Counter Evolutionary Psychology Arguments Concerning Altruism Part 2
Darwinian arguments that evolution can develop altruistic behavior stand on firm ground with both regard to the kind of biological altruism that numerous organisms illustrate as well as a more complex altruism that can defend against selfish agents. However, in both cases, these acts of altruism seem merely reciprocal in nature—you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. It is here that the opponents of a Darwinian explanation for altruism erect a dam against the universal acid and object that reciprocal behavior is not altruism at all. Darwinian arguments that evolution can develop altruistic behavior stand on firm ground with both regard to the kind of biological altruism that numerous organisms illustrate as well as a more complex altruism that can defend against selfish agents. However, in both cases, these acts of altruism seem merely reciprocal in nature—you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. It is here that the opponents of a Darwinian explanation for altruism erect a dam against the universal acid and object that reciprocal behavior is not altruism at all. It is mere exchange. So long as a benefit is to be had, then acting to gain that benefit, even through cooperation, is not at all acting without regard to self-interest. It is, in fact, acting only with regard to one’s self-interest. The goalpost for the Darwinian explanation of altruism is moved yet further.
In particular, of those who argue that evolution cannot explain this “principled” altruistic behavior, this more pure form of self-sacrifice, the sociobiologist David Barash claims that altruism bounded by evolution turns out to be “misnamed” and that reciprocal behavior is just that. “It is selfishness, pure and simple, since it takes place in the expectation that the personal rewards will exceed the costs.” (Barash 1979) Here Barash wishes to define altruism as acting without regard to any expectation of a reciprocal arrangement. Real altruism means acting without considering any payment in return. And so any kind of reciprocal arrangement that evolution can produce, clever though it may be, simply isn’t true altruism.
There is a subtle assumption here. As we have seen, altruism is not a trait that is turned on and off at the whim of the genes that generate it. Genes can only manufacture the chemical processes necessary that lead to an emotional re-enforcement of altruistic behavior. Altruism is only a component of a strategy utilized by an organism. A compulsion to be altruistic does not act in isolation (without competing drives) and once the project of altruism is set in motion by an organism’s genes, they are wholly unaware of the consequences that might follow. This leaves an organism free to act altruistically for its own purposes—free to feel the emotional benefits of being altruistic. Some of those actions may lead to reciprocity. Some may not. And altruistic actions that reap some benefit are not mutually exclusive of altruistic actions that do not.
Barash is actually making the argument that when an organism acts selfishly or altruistically, it is acting out of the direct interest of its genes. He argues that, according to evolutionary psychology, when a mother races to save her child from harm she is merely acting to save her own stock and is acting in accordance with her genes’ interests. But this is not what evolutionary psychology has argued at all, for genes have no interests. Genes do not act directly upon the organism. If they did then the gene for unselfishness would lead to the end of the organism with that adaptation. We would see wholly different behaviors than we do in organisms. In humans, the man driven by unselfish genes would refuse to have children so that other genes might prosper. The unselfish mother would make every attempt to raise her children poorly (if she had them at all to begin with) so that other offspring could succeed.
The arguments against an evolutionary psychological explanation for altruism do not hold here. Evolutionary processes can generate altruism, can develop mechanisms to protect an altruistic organism from the advances of purely selfish organisms, and they can result in behavior that is altruistic without expectation of reciprocity—pure altruism.
References:
Barash, D. (1979) Sociobiology: The Whisperings Within
Technorati tags: darwin, evolutionary psychology, evolution , altruism , mind