Altruism is the unselfish concern for or devotion to the welfare of others. To distinguish it from mere helpfulness, some would go further and say that it is not merely being helpful; it is helpfulness at a cost to yourself. This simple definition conceals a difficult biological problem: If I harm myself to help you then I am increasing your chances of success relative to mine. In evolutionary terms, if I do this then your offspring will have a better chance of survival than mine. Over a period of time my unselfish line will die out and your selfish line will survive. Yet, why do we see so many selfless and altruistic people around us?
It is often stated that man is fundamentally wicked and that his kind acts are largely the result of the teachings of moralists, philosophers, and priests; that if left to his own devices he will become increasingly more savage, violent, and cruel. The confidence trick involved here is that if we accept this viewpoint we will attribute all society’s good qualities to the work of these soi-disant great teachers.
Looking at the pain and cruelty around us it will be hard for us to believe, but it just might be that man is essentially not a savage creature. He is highly intelligent, helpful, and cooperative. It is a biological truth that man is, to a certain degree, selfish – indeed, the aphorism ‘survival of the fittest’ is as true today as it was a million years ago when our ancestors roamed the Serengeti.
The renowned Prof. Richard Dawkins lays the case out most eruditely in his seminal book The Selfish Gene, in which he develops the idea that genes are the fundamental units and not the individual. It is the separate individual genes that are programmed to continue into the next generation and only those genes that can combine well with the other genes that make up the individual will successfully live on in the next generation. Since close relatives have similar genes, there is a tendency for genes to ensure the survival of close relatives. This is not done consciously by the genes but by affecting our behaviour through memes and other extended phenotypes (which includes ideas, culture, religion, morality etc.). However, the upshot is that since selfishness is to some extent genetic we will have a natural tendency to help our blood-relatives and hence our own tribe. Since our tribes have swollen into nations, our helpfulness is stretched further and further.
Ironically, it is because of our highly cooperative and helpful nature that we have had so many wars. Because of our inherent desire to save our blood-relatives and, therefore, members of our tribe (which have now swollen to nations) people are willing to kill and die for any cause at the behest of their leader – insofar as they are convinced they are doing it for the benefit of, or to save the lives of their loved ones. If we were not inherently helpful, wars of such stupendous magnitude would never have been fought. We would all choose to be selfish and save our own lives instead of sacrificing it for others.
Altogether, this means that we are now a remarkably helpful species. If there are breakdowns in this helpfulness, they are probably due, not to our ‘savage nature’ reasserting itself, but to the unbearable tensions under which people so often find themselves in the strained and overcrowded world of today.
It would be a mistake, nevertheless, to overstate man’s angelic helpfulness. He is also intensely competitive. But under normal circumstances these rival tendencies balance each other out. This leads to a ‘I’ll-scratch-your-back-if-you’ll-scratch-mine’ type of behaviour. We do deals with one another and have a tacit understanding. My actions help you but they are not altruistic because they help me at the same time.
This co-operative behaviour is the dominant feature of our daily social interactions. If this were not so then it would be impossible to live in modern cities where millions upon millions of humans manage to exist side-by-side without going completely insane or slaughtering each other. If we were selfish and ruthless by nature the modern mega polis would be an impossibility. Sure we have violent crime – but in any given city these criminals form by far a minority of the total population.
If man were innately disposed to be selfish then how do we explain the countless selfless acts we witness? We are all familiar with stories where a man rushes into a burning building putting his own life in peril to save an invalid, or a child. How can such acts be described as selfish?
In “The Problem of Altruism” (spectacle.org) the author asks us to consider briefly a situation on a flight when the cabin depressurises. Oxygen masks automatically drop from the ceiling. The stewardess would have warned us to make sure we put our own masks on before attempting to help our seatmates with theirs. This is part of an FAA-approved script, from which they never depart in making these presentations. This warning is probably aimed at the following scenario: The cabin depressurises and anyone without a mask will become unconscious in moments. Our seatmates are children or otherwise helpless. If we attempt to help them without securing our own mask first, we will pass out without succeeding and everyone will die or become incapacitated. If we put our own mask on, our seatmates may pass out but will revive as soon as we have placed their masks on their faces. Thus, our attempt to help them will only succeed if we help ourselves first.
The author goes on to mention how marvellous it is to think that the danger of a human being assisting another before themselves is so great that the FAA felt the need to warn against it on every airplane flight. The implication is that if the oxygen masks drop from the ceiling, it is human nature – immediate, instinctive behaviour – to assist our dependent companions with their masks before we don ours. Such altruism in the face of danger reveals great compassion, for it is performed in a moment of terrible risk, at great potential cost to oneself, when no one knows what the future holds.
