The Altruism Option: Does Altruism Require Self-Sacrifice?

In my previous post I continued an argument that the word “altruism” usefully describes attempted helping of others just as the word “aggression” usefully describes attempted harming of others. Many potentially troubling consequences follow from this conceptualisation. One is that there is no reason to expect cost and self-sacrifice to be more associated with altruism than it is with any other goal-directed behaviour. This will bother those people who consider costs to self or self-sacrifice to be essential and distinctive aspects of (‘true’, ‘pure’, ‘real’, etc.) altruism.

“Altruism” is just a word and people can use it in whatever way they please. Some have done so in ways which define costs to self or self-sacrifice as essential components.

Auguste Comte invented the word “altruism” and defined it as “living for others” (vivre pour autrui). He believed that a particular form of “living for others” - seeking to promote the good of society - brings about all sorts of benefits, especially relative to the harms he thought done when people pursued only their individual self-interest. Thus, in the very first use of the word “altruism”, seeking positive welfare for others was contrasted with self-interest. This made sense in Comte’s system. Comte encouraged people to seek the good of society rather than pursue their narrow self-interest. These things are mutually exclusive. Beyond that, Comte wanted people to do something that he suspected they would consider a costly sacrifice.

Economists’ models typically assume that people are motivated by material self-interest and only by material self-interest. The latter assumption is threatened when people spend or forego material goods in ways that materially benefit others but not the self. This is the phenomenon economists call “altruism” and it has material loss to self – deemed a self-sacrifice - as an essential component.

The most interesting thing for economists about what they call altruism is that people spend or forego material goods without receiving commensurate material self-benefit. This interest is the main reason why economists call the act of people spending or foregoing material goods in ways that harm others without materially benefiting the self “altruistic” aggression. Benefiting or harming others is of little interest to economists when the self also benefits. In these instances economists can continue with their assumption that people do what they do in pursuit of material self-benefit and any benefit or harm to others can be considered simply instrumental or incidental. Economists need to see evidence of avoidable material costs to self before acts which bring benefit to others can be considered altruistic.

With some important differences, evolutionary accounts of “altruism” are similar to economic ones. One such difference is the currency of costs and benefits. For economists material value is the currency of interest. For evolutionary theorists it is chances of survival. If organisms such as humans act in ways that improve others’ chances of survival and at the same time lower their own chances of survival, those organisms are said to have acted altruistically. If inherited genes promote such “biological altruism”, the reduced chances of survival this involves threatens Darwinian principles of evolution, just as the material costs to self of “economic altruism” threatens the central assumption of self-interest. As in economic theory, self-sacrifice is a hallmark of altruism within evolutionary theory.

Each of the positions above is important and influential but none of them speak directly to the phenomenon I am most interested in: people striving to help others.

When people abide by Comte’s prescriptions they engage in a form of altruism-as-attempted-helping but it is far from being the only form there is. Not only do people sometimes pursue positive welfare for various sorts of society (e.g., patriotism, nationalism, communism, tribalism, humanism, parochialism, universalism, etc.), they also regularly pursue positive welfare for all sorts of non-societal others (e.g., friends, family, animals, future generations, deities, etc.). I am interested in understanding people striving to benefit any others’ welfare, i.e., the positive welfare of anyone or anything other than just the self.

Most importantly for current purposes, pursuing good for others does not obviously require any more cost to self or self-sacrifice than does pursuing, for example, harm for others. When people exclusively pursue good for the self, this is by definition incompatible with them pursuing good (or harm) for anyone else. People can nevertheless easily seek to influence the welfare of various beneficiaries in sequence or simultaneously. People can attempt to live healthily because they derive self-satisfaction from doing so or because they want to be fit enough to provide good quality care for their loved ones, or both. Similarly, people can have sequential or mixed motives for reading aloud to their children, trying to please their God, striving for a better society for all, and any number of other sometimes at-least partially altruistic behaviours.

That people are often willing to pay costs and to self-sacrifice for their kids, for their country, and for others they care about can be an indicator of their positive other-concern, just as willingness to pay costs and to self-sacrifice can reveal a potent aggressive concern. This does not mean that costs to self or self-sacrifice are necessary to call an act altruistic (or aggressive). Giving can be divine at least as easily as vengeance can be sweet.

