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Altruism Theory:

Altruism involves the unselfish concern for other people. It involves doing things simply
out of a desire to help, not because you feel obligated to out of duty, loyalty, or religious reasons
Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, & Birch. 1981). According to (Ken, 2010), there are at
least two kinds of altruism. Psychological altruism means acting out of concern for the wellbeing of others, without regard to your own self-interest. Biological altruism refers to behaviour
that helps the survival of a species without benefiting the particular individual whos being
altruistic. It may not be obvious what exactly these two forms of altruism have to do with each
other and why they should be discussed in the same breath. You could think that the two come
together in certain theories about human nature. Some say that humans are by nature selfish.
But evolutionary biology and psychology are beginning to challenge this idea.
It turns out that evolution has actually hard-wired altruistic behaviour into many animals
including human beings. Thus the facts of biological altruism might be thought to show the error
of those who think that humans are psychologically egoistic (Ken, 2010). But to think that way
would put you in danger of mixing is and ought. Biological altruism may have nothing to do
with morality. Even if some animals have evolved to be altruistic, that doesnt automatically
make it morally right. Biological altruism isnt a challenge to psychological egoism, but to what
used to be called the selfish gene hypothesis. Thats the hypothesis that genes are solely in the
business of replicating themselves and that an animal is basically the tool of its genes. Genes
make animals behave so those very genes get reproduced as often as possible in subsequent
generations.

Admittedly thats a peculiar use of the word selfish. Genes dont really have a self. So
they cant really have self-interests. And thats why biological altruism is different from
psychological altruism and has nothing to do with morality. Richard Dawkins coined the phrase
"selfish gene", as a metaphor. He was just trying to say that genes act as if they are totally selfcatered. Of course, that does raise the interesting question of just biological altruism happens,
given that genes are so metaphorically selfish. Thats not the same question as how
psychological altruism happens, but its an interesting question in its own right. It turns out that
lots of organisms behave in ways that are detrimental to their own chances of survival, but are
beneficial to the reproductive chances of fellow organisms. For example, a vervet monkey will
give alarm calls to warn other monkeys of the presence of predators, even though this attracts
attention to itself, increasing its own chance of being attacked and killed.
(Ken, 2010), stated that, this isnt quite the same as saying that genes are metaphorically
selfless rather than metaphorically selfish. The point is rather that selection may not operate on
individual genes at all, but on whole groups or populations. A group that contains some altruists
will survive better as a group than a group that contains no altruists. Evolution, it turns out, can
work on whole groups as a unit. Thats called group selection. Thats a still controversial
thought, but one that seems to be gaining wider acceptance. But lets get back at least briefly to
psychological altruism. Maybe there is a way to tie biological and psychological altruism
together, especially if we think of the human psyche as at least in part designed by natural
selection, especially if we think of collective human psychology. Think of a human collectively
like a nation. We dont all have to be willing to die for our country. But maybe some of us had
better be. If some of us are, wed all be better off though maybe those who are willing to die
will be worse off individually. Now Im not suggesting that nations are directly designed by

natural selection on groups. But I am suggesting that maybe something like the process of group
selection has shaped the human psyche for at least a modest degree of psychological altruism by
guaranteeing that collectivises of humans contain enough psychological altruists to enhance the
groups chances of reproductive success.

References
Batson, C. D., Duncan, B., Ackerman, P., Buckley, T., & Birch, K. (1981). Is empathetic emotion
a source of altruistic motivation? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 40, 290-302.
Ken, T. (2010). Psychological vs Biological Altruism. Retrieved 12 February, 2016, from
http://philosophytalk.org/community/blog/ken-taylor/2015/04/psychological-vs-biologicalaltruism.