Re: [asa] Altruism

"> More plausible are the ideas of group selection,
> which may perhaps be
> considered an expansion of option 2. Within a
> group, there is often
> tension between what would give the most benefit to
> an individual and
> what would be best for the entire group. However,
> over the long term,
> destabilizing the group by selfishly taking
> advantage may be
> detrimental to one's own success. Human culture
> allows the
> transmission of information orally or in writing, as
> well as via
> genes. These can greatly reinforce the ability of
> the group to
> monitor whether individuals or groups are
> cooperative or selfish. Cf.
> Franklin on the need to hang together to avoid
> hanging separately."

Along these lines, would not an atheist argue that
altruism is a misguided human attempt to live forever
(due to fear of death) through such oral and written
forms of communication, and that therefore this
constitutes an evolutionary benefit (albeit more of a
meme success than a gene success)?

Christine Smith

--- David Campbell <pleuronaia@gmail.com> wrote:

> From a biological evolutionary viewpoint, there are
> at least four
> categories of "altruistic" behavior.
>
> 1) self-sacrifice for near kin
> 2) mutualism-both individuals help each other
> 3) commensalism or parasitism-one individual is
> benefitting and the
> other has no effect or a negative effect;
> participation by the second
> individual is accidental or unwilling
> 4) deliberate self-sacrifice without anticipation of
> a benefit to oneself.
>
> It's easy to see how 1-3 could evolve. 4 is
> challenging to explain.
> One approach is to identify it as a mistaken attempt
> at 1. However,
> this becomes an untestable axiom, as any action
> could be dismissed by
> this. It also seems hard to maintain consistently.
> E.g., it is
> claimed that in a quarrel in a Yanomamo village (a
> closely studied
> Amazonian tribe), people took sides by relationship
> more precisely
> than their language could specify. It is difficult
> to reconcile this
> with a claim that someone putting themselves at risk
> for a total
> stranger is merely a mistaken effort at helping kin.
>
> More plausible are the ideas of group selection,
> which may perhaps be
> considered an expansion of option 2. Within a
> group, there is often
> tension between what would give the most benefit to
> an individual and
> what would be best for the entire group. However,
> over the long term,
> destabilizing the group by selfishly taking
> advantage may be
> detrimental to one's own success. Human culture
> allows the
> transmission of information orally or in writing, as
> well as via
> genes. These can greatly reinforce the ability of
> the group to
> monitor whether individuals or groups are
> cooperative or selfish. Cf.
> Franklin on the need to hang together to avoid
> hanging separately.
>
> The fact that something happens to be explicable in
> evolutionary terms
> is not a problem for its being enjoined by
> Christianity; after all,
> God's moral laws are not some arbitrary set of
> challenges but are
> partial directions on what's good for us. However,
> not everything
> that seems compatible with advancing by evolutionary
> success is
> morally appropriate.
>
> Some studies try to examine apparently innate
> tendencies, e.g. by
> asking large numbers of subjects about hypothetical
> situations in
> which they can be altruistic or not. However,
> apparent innateness is
> neither proof of evolutionary explanation nor of
> moral merit.
>
> --
> Dr. David Campbell
> 425 Scientific Collections
> University of Alabama
> "I think of my happy condition, surrounded by acres
> of clams"
>
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>

"For we walk by faith, not by sight" ~II Corinthians 5:7

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Received on Wed Jun 13 22:36:55 2007