The Bad Medicine blog (not quite as good a name as Bad Astronomy, and I’m not just saying that because I hate Bon Jovi) recently linked to my blog due to a clock-evolution simulation on youtube I linked to in a comment. From that blog I found NeuroLogica which is dedicated to “Neuroscience, Skepticism and Critical Thinking”, all nifty things as far as I’m concerned.
Robert Lindsay says Altruism Does Not Exist. He seems to be taking the position that Eliezer Yudkowsky mocked here, as did Bryan Caplan here, but those always struck me as weak arguments from incredulity. One thing I like about Robin Hanson is that rather than using a typical division of altruism (sometimes of an absurd Kantian kind) from selfishness he shows how sub-optimal actions can result from things evolution has done to benefit us (or our genes) but fooled us into thinking are self-less. Genuinely having an irrational devotion to others helps to signal your loyalty, and so there are ways evolution can select for it while still acting in our “self-interest” in some sense. I can’t improve upon Saint Max, so I will end by linking to what he had so say on the subject.
Entitled to an Opinion 
February 11, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Is Richard Dawkins’ self imposed childlessness altruism towards the rest of us? I ask seriously. It seems as though people who would argue the Altruism Does Not Exist idea would more honestly state their belief if they said “Altruism is stupid (genetically).”
As far as something that I really don’t believe exists: entropy.
February 11, 2008 at 9:46 pm
Thx for this!
Instead of advocating full selfishness, I am saying more that most actions, as noted by one of the commenters on Yudkowsky’s thread, are some combinations of selflessness and selfishness. I’m also saying there is a more callous way to “use” others and a more mutualist way to “utilize” others. But Americans of all people surely need to be cured of this “I am totally altruistic!” BS. I’m so sick of it. I think even us Commies are motivated by maybe 95% altruism and 5% trying to feel superior to “selfish” folk, and also trying to win altruistic brownie points for our egos and self-images.
Also, Caplan link is broken.
February 11, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Altruism isn’t stupid, precisely. It’s just that the conditions in which it’s adaptive no longer apply – just as the human inclination towards feuds and conflict is obsolete once removed from its original environment.
Feuding helps keep population below the Malthusian limit, eliminates the less gifted from the gene pool, and sometimes frees up new territories for the tribe to utilize. But the instincts that once produced feuds and tribal conflicts now create World Wars.
Everything that we do is done out of self-interest. Once we recognize that the Self is an association between concepts that may or may not have much to do with the body carrying it around, the paradoxes of selfishness and altruism vanish.
February 11, 2008 at 10:39 pm
James, entropy is part of the second law of thermodynamics. Why don’t you think it exists?
Robert, you didn’t seem to be advocating selfishness as saying non-selfishness does not exist (remember the positive normative distinction). Thanks for pointing out the broken link, I’ll remember not to rely on wordpress to fill in the http part anymore.
Caledonian, it sounds like you’re talking about group selection. And my offer to join up is still open!
February 12, 2008 at 12:10 am
Robert, you didn’t seem to be advocating selfishness as saying non-selfishness does not exist (remember the positive normative distinction).
Precisely.
Or pure non-selfishness anyway. Some actions may be at least 99% altruistic, but I think there is usually a tiny particle of selfishness in there somewhere.
I do not know about Word Press, but in Blogger you have the option of either a Compose WYSIWYG window or an Edit HTML window. I usually stay in the Edit HTML window, since the WYSIWYG seems to screw things up a lot. I like to hand-code HTML anyway.
You can call me Robert if you want to be different, but most folks call me Bob.
February 12, 2008 at 12:23 am
Isn’t empathy sort of the psychological extension of the ‘sense of self’ outward? If so, perhaps altruism and selfishness aren’t mutually exclusive terms. If I give my life to save another, perhaps I’ve saved myself, in a way. A poetic way to look at it, I guess. But then, I AM enamored of metaphor *smile*.
February 12, 2008 at 12:30 am
Isn’t empathy sort of the psychological extension of the ’sense of self’ outward? If so, perhaps altruism and selfishness aren’t mutually exclusive terms. If I give my life to save another, perhaps I’ve saved myself, in a way.
no
February 12, 2008 at 12:33 am
Succinct!
February 12, 2008 at 1:03 am
Succinct!
I learn from the best.
February 13, 2008 at 8:39 am
‘Empathy’ tends to have several different meanings when used informally. I think you’re confusing two of them.
I can very empathetic in the sense that I can understand what other people are likely thinking and feeling, while at the same time not extending my sense of self towards them at all and using my understanding to harm them for my own amusement or gain. We used to call people like that ‘sociopaths’ before it was decided to replace the term with a more general and less useful one.
I’d say altruism is an extension of the self to encompass other entities, thus leading to what superficially appears to be people acting against ‘their’ own interests. In reality, their interests have expanded to include the states of others.
February 14, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Right; it doesn’t seem that selfishness and altruism have to be mutually exclusive at all, though perhaps in thinking this way, we’re redefining ‘selfishness’ a bit. Of course, when you delve into the ideas concerning what a ‘self’ actually is, whether chemically, biologically, sociologically, or what have you, the lines between ‘self’ and ‘other’ pretty quickly blur out. Put under the microscope, we’re more ‘whirlwinds in hats’ than the isolated entities abstraction makes us out to be.
February 14, 2008 at 10:04 pm
I’d say that empathic altruism is something I have evolved to be able to learn about the world even when the specific knowledge I gain may not be obviously evolutionarily helpful. Much like the ability humans have to do complex mathematics. Morality, after all, takes time to learn and is easier to acquire if it’s taught well, though (and I am channelling Plato’s Meno bigtime here) we could in principle work certain things out for ourselves, given time – just as it should be possible to spontaneously develop a proof of Pythagoras’ Theorem.
February 14, 2008 at 10:05 pm
In other words, maybe altruism is just psychology catching up with reality.
February 15, 2008 at 1:44 am
Caledonian:
I’d say altruism is an extension of the self to encompass other entities, thus leading to what superficially appears to be people acting against ‘their’ own interests.
That seems to be the case when multicellular organisms are formed, but I don’t think it’s a good analogy because the other person you have altruism for does not share your interests. Much of other-regarding behavior is paternalism, may conflict with and be resisted by others.
jim:
Of course, when you delve into the ideas concerning what a ’self’ actually is, whether chemically, biologically, sociologically, or what have you, the lines between ’self’ and ‘other’ pretty quickly blur out.
I take a reductionist rather than holist view. There are a great many similar selves, though their interests are shared to a much greater degree than outside the self.
Acheman:
I’d say that empathic altruism is something I have evolved to be able to learn about the world even when the specific knowledge I gain may not be obviously evolutionarily helpful.
What is it that you actually know? Does it alter your anticipated experience?
Morality, after all, takes time to learn and is easier to acquire if it’s taught well, though (and I am channelling Plato’s Meno bigtime here) we could in principle work certain things out for ourselves, given time – just as it should be possible to spontaneously develop a proof of Pythagoras’ Theorem.
There are no moral proofs or analogs to Euclids elements. Knowing the Pythagorean theorem enables me to predict how long one side of a right-triangle will be when I know the other two. What does morality enable me to predict?
February 15, 2008 at 7:04 pm
Speaking of the artificiality of the self, here’s Will Wilkinson.
January 6, 2011 at 8:40 pm
[…] along these same lines at the very difficult but interesting blog Overcoming Bias. This post prompted a post at the always interesting Entitled to an Opinion […]