What could survive is a propensity to become the sort of person to sacrifice yourself to protect your family. given that no other family member has done so. Or, a propensity to sacrifice yourself that would normally kick in after you’ve had kids. But actually sacrificing yourself before you pass on your genes is a textbook example of “selected against”.
I’m not sure this is true. I don’t think people have children out of a conscious desire to “pass on their genes.” I am a parent and have never experienced this, nor have I ever heard of anyone framing their desire to become a parent in this way.
This may be what Nature has hard-wired us to do, but I don’t think “passing on one’s genes” is necessarily the end-goal in that regard, either. I think the objective is to produce offspring, and then see to it that those offspring survive. In which case dying would be absurdly counterproductive.
I think, first of all, people are intrinsically motivated to have sex, which naturally results in children at least historically, prior to the invention of birth control—which, it’s worth noting, humans tried unsuccessfully to invent for thousands of years before we finally got it right, if that tells you anything.
I do think there is a genuine desire to procreate and raise children, but interestingly, now that we have come up with a way to avoid parenting without having to avoid sex, we have found that the desire to procreate is completely absent in many people—a surprising number of people, even.
Perhaps the expectation that most adults will eventually become parents is merely reflective of the situation pre-birth control, which in relative terms is still a brand new medical innovation, and not something which our social norms have completely adjusted around yet. This makes me wonder, tangentially, if one’s desire to parent children may be socially imposed to a significant degree. By contrast, very few people intentionally avoid sex all their lives.
Bottom line: it seems obviously false to me to claim that “the propensity to sacrifice one’s self would normally kick in only after becoming a parent.” I think the opposite is actually true. Barring situations where someone is actively trying to harm one’s child, where self sacrifice may be necessary in order to preserve the child’s life, I think you’ll find that most people would consider having children for whom they are responsible a very strong reason against ending one’s life in a politically motivated murder/suicide situation.
I think you referring to ultimate-proximate explanation in context of evolution.
Eg; It is a proximate desire for Humans to have sex which manifests due to the ultimate causes i.e. natural selection.
“The difference between proximate and ultimate explanations of behavior is central to evolutionary explanation (Mayr, 1963; Tinbergen, 1963). Ultimate explanations are concerned with the fitness consequences of a trait or behavior and whether it is (or is not) selected. In contrast, proximate explanations are concerned with the mechanisms that underpin the trait or behavior—that is, how it works. Put another way, ultimate explanations address evolutionary function (the “why” question), and proximate explanations address the way in which that functionality is achieved (the “how” question). Another way to think about this distinction is to say that proximate mechanisms are behavior generators, whereas ultimate functions explain why those behaviors are favored.”
What could survive is a propensity to become the sort of person to sacrifice yourself to protect your family. given that no other family member has done so. Or, a propensity to sacrifice yourself that would normally kick in after you’ve had kids. But actually sacrificing yourself before you pass on your genes is a textbook example of “selected against”.
I’m not sure this is true. I don’t think people have children out of a conscious desire to “pass on their genes.” I am a parent and have never experienced this, nor have I ever heard of anyone framing their desire to become a parent in this way.
This may be what Nature has hard-wired us to do, but I don’t think “passing on one’s genes” is necessarily the end-goal in that regard, either. I think the objective is to produce offspring, and then see to it that those offspring survive. In which case dying would be absurdly counterproductive.
I think, first of all, people are intrinsically motivated to have sex, which naturally results in children at least historically, prior to the invention of birth control—which, it’s worth noting, humans tried unsuccessfully to invent for thousands of years before we finally got it right, if that tells you anything.
I do think there is a genuine desire to procreate and raise children, but interestingly, now that we have come up with a way to avoid parenting without having to avoid sex, we have found that the desire to procreate is completely absent in many people—a surprising number of people, even.
Perhaps the expectation that most adults will eventually become parents is merely reflective of the situation pre-birth control, which in relative terms is still a brand new medical innovation, and not something which our social norms have completely adjusted around yet. This makes me wonder, tangentially, if one’s desire to parent children may be socially imposed to a significant degree. By contrast, very few people intentionally avoid sex all their lives.
Bottom line: it seems obviously false to me to claim that “the propensity to sacrifice one’s self would normally kick in only after becoming a parent.” I think the opposite is actually true. Barring situations where someone is actively trying to harm one’s child, where self sacrifice may be necessary in order to preserve the child’s life, I think you’ll find that most people would consider having children for whom they are responsible a very strong reason against ending one’s life in a politically motivated murder/suicide situation.
I think you referring to ultimate-proximate explanation in context of evolution.
Eg; It is a proximate desire for Humans to have sex which manifests due to the ultimate causes i.e. natural selection.
“The difference between proximate and ultimate explanations of behavior is central to evolutionary explanation (Mayr, 1963; Tinbergen, 1963). Ultimate explanations are concerned with the fitness consequences of a trait or behavior and whether it is (or is not) selected. In contrast, proximate explanations are concerned with the mechanisms that underpin the trait or behavior—that is, how it works. Put another way, ultimate explanations address evolutionary function (the “why” question), and proximate explanations address the way in which that functionality is achieved (the “how” question). Another way to think about this distinction is to say that proximate mechanisms are behavior generators, whereas ultimate functions explain why those behaviors are favored.”
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