August 10, 2008
"Altruism" and "Selfishness" in The Selfish Gene
His issue may be just a quibble, but in Three Penny Review, P. N. Furbank considers the language of The Selfish Gene:
Dawkins is a sparkling and sometimes an eye-opening writer, but what cannot help striking one is the extreme abuse of language that he (and not only he) commits in this talk of "the biology of selfishness and altruism." For, according to any proper use of language, what he speaks of as animal "altruism" is not altruism at all, any more than what he speaks of as "selfishness" can rightly be called by that name. He speaks respectfully of the concept of "reciprocal altruism," introduced by R. L. Trivers in 1971, though, implying as it does a bargain, it is plainly a contradiction in terms; and what he himself refers to as "altruism" might almost, in some cases, be said to be its opposite.
I think this is rather more than a mere quibble. The concept of altruism, rightly understood, is, after all, one of the great achievements of civilized culture, and the choice of acting altruistically in a given situation will be one of the most deeply thought-through decisions a person may ever make (even if, as could happen, he or she might have only a minute or two to make it in). But what is relevant here is that it seems to go directly against the expectations of "kin-selection." This is the point made by the parable of the Good Samaritan. The injured traveler fallen among thieves receives no help whatever from his fellow Jews, who take care to pass by on the other side. It is left to a Samaritan, a man with no kin-relation whatever to the victim and even, by tradition, his enemy, to come to his aid.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 11:08 AM | Permalink
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But then we have "animal altruism" and animal nepotism, according to nordic researchers and E O Wilson, when he visited the Dominican Republic.
For a better understanding, read The Ant and The Peacock by Helena Cronin,
Posted by: Felix E F Larocca MD | Aug 10, 2008 2:26:38 PM
This is an old and not insignificant quibble, one which was immediately voiced by critics of the Selfish Gene (Mary Midgley was one, as Furbank notes). In essence, the critic insists: we are not simply animals, our behaviour cannot be described and explained in the same terms.
A person has to be very careful when engaging in this line of thought, for it can come dangerously close to lapsing into pre-scientific nonsense about humanity having some "special place" in the cosmic order.
However, the point can be and has been made more responsibly: to call a hummingbird's behaviour "altruistic" is to engage in a ridiculous equivocation, one which almost certainly has its roots in behaviourism. What is important is that behaviourism is scientifically dead, not because of some pretention to keep humanity on a pedestal, but because it fails on every established scientific metric.
Posted by: Nick Smyth | Aug 11, 2008 1:15:31 PM
The timing of this piece is kind of non-sequiturial, but the criticism is never unwelcome. I'm coming to think that The Selfish Gene was so successful largely because it ratifies a mostly unconscious Gnostic folk wisdom about the barbarity of nature. Dawkins really does seem to be innocent of intentionally endorsing this philosophy, but that does not exempt him from criticism. It takes a heavy-duty set of ideological blinkers to aver that "nature red in tooth and claw" sums up the biological world "admirably."
Dawkins' lone defense against this charge has been, for 30 years, that "selfish" is meant metaphorically, to describe the interactions of replicators, and is not meant as moral judgment. The Tennyson quote belies this, as do the many mentions of "ruthless" selfishness, and his attribution of that quality to nature in general, including humanity. It's worth remembering TSG's money quote:
(This is about as close to mysticism as Dawkins has ever gotten).
The theme that runs throughout TSG and its successors is that selfishness occupies a category ontologically superior to altruism, which exists only in the form of a mask or illusion (Ghiselin's "scratch an altruist and watch a hypocrite bleed.") In Platonic terms, altruistic behavior is the world of appearances, but selfishness is truly real.
Whether he knows it or not, Dawkins' clear sympathies are with this view, much in the way Milton's were with Satan, however much he protested he was attempting to vindicate the ways of God to man. Mary Midgley is still the best analyst of these sympathies, esp. in her pair of articles in Philosopy, available online with no firewall.
Posted by: Chris Schoen | Aug 11, 2008 4:00:14 PM
"but what cannot help striking one is the extreme abuse of language"
Sometimes overly correct use of language seems abusive. :)
Posted by: tyen | Aug 11, 2008 8:48:06 PM
The distinction between "real altruism" (or "real selfishness") as exhibited by human beings and the ersatz versions of these as exhibited by unintelligent animals reminds me of the sort of distinction that philosophers such as John Searle makes between real intelligence (or understanding, or emotions, etc.) and the simulated variety that might be implemented by a mere computer program.
But I'm not sure that the distinction between "real" and "fake" mental qualities is useful. The possibility occurs to me that it's all fakery, at some level. What we call acting under selfish or altruistic motives is, if you are a materialist, just the relentless working out of the laws of physics and thermodynamics.
That isn't to say that intentional explanations (explaining behavior in terms of intentions or motives) isn't very useful in understanding how people work. But its usefulness for predicting and making sense of complex behavior does not depend on it being literally true. Newtonian physics or the Bohr model of the atom are known to be wrong in detail, but they are good enough for many purposes.
Posted by: Daryl McCullough | Aug 12, 2008 1:38:51 PM
Another one who should try reading the book they critique.
"..it seems to go directly against the expectations of "kin-selection." This is the point made by the parable of the Good Samaritan..."
Dawkins is very explicit in pointing out that rules of thumb for 'in most circumstances unquestioningly aiding those you are likely to encounter around you' would have stood genes in good stead in the environment in which they evolved. The world of our good Samaritan is very far from the small tribes wandering the savannah of Africa. Dawkins spends much time on this hangover from our past and why it looks at first glance to be contradictory.
Really, a simple error like this doesn't bode well for whatever else the writer has to say.
Chris, as I recall (will see if I can find it) Dawkins has semi-retracted that bit of poetic licence (no doubt due in part to copious quote-mining by opponents) that he put down to a maturing writer's sloppiness. He had, of course, just finished spending a book outlining how 'selfishness' acting locally (genetically) can result in selflessness globally (bodily). I'd read his intentions from the whole book, not the sentence.
Posted by: MattInOz | Aug 14, 2008 2:58:42 AM
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