The Scientific Basis of Altruism

Session Notes

Introduction
What is Altruism?
- Regard and empathy for the Other
- Love of the Stranger
- God's Kenosis
  1. God is Love
  2. The Trinity
- not "do no harm", but "allow no harm"
- "... the faithful must struggle to balance love (agape) for the near and dear with love for the neediest, and the outcome must lean toward the neediest and away from the self or the family, near and dear. [Post]"
- "By 'altruistic love,' I mean a warm and abiding personal affirmation of the Other that is grounded both in emotion and in the insight that this particular Other has value, not only in their potentiality (i.e., 'all people have good somewhere inside them'), but in their present, non-ideal and non-sentimentalized actuality. [Post]"
Biological Theories of the Origin of Altruism
- de Waal's Research
  1. Is the "selfish gene" the only path to Darwinian evolutionary survival (survival of the fittest)?
  2. No, natural selection provides a variety of paths or strategies to survival
  3. the profound paradox that genetic self-advancement at the expense of others -- which is the basic thrust of evolution -- has given rise to remarkable capacities for caring and sympathy.
  4. Our moral sense, our altruism is an evolved trait and does not require a supernatural intervention
  5. "selfish gene" metaphor (Richard Dawkins) is misleading;
  6. "self-promoting gene" is better
  7. Survival also is promoted by cooperation, kindness, and supportive behavior, not just by aggression and selfishness
  8. We can see this in other animals, in particular the primates
  9. Nature is not just "red in tooth and claw".
  10. There are tendencies and capabilities in primates that can be found at the center of human moral systems
  11. These include:
    - sympathetic behavior toward the disadvantaged
    - sharing of resources
    - social rules govening the exchange of services (e.g., grooming, food-sharing)
    - with punishment (e.g., ostracism, withdrawal of sharing priviledges)
    - for violators and rewards (e.g., extra sharing, protection)
    - for "good citizens"
    - for the peace of the community (conflict resolution)
  12. female chimps will intervene between two males ready to fight
  13. the bonobos are a female-centered, egalitarian primate species that substitutes sex for aggression
    - as genetic close to us as chimps
    - socially dominated by a loose hierarchy of females
    - cooperation and conflict resolution more common than violence
    - thus, the assumption that nature is male-dominated, aggressive, and warlike is a distortion
  14. therefore, the assumption that warfare and aggression (e.g. the elimination of Neanderthals) were the essentials of human ascendance is incorrect
  15. other aspects were also important: language, the role of women, tool use, and conflict resolution
  16. we and the animals are products of both evolution and the environment (learning and education)
  17. neither humans nor animals are pre-determined
  18. our development is a free-flowing dynamic integrated process of genes and environment
- Post's considerations:
  1. Procreation, i.e. continued existence is a driver for love:
    - parental love
    - personal love
    - to care and nurture children and loved ones
    - even a difficult child is loved
    - evolutionary scientists term "selfish" for this is misinformed
  2. altruism isn't just love of enemies, but rather an ever including sphere
  3. breaking out from insularity to include the infirmed, the outcast, and forgiven enemies
  4. this latter disparaged by Nietzsche
  5. it is our religious traditions that take us from the evolutionary mandated parental love to inclusive love of the other as other
  6. spheres of love:
    1. special relations: deeply knowing each other
    2. hospitable relations: we know from a distance
    3. needy relations: severly ill and faminished
    4. criminal and the enemy relations: inner resurrection possible
  7. social science:
    - rescue behavior
    - daily acts of love, care, and kindness
    - motivated by desire for the good of the other
- Insel's and Young's work
  1. biological monogamy is social, not sexual
    - pair-bonding to live with a single partner throughout life
    - not to mate with a single partner
  2. Prairie voles(pair-bonding) and montane voles (non pair-bonding) studied
  3. for prairie voles behaviors measured:
    - formation of partner preference
      1. female chooses an unrelated male for mating
      2. as a result of mating (apparently), develop a pair bond
    - time spent in physical contact
    - separation response
  4. in both species, the female and male release the hormones oxytocin (OT) and vasopressin (AVP) during mating
  5. in the female prairie vole, this motivates her to pair-bond
    (when OT is blocked during mating, a pair-bond is not formed;
    when OT is given without mating, a pair-bond is formed)
  6. in the male prairie vole, it is AVP that motivates pair-bond formation and paternal behavior
  7. in the montane, neither OT or AVP motivate pair-bond formation or paternal behavior
  8. why? the brain targets for each is different
  9. the targets are where the receptors for the receipt of the hormone is located
  10. in prairie voles, the target is in the "reward" pathways of the brain, that likely lead to the conditioning of certain behavior (such as partner preference)
  11. in montane voles, the receptors are absent in these pathways, but in regions important for non-social behavior
  12. the amount of hormones in each species is roughly the same
  13. where is the genetic difference between the two species?
    - the genes for the OT and AVP receptors are identical inasmuch as making the hormone
    - they differ in where and when the protein is made (promotion)
    - subtle differences in OT receptor promotion
    - significant differences in AVP receptor promotion
  14. monogamy therefore may have resulted from mutations in the promotion and then survived under socio-ecological conditions in which pair bonding and paternal behavior were adaptive
  15. human bonding
    - humans have OT and AVP
    - released during mating
    - receptors for OT and AVP are also found
    - patterns different from voles
Evan Thompson: Empathy and Human Experience
- empathy
  1. intentional capacity: basic ability to comprehend another's experience
