completely innocent tradesman at my parent's house one day simply because he got between her and my niece, towards whom Elsie was very protective. Fortunately, only his dignity was injured.
Dogs will also put up with things from kids that they would never take from an adult. Elsie loathed anyone tugging on her ears, including me, and we were very close. She'd growl at first, but if you persisted, she'd take your hand in her mouth quite firmly - not a bite, just holding on - and growl again. After that, all bets were off. My niece, on the other hand, when she was a toddler, could sit on Elsie's back and twist her ears like the twistgrips on motorcycle handlebars. The dog's eyes watered and she whimpered, but she didn't try to escape or growl.
The reason I raised that quite serious question about animal altruism in my post above is because cats don't have the same instinctive "involvement" with other cats, never mind humans or dogs, apart from their own kittens. And even that instinct becomes suppressed when the kittens are weaned and reach a certain age. I've seen a cat attack her own, grown, kittens when they got between her and her food. The recognition of kinship ends with kittenhood.
So what would motivate a cat to provide a dog (who appeared poorly) with food? This was a real incident, and I'm glad that Frank was staying with us when it occurred because otherwise I doubt if anyone else would have believed it.
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That raises the question: Does behaviour detrimental to oneself but beneficial to the pack count as altruism? It's got to be a question of the definition of altruism, but I don't see any reason to exclude it. Call it weak altruism as opposed to Pfranz's cat's strong altruism.
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Dear Capfka: I have observed your "pack" phenomenon in the
Border Collies we used to have. It was very clear that the
sheep dogs looked on the sheep as source of future meals.
And the humans as just as partners in the enterprise.
But I see no way in which any "gene" for dogs' saving humans
could have developed. Humans saved pups whose parents showed
desirable traits. It's just luck that desirable traits emerged. I think it is just too tempting to find devious
detours around traditional explanations of behaviour.
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Genes for this or genes for that is just sociobiological claptrap, in my book, a poor excuse for failing to investigate the real causes of things. No, there are no "genes" for dogs saving humans, but dogs are poor distinguishers between "dog" and "not dog" when it comes to pack behaviour. Although I can't lay my hands on the research any more, there was a beautifully done article on domestic dog behaviour in one of the psych journals I read at college. Dogs, apparently, accept that all "creatures" within their "pack" milieu are members of the pack and will very quickly work out their position in the pecking order and then more or less stick to it. Intelligent dogs (such as border collies) appear to be able to make "decisions" about their "instinctive" behaviours dependent on circumstances. They are also very good at working out what is acceptable (and unacceptable) behaviour in the pack environment. Dogs hate uncertainty in social situations and there is a theory that family dogs which bite family members are just uncertain about their position (or "worth") within the pack. Dunno about that, though.
Cats, however, walk alone.
I don't think that any of this is "devious" explanation. You will surely have observed a lot of the behaviour in your own dogs.
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Dear capfka: "devious" was not directed at you, but at some
of the seventh day wonders who get books printed on the subject. If your distaste for "sociobiology" extend to E.O.Wilson, I think you are grievously in error. I'm not
well enough informed to discuss him, beyound saying that I
am impressed by the amount of work he has done. I don't know of any of his critics who are in same league with him.
Only possible exception to that is that I remember is S.J. Gould.
I found a couple sites that credited Auguste Compte with
coinage of "altruism" and "sociology".
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>>>Talking of altruism only makes sense for beings who can communicate their motives to us, humans.
I don't believe altruism is a virtue that can be attibuted only to those whom we understand. Why would you think so, wsieber? Since we cannot communicate with animals why do there actions become null. They could just as well be altruism as not - so what makes it automatically impossible.
There are many things we understand now, that we did not 1000 years ago. Were they any less true then?
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Hello. I am new here. I hope i am doing this right.
I just wanted to say:
I don't think one can indulge in art for purely altruistic reasons. Art is self expression and therefore is by definition selfish.
Thank you
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Hi belMarduk,
Since we cannot communicate with animals why do there actions become null. They could just as well be altruism as not - so what makes it automatically impossible. Oh dear, I never even suggested that animals' actions "become null". There are many other positive attributes that can apply to actions, besides altruism. My point is that altruism as a moral criterion hinges on the agent's intentions, and in the case of animals, we have no way of knowing those in advance. If we judged altruism of an action after the fact, we run into problems with human altruistic projects that have ended in disaster.
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Allo Wsieber But wseiber, how can we misinterpret the intention of that mother bird? It is to protect the babies. Even if, ultimately, she is not successful, I don’t see how that can not be altruism. Maybe it's our personal interpretations of altruism? One of the definitions of altruism I found was this... In human and animal behaviour, the tendency to act in ways that benefit other individuals more than oneself, sometimes even where there is a real cost involved to the giver.And this... a generous willingness to help another person or persons, even when there is no reward or other observable benefit to the helper; often involves some sacrifice on the part of the helperThese are what I believe altruism to be. I’m not quite sure what definition you hold true – as usual on the Board we have varied opinions. Can you let me know?
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