Book Chapter10.1093/oso/9780197600122.003.0002
Altruism
24 Mar 2022
- pp 17-35
TL;DR: In this paper , the authors explain how the altruistic moral emotions of sympathy and loyalty evolved through natural selection in great apes and their ancestors prior to human evolution, and explain how kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and group selection allow biological altruism to evolve.
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Abstract: Chapter 1 explains how the altruistic moral emotions of sympathy and loyalty evolved through natural selection in great apes and their ancestors prior to human evolution. Altruism can be biological or psychological. Biological altruism is the sacrifice of fitness by one individual that increases the fitness of another. Its evolution by natural selection seems impossible. The apparent paradox is resolved by explaining how mechanisms of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and group selection allow biological altruism to evolve. These mechanisms also explain the evolution of psychological altruism, exemplified in sympathy and loyalty, where an altruist is motivated to benefit another for the sake of the other. This altruism can exist alongside egoistic motives, but it is incompatible with hedonism, the view that the ultimate end of all action is pleasure. Altruism explains how morally motivated cooperation existed within ape groups that shared resources, alloparenting, and defense against external threats.
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