If Everyone is Altruistic

The day will come, says Spencer, when altruistic inclination will be so well embodied in our organism itself that people will compete for opportunities of self-sacrifice and immolation. When altruistic inclinations are implanted in everyone, how will opportunities arise to apply them? Either such a state presupposes the existence of persecutors, tormentors and tyrants, or else the general urge to sacrifice oneself will engender benefactors who will turn into tormentors and persecutors merel...

 Humans are the Giraffes of Altruism

Humans are the giraffes of altruism. We’re freaks of nature, able (at our best) to achieve antlike levels of service to the group. We readily join together to create superorganisms, but unlike the eusocial insects we do it with blatant disregard for kinship and we do it temporarily and contingent upon special circumstances (particularly intergroup conflict, as is found in war, sports, and business). [...] Having the term “contingent superorganism” in our cognitive toolkit may help peo...

 The Actuarial Math of Altruism

I have talked in elemental terms of suicidal genes for saving the lives of particular numbers of kin of exactly known relatedness. Obviously, in real life, animals cannot be expected to count exactly how many relatives they are saving, nor to perform Hamilton's calculations in their heads even if they had some way of knowing exactly who their brothers and cousins were. In real life, certain suicide and absolute 'saving' of life must be replaced by statistical risks of death, one's own and oth...

 Hamilton's Model

Hamilton's rule is rb - c > 0. Here c is the cost to the giver's fitness (c fewer offspring because of helping), and b is the benefit to the recipient's fitness (offspring gained by the recipient from the help). Here again, "r" is a measure of the relatedness between giver and the receiver [...] Hamilton’s rule says that for unrelated individuals (r = 0) no benefit can overcome the cost of loss of the altruist's fitness (0 - c can't be greater than 0) and aid giving is selected against...

 Scientists Do Not Work for the Benefit of Humanity

This leads me to comment upon the opinion, held by many people, that the scientist is a completely altruistic being, devoting himself selflessly to the pursuit of truth, solely in order Jo contribute to the welfare of humanity. I do not intend it as a derogation of men whom I cherish when I say that this is, in my experience, not really the basic motivation for any of them, and as additional motivation it is more often absent than present. That they do, in fact, expend themselves in activitie...