ASEBL Journal – Volume 13 Issue 1, January 201 8
Even if it is possible, furthermore, to know another agent’s intentions, it is impossible
to prove her intentions, so if honest/altruistic intention were sufficient for veraci-
ty/altruistic behavior, there would be no way to verify whether any action or utterance
– under any circumstance – were altruistic or honest. There is always a chance that an
agent is deceiving us about her intentions, showing a divorce between an agent’s in-
tention to be altruistic and the qualification of the resulting behavior as altruistic.
III. Altruism as effect
Another common definition of altruism found, for example, in Hamilton (1972), in-
volves only the effect of a behavior. If an agent intends to do something for her own
benefit and accidentally benefits someone else, she behaves altruistically. Dawkins
(1979) uses the example of a pride of lions: if a lion develops tooth decay and the rest
of the pride is able to eat more, the lion is altruistic only because the effect of his be-
havior (not eating) is more food for the others.
Assuming this definition generalizes to other species, any agent’s behavior qualifies
as altruistic insofar as the actions thereof are beneficial to others to a greater degree
than to oneself. If an agent’s fitness could be quantified, the degree to which her fit-
ness is reduced and others’ increased determines whether a behavior is altruistic. This
definition countenances a circumstance where altruism is involuntary: a person may
be forced to help someone else at her own expense, a behavior which, regardless of
cause, qualifies as altruistic in this sense.
The “biological” definition of altruism is therefore incompatible with the “philosophi-
cal” variety. If we substitute honesty for altruism again, it’s possible for one to be ac-
cidentally honest by inadvertently telling a truth, even if others know one intends to
lie. In the ordinary sense, therefore, there are cases where one might meet the criteria
of altruism in the biological sense and fail to behave altruistically.
The analogy
Altruism: Altruistic behavior
as
Honesty: Veracity
fails if a definition of altruism as effect is used. Hamilton’s definition implies that one
can be forced to be altruistic, or to be altruistic accidentally; the same is not, however,
true of honesty. The “effect” definition, while suitable for evolutionary biology, does
not provide a sufficient criterion for altruistic behavior.
IV. Altruism as intention and effect
The failure of the agent-focused and biological definitions of altruism to give suffi-
cient criteria for altruistic behavior may create the illusion that combining the two def-
initions is sufficient. If we say an agent behaves altruistically insofar as she intends to
help others without ulterior motive and she has positive effects on the intended recipi-
ent(s), all examples discussed thus far will qualify as altruistic. The box I give to
someone else cannot be empty, and whether I am forced into being generous is irrele-
vant if I intend to be so anyway.
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