ASEBL Journal – Volume 13 Issue 1, January 2018
gence of altruistic behavior?
Goodman claims to have given a better definition of altruism. But to see the value of his proposal for biology, we should instead see him as having introduced a distinct concept to help explain biological altruism. Perhaps the really puzzling behavior – sacrificing to benefit others – can be explained by the biological benefit of signaling the willingness to sacrifice. Such a proposal is certainly intriguing and may be part of the explanation of altruistic behavior. But we have not replaced the old biological concept with a new and improved version. One needs to retain that old biological concept to state the thesis that demonstrates the importance of Goodman’ s signaling account.
Likewise for the philosophic question: we should not understand Goodman’ s proposal as the suggestion that we abandon the concept of altruism as an intention to sacrifice for the sake of others and replace it with Goodman’ s signaling account. Instead the suggestion must be that we can use the notion of signaling a willingness to sacrifice for others to help to explain our normative reasons to intend to be altruistic. Signaling a willingness to sacrifice for others gives us a reputation as an altruist. Since people tend to reciprocate, such a reputation can benefit us. Insofar as we have reasons to benefit ourselves, we have reasons to signal our willingness to sacrifice for others. And for those of us who have trouble with large scale deception, we won’ t be able to signal our altruism without actually intending to be altruistic.
This might partly explain our normative reasons to intend to act altruistically. But it probably isn’ t the whole story. If it were, our reasons to intend to be altruistic would be contingent and instrumental. E. g., if it turns out that we can fool others into believing our altruistic signal without actually intending to be altruistic, or if earning a reputation for altruism won’ t result from our intention to act altruistically, or if such a reputation won’ t benefit us, then we’ ll have no reason to actually be altruistic. This seems to get the value of other people’ s well being wrong. In general, our reasons to benefit others are not contingent on whether or not we ourselves will be benefitted in return.
George Price is said to have been disturbed by the implications of his famous formula. Whatever we call altruism, Price thought, is ultimately a product of some selfish evolutionary mechanism. Late in his life, Price was driven to increasingly desperate altruistic behavior, giving away all his wealth and possessions to strangers and, ultimately, taking his life.
Assume that Price was disturbed by the thought that the value of his altruism was undermined by its evolutionary origin. From one perspective, Price’ s worry seems to rest on an unfortunate mistake. No fact about the origin of our altruistic behavior could have anything to do with the value of our altruistic behavior. To think otherwise is to forget the difference between behaving altruistically( Goodman’ s biological altruism) and having altruistic intentions( Goodman’ s philosophical altruism). It’ s true that facts about the origin of our altruistic intentions can affect the value of those intentions. For instance, if you intend to act altruistically only because you want some reciprocity, that might impugn the value of your altruistic intention. But just because reciprocity( or selfishness genes etc.) explains how altruistic behavior arose, it doesn’ t mean that
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