yes, but I’m not using any different arguments for humans than for animals here, so you might be misunderstanding my point. I’m simply saying that from a biological (evolutionary) viewpoint, an altruistic behaviour can’t be defined based on the thought-processes or emotions of the organism, but only on the reproductive consequences (fitness effects) of the act of helping.
Mi I sure appreciate you drawing Karen out on these points as I too am benefiting from those. Thanks!
And I very selfishly want you to feel welcome too, @klw. There is so much expertise here in so many fields that I think the powers that be should find a way to extend continuing education credits for any and all who may have use of them. No longer me, thank God!
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What altruism really is (or whether it can exist in some “pure” form) may be a much more lively debate in philosophical or religious discussions than among biologists perhaps. Somebody here (maybe in another thread) had recently asked … “if the only reason you are a Christian is to get to heaven and/or stay out of Hell, then … what is the point?” - meaning if you can’t love God, but are only capable loving the gifts above the Giver, then you need to do some serious spiritual reflection on just what it is you value. [or at least that’s how I interpreted it.] Was that you, @jammycakes? I’ve tried to look back for that particular post and can’t find it.
I brought this up to a friend of mine, and his response back to me was: If God isn’t a giver of good gifts then … once again: what’s the point? Who would God even be to us if not the provider of good? And I think he has a point too. It is probably a fools errand to try to think of God apart from God’s goodness to us. As one wise old pastor once referred to all this … “enlightened self-interest”. Yes - we all benefit from better and healthier communities and neighbors. Is it so wrong that we see those benefits as an investment that we ourselves and especially our children might also hope to partake of in the future?
Even if there turns out to be no such things as pure altruism according to biologists or others, perhaps there are nonetheless such things as more-informed and more benevolent altruism as opposed to less benevolent forms and degenerating on a continuum down into selfishness not recognizable as any form of altruism at all.
Thanks for interesting points, Mervin. Yeah, biologists themselves don’t debate much over the existence of “pure” altruism in non-humans because they see it as evolutionarily impossible (a behaviour promoting effective suicide can never be selected). It is more the case that ideas of “group selection”, the idea that individuals sacrifice themselves altruistically (suffer a net fitness cost or die) in order to benefit the group pops up regularly in the popular media and emerges occasionally in the primate/anthropological literature from well-meaning people who are not well trained in evolutionary mechanisms. This causes evolutionary biologists to become frustrated.
On the theological side, you also raise some interesting points. Personally, I don’t think the “purity” of our love of God is tainted if it we enjoy his goodness and receive emotional (or eternal life) benefits. I’m not sure that this type of love is always equivalent to “Altruism” —that’s something I need to think about more.
An interesting observation is that when Jesus mentions love of enemies in the Sermon on the Mount, he makes no references to “feelings” or “emotions” towards the enemy but stresses real, costly physical actions. I think Jesus asks for obedience when showing pure Agape/altruism to other humans, even if our natural emotions are slow to follow…?
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Perhaps it is (at least in part) this capacity to rise above our biologic nature that defines us as made in God’s image and fully human.
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Just as I ‘love’ the mountains and am awed by them, or the star-filled night sky, we can love God in that way without respect to his good gifts. When I realize he is ‘a person’ that loves me, I can recognize that the mountains and the sky (daytime as well) and their beauty are themselves gifts and love him even more.
Or at another time, Jesus doesn’t so much remove the prospect of reward as he does postpone it (or makes an appeal that we should seek our praise from a higher - the highest source). Regarding those who make a show of their good deeds: “…I tell you they have already received their reward in full … instead do your good deeds in secret that only your Father in Heaven will see and your reward will be from Him.”
So it would seem that this altruism isn’t pure either - and is still being done for reward; unless!!! (full irony in play here) - you are an atheist. So how’s this for a thought: only atheists then are in a position to aspire to the most pure of altruisms. Because if they choose to be kind in secret, they aren’t expecting any reward for it from anywhere. Well - except that one can still reasonably expect that when you work to improve somebody’s life, you are really improving your entire community (and thereby all of society), all boats rise, so-to-speak including your own.
