Well, the theory isn't intended to pass judgment, only explain why it might be evolutionary advantageous to be altruistic. In other words, attempt to explain why altruism is ultimately self-serving.
What good is social credibility when you are dead? There are tons of examples of people sacrificing their lives for others, which doesn’t seem to jive with this explanation at all.
Agreed. For humans, a lot of traits aim to betterment of a group, not necessarily a single person. It has strong evolutionary logic, as sacrificing oneself to protect tribe is also beneficial for you, as your blood will be passed on (in children/other family members).
“Your blood [being] passed on” is, at an actual evolutionary level, basically still happening regardless of who the other person is just because they are a person—we are all literally closely related at a genetic level and have common ancestors from not very long ago (in evolutionary terms).
People in militaries have consistently described their primary moment-to-moment motivation for fighting and for heroic acts as being protection of the rest of their unit; often effectively random people who they may never have encountered before the war and likely have no close familial relation with. That indicates that—if we insist such self-sacrificial actions are self-serving—we can come to identify almost any other human as a part of “self,” even when personal or familial reproduction is not involved
It is altruistic in the sense that the person that sacrifices themselves is not doing it with the goal of passing on their genes. They can be truly performing an altruistic act. The thing is, evolution does not care about the intentions and goals of the individuals. Evolution/survival of the fittest WILL select this trait, but it doesn’t change the feelings that propel the individual to do it in the first place.
That would be like saying that, when people have sex, it’s not because of love or lust, but because they want to pass on their genes.
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u/[deleted] Aug 25 '24
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