  2. intentional act: empathy is directed toward the experience of another, as a person
  3. intentional process: any process in which the attentive perception of the Other's state or situation generates a state or situation in oneself that is more applicable to the Other's state or situation than to the subject's own prior state or situation.
  4. feeling what another person is feeling
  5. knowing what another is feeling
  6. responding compassionately to another's distress
- the full performance of empathy
  1. the involuntary coupling or pairing of my living body with your living body in perception and action
    - "coupling" or "pairing": an associative bonding or linking of self and other on the basis of their bodily similarity
    - experience of another as a living bodily subject of experience like oneself
    - E.g., when one individual sees another execute actions with different body parts, the neural patterns of activation in the observer's brain correspond to those that would be active were the observer performing the same bodily actions.
  2. the imaginary movement or transposition of myself into you place
    - imagine or mentally transpose oneself into the place of the Other
    - requires the cognitive ability to attribute mental states to another individual and to understand the other's behaviour in light of them
    - consolution behavior: friendly contact by an uninvolved and less distressed bystander toward a victim of a previously agressive encounter
    - tailored helping: coming to the aid of another with behaviors tailored to the other's particular needs.
  3. the interpretation of you as an Other to me and of me as an Other to you
    - involves the possibility of seeing myself from your perspective
    - reiterated empathy: I see myself from the perspective of another and thus grasp myself as an individual in an intersubjective world
  4. the ethical and moral perception of you as a person
    - recognition of the Other as a person who deserves concern and respect.
    - de Waal: "Aid to others in need would never be internalized as a duty without the fellow-feeling that drives people to take an interest in one another."
- empathy is the fundamental cognitive and emotional capacity underlying moral sentiments
- the non-duality of self and other
  - contemplative psychology: Buddhism provides a good source
  - The Way of the Bodhisattva: what we call 'self' and 'other' have no independent existence or intrinsic identity
  - enlightenment consists in uprooting egocentrism at its very source so we are no longer governed by attachment to self
  - meditation on the equality of self and other
  - meditation on the exchange of self and other
  - "In empathy, I imagine myself as other and in reiterated empathy I become other to myself by looking back on myself through the eyes of another ... What these self-displacing experiences indicate is that ... 'I-ness' is essentially constituted by 'otherness'."
The Marks of Altruism
- Self-love; self-preservation
- Love of neighbor
- Love/empathy of stranger
- The Other Within Us
- love furthers the existence, growth, and presence of the Other
- love responds to need and suffering
- love is loyal and patient
- love honors the Other's freedom, integrity, and individuality
- altruism is not selflessness
  1. selflessness is invalid
  2. selflessness is not caring for one's self
  3. cannot exhibit altruism if you do not care/love yourself!
Am I My Brother's [and Sister's] Keeper?
- Genesis 4:8-16
- What was God's answer?
- Genetically we are programmed for altruism.
- Socially we are conditioned to be empathic
- But these are not enough: The Good Samaritan
  1. Luke 10:29-37
  2. "And who is my neighbor?"
  3. priest and Levite: passed on the other side
  4. Samaritan: moved to pity
  5. Distance of Involvement: closer to us emotionally and physically the more likely we are to get involved.
  6. Diffused Involvement: someone else's problem
- Based on genes and society alone, we will not reach the height of altruism
- Honest (true?) religion encourages altruism and re-enforces gene and society
  1. Love thy enemies as thyself (hence no selflessness!)
    - Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27,35; Romans 12:20
    - if we identify someone as an enemy, we our obligated to love them
    - does this occur in any other tradition (Judaism? Islam? Hinduism? Buddhism [yes])
  2. shrinks distance of involvement to zero
  3. widens circle of care to infinity
  4. no diffused involvement! but collective involvement and mutual enablement
Digital Life and Altruism
- The possibility of Digital Life
  1. stored program "machines" categorically different from fixed machines
    - fixed machines are designed for a specific function
    - there is no hardware/software distinction
    - stored program machines are designed to perform an infinite number of tasks
    - hardware distinct from software; body vs mind
    - software is platonic mathematics, logic, heuristics, genetic (mutalogical) etc., etc.,
    - fixed and stored-program blending, obsoleting the fixed machine
  2. machine self-preservation
  3. complexity and emergence
    - out of complexity comes a whole greater than the parts.
    - software is complex!
    - ... and chaotic, inasmuch one change can radically improve or undermine the work
    - software provides a bottom-up platform for the occurance of complexity and the process of emergence
    - software developers cannot enumerate, test, or understand all possible logic paths
    - there is an enumerably (ie., countably) infinite number of paths.
    - who is to say that some of these may result in free will?
    - can an inenumerably (i.e., uncountable) infinite number of paths arise?
    - this would radically increase the liklihood of free will emerging
  4. genetic systems
- Humans/organic life as co-evolvers
- The marks of altruism in the cyberworld
Discussion and Questions
1. Conclusion: Sanctuary

Thomas R. Insel and Larry J. Young; The Tie That Binds: The Molecular Basis of Monogamy; Science & Spirit; Volume 11, Issue 1; March/April 2000.
Stephen G. Post; Regarding the Other: Altruistic Love as Religious Ideal and Scientific Project; Science & Spirit; Volume 11, Issue 1; March/April 2000.
Evan Thompson; Empathy and Human Experience
Frans de Waal; The Biology of Morality; Science & Spirit; Volume 11, Issue 1; March/April 2000.