One thing seems sure to me: when a Christian helps a stranger just because the stranger needs it and with no thought whatsoever of leveraging said help to coerce them toward ideological or doctrinal alignments, that is I think what the highest altruism does, and it’s probably the highest form we could hope to aspire toward. I would even call it Love.
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I will go on to add to my post above that I think good people actually derive personal pleasure from helping others. And I don’t think that detracts from the authenticity of their altruism. Because such a pleasure is usually (I suspect) a cultivated one. There may be some kids who like eating vegetables from the get-go. But most of us probably preferred sweets or junkier stuff as kids and had to have our tastes trained. So as adults we learn not to consider eating the healthier foods a mere drudgery to be endured, but we actually learn to enjoy healthy stuff - at first because we know we need it, but even then finally because we train our tastebuds in those appreciations. We grow into them. I suspect that such dietary maturity has a direct parallel with our spiritual habits too. Dare I suggest that Jesus was feeding his fledgling followers spiritual milk as he prompted them to seek higher rewards? And that he calls us still farther (when we can handle it) toward the spiritual meat of doing good for no reward at all except for the knowledge of the pleasure it gives others and therefore … God? When our hearts are so attuned to God’s that we simply want what God wants, come whatever for ourselves personally - that I think may be the highest aspiration any disciple could hope to live toward. May God help us all along on that journey!
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Very well said, Mervin. I think Christians are called by Jesus to acts of concrete “altruism” for enemies out of pure obedience if nothing else (and irrespective of any emotions or expectations we may or may not have). However, over time, we expect that our character will be conformed to that of Christ, and that we will grow into a true love for people and a desire to do those things that at first are challenging for us. It strikes me that in heaven, “altruism” will no longer be necessary because there is no " costly helping behaviour" that will be required. So we will grow in to a true Agape love for God and others which will not involve acts of Altruism. However, during these times before the New Earth, expressing Agape towards others may often entail our self-sacrifice.
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Bonobos show signs of altruism.
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I’m not sure they have enough sexual inhibitions to be moral in a human way. I wonder if we have what it takes to be moral in theirs.
Probably not, since bonobos don’t mate for life. But heck, plenty of humans are not moral in a “human way”-- look how slaveholders raped their enslaved women. But my point was that bonobos show signs of altruism.
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That comes by dogs naturally, as they are social animals, like us. The thinking now is that dogs “domesticated themselves.”
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Hi Beagle lady,
Can you give me an example that you would consider to be “altruism” by Bonobos, and the name of the study where you heard this?
Dogs are known to be descended from wolves, which are social pack animals. So it is not surprising that they are social animals, as are humans. However, social living is not itself biological altruism.
Did I say that social living is biological altruism?
No, but the topic of the paper I posted was altruism so I thought that’s what you were responding to. If it wasn’t, I’m not sure what your post was getting at, sorry.
There’s a NY Times article from 1/7/2013 called “Milk of Human Kindness Also Found in Bonobos” by Sindya N. Bhanoo. Near the end of the article, it explains that bonobos will share their food with a stranger, even if they get no reward. The researchers were Brian Hare and Jingzhi Tan.
Hi, I had a look at the study and it illustrates a typical shortcoming of claims of altruism in the scientific literature. First, the bonobos were all orphans reared in a captive zoo situation, and such reports of “altruism” have not been able to be replicated in normal, wild-raised animals. Scientists have suggested that behaviours in captive situations (where primates are kept in artificial conditions with ample food and no predators) can not be interpreted as “normal” for the species. Secondly, in one experiment, a bonobo shared its food with a stranger, but only if the stranger rewarded the donor with a “positive social interaction”. The authors of the study suggest this may be a way for the donor to extend (and benefit) from creating relationships to form a larger social circle. So this is not true altruism, but reciprocity because the donor gets something back (better social position). In a different experiment, a bonobo allowed a stranger to access a food pile, but only if it had food itself and did not have to give it up. Thus, there were no costs to the “donor” bonobo, and hence no true altrism here,
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It’s hard to study bonobos in the wild, especially with what was going on in the DRC. But altruism has also been observed in wild bonobos not long ago.
Unrelated adoptions by bonobos may point to altruistic traits, study says
The paper itself is linked at the bottom of the article.
I hope studies like this will continue. As I recall Jane Goodall surprised us all with her observations of chimpanzee behavior, such as tool use.