I invite anyone who is confused by what I say above to read or re-read my earlier post on the difference between the subject and the object of any goal, especially goals explicitly seeking to have an impact on someone or something’s welfare. Pursuit of personal goals can sometimes require costs to the self. This is true even for some goals to benefit the self (Ps ↑ Sw), e.g. sacrificing enjoyment of a tempting cookie because one wants a better beach bod. But this does not mean that pursuit of all personal goals necessarily involve cost to self, even pursuit of personal goals to benefit others (Ps ↑ Ow).

Costs to self are, by definition, part of both economic ‘altruism’ and evolutionary ‘altruism’. But neither of these is altruism as I am using the term. They are different phenomena.

The currency of economic ‘altruism’ is material goods and the currency of evolutionary ‘altruism’ is survival value. The currency of altruism-as-attempted-helping is others' positive welfare (however altruists understand that term). Altruists can think that more money or improved chances of survival are in others’ interest but these things hardly exhaust the goods that altruists try to bestow. Altruism regularly involves attempted helping that has nothing to do with trying to improve others’ wealth or positively affecting their chances of survival. Killing a beloved pet can be a sincere attempt to improve its welfare, i.e. to remove its pain and suffering, to literally put it out of its misery.

Moreover, both economic ‘altruism’ and evolutionary ‘altruism’ are determined primarily by examining actions’ outcomes whereas altruism (as-attempted-helping) is determined primarily by considering people’s goals.

Economic ‘altruism’ is said to have occurred when people act in ways that result in (a) them foregoing material goods they otherwise could have had, and (b) others obtaining material goods they otherwise would not have had. Such a situation can result from attempted helping, for example when people bestow gifts of money to help others who are somewhat impoverished. But people can try to help without this sort of material redistribution, e.g. by giving emotional support. And resources can end up being redistributed in this way without being the result of attempted helping, e.g. following unsuccessful gambling.

Similarly, evolutionary ‘altruism’ is said to have occurred when organisms act in ways that result in (a) them foregoing chances of survival they otherwise could have had, and (b) others obtaining chances of survival they otherwise would not have had. Again, such an outcome can result from attempted helping (e.g. heroic rescue) but attempted helping can happen without this outcome (e.g. much human altruism) and this outcome can occur without being the result of an attempt to help (e.g. much animal 'altruism').

Because neither ‘economic altruism’ nor ‘evolutionary altruism’ is the same phenomenon as attempted helping, any relevance of one for the other has to be established, not assumed. Things that share the same name are not necessarily the same thing. One would be foolish to seek to understand the financial institutions of banks in England by studying English river banks. A rose is a rose by any other name but not everything called “Rose” is a flower. Some things that people call “altruism” do require costs to self and self-sacrifice (and these latter terms are often considered synonymous) but that is not obviously the case with the phenomenon I am seeking to understand - whatever name it is given, even when that name is “altruism”.

My posts so far have been a bit theory-heavy and there is lots more theory to come. (I don’t know if Kurt Lewin was correct when he said that “There’s nothing so practical as a good theory” but I do have plenty of evidence that bad theory can lead to terrible science.) My next post will be firmly rooted in the real world though. In it, I shall be reviewing a visit by Jo Berry to Sussex University’s Psychology Department during which she discussed the relationship she has developed with her father’s murderer.

Key points

Comte coined the word “altruism” and meant by it pursuit of societal good in place of individuals’ exclusive pursuit of self-interest.

Economists assume self-benefit and so behaviours which affect others are of particular interest only when they are accompanied by costs to self/self-sacrifice. This combination of outcomes is how economists define “altruism”.

Darwinian theory specifies that evolved behaviours which increase others’ survival chances and reduce one’s own would become extinct. Evolutionary theorists call this theoretical combination of outcomes “biological altruism”.

Comte’s altruism is one example of a much broader category of altruism-as-attempted-helping. Most instances of that category do not obviously require significant costs to self or self-sacrifice.

Economic ‘altruism’ and evolutionary ‘altruism’ are phenomena distinct from altruism (as-attempted-helping). Neither economic nor evolutionary ‘altruism’ should not be assumed useful to explain altruism (as-attempted-helping).

The Altruism Option

Wednesday 23 October 2013

Does Altruism Require Self-Sacrifice?

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