Desmond Morris avers that such acts can be explained, but it requires a special definition of the term ‘self.’ When we think of our ‘self’ we probably think of our living body, complete as it is at this moment. But biologically it is more correct to think of our selves as merely a temporary housing, a disposable container for our genes. We pass on the genes we inherited on to our children – and so in a sense our genes are immortal.
So, genetically speaking our genes are us. This makes our devoted and apparently selfless parental care nothing more than genetic self-care. A man who risks death to save his daughter is in reality saving his own genes. But supposing the man leaps into the fire to save an old friend. In this case it cannot be said he was trying to save his own genes. How do we explain this? The answer lies in the ancient history of mankind. For over a million years man was a simple tribal being, living in tribal units where everyone knew everyone else, and the members were closely genetically related. Therefore we would be inclined to help members of our tribe out of a certain degree of genetic selfishness. And this may help to explain why we sometimes risk our own lives to help complete strangers: because our tribes have swelled to nations. Previously, for millions of years, man was tribal and any inborn urge to help his fellow-man would have meant automatically that he was helping gene-sharing relatives, even if remote ones. But today his altruism has spread to include all his new fellow-citizens. It is this trait that is exploited by politicians and is the root cause of patriotism and war.
We have considered man’s capacity to act selflessly and altruistically in certain situations. But it is also true that for the most part we do not go overboard when it comes to putting our lives at risk for others. I wish I could say otherwise, but I know I wouldn’t go rushing into a burning building to save a stranger on the fifteenth storey. But if it was someone I loved or was in love with then it is almost certain that I would risk my own life to save them.
At this point, we might consider another interesting facet of this concept of altruism. Lets us now look at altruism in its more simple form: as a desire to help people with no particular reason to do so and no prospect of any discernible reward. Bertrand Russell in his seminal essay “On the Value of Scepticism,” talks about the value of shrewdness. Shrewdness, divested of its negative connotations is, as he defines it, enlightened self-interest. When people are mistaken as to what is in their best interest they end up harming themselves and others. If we all made a conscious effort to think through our actions and ask ourselves if the course of action we are opting for is, indeed, in our best self interest then we will find that instead of pursuing the ruin of others from a sense of malevolence, it is more advantageous to help others.
This attitude has proven incredibly true in the field of Economics. Prior to the World Wars each of the European powers was actively involved in pursuing the other’s ruin. But this proved tragically ineffective. It was after the World Wars that the European powers realised that their own success lay in aiding the success of their neighbours. And thus the European Union was born – the most powerful, rich, and successful bloc of nations in the history of human civilisation.
The Cold War proved debilitating to the Soviets and Americans alike – mainly because they were spending valuable resources in pursuit of mutual ruin. But today, now that the two countries are allies they have found it immensely more productive to co-operate and help one another. When Japan was teetering on the edge of economic collapse America pumped billions of dollars into Japan’s economy to stabilize it because America knew if Japan’s economy collapsed the Americans would also suffer the consequences.
The Quakers afford a good example of enlightened self-interest put into good practice. Among the early Quakers there were a number of shopkeepers who adopted the practice of asking no more for their goods than they were willing to accept, instead of bargaining with each customer, as everybody else did. They adopted this practice because they held it to be a lie to ask more than they would take. But the convenience to the customer was so great that everybody came to their shops and they grew rich.
A person may be kind and helpful from a genuine sense of altruism or from an unconscious sense of shrewdness (in its most positive sense). At the end of the day, it doesn’t really matter which, because all that counts is that we be as kind and helpful as possible to one another.
It has often been said by people in the same vein as Thomas Hobbes that man is a brutal, savage, selfish creature. In my younger days I believed this to be true and was extremely wary of strangers and travelling to foreign countries. But as I grew up my sense of curiosity got the better of my sense of fear and I travelled extensively. What I found over and over again to my utter amazement was how friendly and helpful strangers can be. It was touching and heart-warming to experience their warmth and friendliness. In such diverse countries as Morocco, Jordan, Thailand, Kenya, Russia etc., I have had complete strangers invite me into their homes where I was looked after and treated like an honoured guest. These experiences have most assuredly restored my faith in the inherent goodness of human beings.
Sure there are thugs and conmen and racists in any given foreign country, but I have discovered that there are even more warm, kind, and caring people who go about their normal lives without harming others. What I’ve discovered is that people are people are people. Human nature is the same around the world; it doesn’t matter which country you are in, a smile and a laugh always have the same meaning.
The most important lesson I have learnt is to help strangers. One good turn deserves another later. This is delayed or non-specific cooperation. We ought to help people now, even though they can’t help us in return. We ought to do this daily to people we meet because one day we ourselves will need help and we can honestly expect a stranger to help us just as we have helped strangers in the past. This is all part of a long-term deal. We mustn’t keep a check on what we are owed or by whom. Indeed, the person who helps us when we are in need may not be someone we have helped in the past but a complete stranger. It may not necessarily be true, but I’d like to believe that ‘what goes around comes around.’
