I suspect that debating altruism is an unusually good opportunity for people to “generalize from one example”.
People who enjoy helping others will go like: “Of course, everyone wants to help others, deep inside. It’s just that when people are in need or in pain, their self-preservation instinct temporarily reduces this feeling, to make them focus on saving themselves. But as soon as we help them satisfy their physical or emotional needs, you will find that even the seemingly horrible people are actually good, when given the opportunity.”
And this is kinda unfalsifiable, because if someone remains a horrible person no matter how much you give them (things, support, forgiveness), you can insist that there must be some need that wasn’t sufficiently satisfied yet. And that person would obviously encourage this perspective, because it means that they will get even more things. And there will always be something missing, because the world is not perfect.
On the other hand, people who don’t enjoy helping others, can rationalize away almost any observed goodness: “Yeah, they are just showing off (i.e. trading a little effort or money for higher social status). And they definitely expect to get something in return; if not today, then maybe tomorrow. They probably got something in return when you weren’t watching. Okay, they never got anything in return, but they thought they would, they just miscalculated; that’s not goodness, that’s stupidity. Why the fuck would anyone do anything, if they don’t expect to benefit from it somehow?”
And this too is kinda unfalsifiable, because almost always there is something, no matter how indirect or disproportionately small. And the very fact that you know about a good deed already makes it suspicious that the person wanted you to know, to get something in return, at least some status in your eyes. (And if you don’t know about a good deed, then it cannot contradict your perspective, can it?)
This way, everyone can stay convinced that their general theory of altruism is correct.
So maybe the truth is that (1) people are different, and (2) even the same person can do different good deeds for different reasons, and (3) even one deed can have multiple reasons. For example:
I may expect to maybe get something in return, but the probability of such thing happening multiplied by the average reward may be so small that this simply doesn’t make sense economically; there are more profitable things I could be doing instead, if I only cared about my profit
some people may help the poor to signal how rich they are, but that alone does not explain why they chose to signal their wealth this way, instead of e.g. buying a really expensive car, which is what some other rich people do
some people are more likely to help others after their own needs are satisfied, but that may be just a subset of all people; other people respond to having their needs satisfied by simply having more needs, without any altruism manifesting as a side effect
similarly, some people are more likely to help others after seeing a role model, but other people just laugh at the role model, or invent a hypothesis why the role model (1) actually secretly benefits from their seemingly selfless actions, and (2) is actually making the world a worse place
How people feel about receiving charity (e.g. whether they feel degraded by it) may also depend on their model of altruism, which probably is a result of what they would do in the reversed situations, and what motives they have observed (or hypothesized) at others. For example, the kind of person who would only help others to feel smugly superior to them, will probably fight hard against being a recipient of help. The kind of person who gives gladly will be more likely to also receive gladly. (Although, a scammer will also receive gladly; they won’t feel humiliated by having successfully exploited others.)
Some smaller points I haven’t see in the article:
When considering altruism as reciprocity, i.e. helping others while expecting to get something in return, it probably makes sense to distinguish a few different meanings:
helping someone, because I expect that specific person to later pay back what they owe me
helping people, and expecting that some of them will later somehow reciprocate and many probably won’t, but I am okay with such outcome, because so far I am profitable on average—helping others costs me little, and once in a while someone reciprocates in a way that feels like winning a lottery
helping people in order to establish a general culture of “people in need should be helped” as an insurance in case I would later need some help myself, although I hope not to need this insurance
All of these could be summed up as “helping others, expecting to get something back”, but they lead to different behaviors. In the first case, I would only help the people who seem most likely to pay it back later; I wouldn’t help the homeless, or strangers. The second case… is actually how it works for me (I think it is not the true reason why I do it, but the fact is that it works). The third case, I think the difference is in the mood: if you only help others because you expect to be poor in future, it feels sad, and you will probably only try doing the minimum necessary.
I noticed a seeming paradox: When I help a person, I don’t expect them to do something for me in return. And yet, I would feel better to learn that “this is the kind of person who helps others, when they can”. At first I thought, okay, maybe this exposes some kind of hypocrisy or inconsistency on my end: I do not consciously expect to be paid back, but unconsciously I do, so I feel better when I learn that I have helped a person who is likely to reciprocate. But then I noticed that there is also another possible explanation: there are many people in need, and my possibilities to do good are limited; if I help a selfish person, it stops there; but if I help an altruistic person, they may later help someone else, and thus I may have started a chain reaction of good.
Similarly, helping a person who seems to be on a way to improvement feels better, to me. (I think this is not universal. At least I have heard that there are people who help others, but feel betrayed (?) when those people start working on themselves to be less likely to need help in the future.) One possible explanation is that people who get stronger are more likely to reciprocate. But another possible explanation is that when I help people, my hope is to make their situation better; and a person who works on themselves along with receiving my help is acting like a multiplier to that help. You know, “when you give a fish, you feed someone for a day; when you teach them fishing, you feed them for a lifetime”, except people actually also need to eat when they are learning, so when you give someone a fish and then they learn fishing (sometimes they don’t need you to teach), it’s like you have fed them for a life using a single fish, which is an effective act of altruism.
I suspect that debating altruism is an unusually good opportunity for people to “generalize from one example”.
People who enjoy helping others will go like: “Of course, everyone wants to help others, deep inside. It’s just that when people are in need or in pain, their self-preservation instinct temporarily reduces this feeling, to make them focus on saving themselves. But as soon as we help them satisfy their physical or emotional needs, you will find that even the seemingly horrible people are actually good, when given the opportunity.”
And this is kinda unfalsifiable, because if someone remains a horrible person no matter how much you give them (things, support, forgiveness), you can insist that there must be some need that wasn’t sufficiently satisfied yet. And that person would obviously encourage this perspective, because it means that they will get even more things. And there will always be something missing, because the world is not perfect.
On the other hand, people who don’t enjoy helping others, can rationalize away almost any observed goodness: “Yeah, they are just showing off (i.e. trading a little effort or money for higher social status). And they definitely expect to get something in return; if not today, then maybe tomorrow. They probably got something in return when you weren’t watching. Okay, they never got anything in return, but they thought they would, they just miscalculated; that’s not goodness, that’s stupidity. Why the fuck would anyone do anything, if they don’t expect to benefit from it somehow?”
And this too is kinda unfalsifiable, because almost always there is something, no matter how indirect or disproportionately small. And the very fact that you know about a good deed already makes it suspicious that the person wanted you to know, to get something in return, at least some status in your eyes. (And if you don’t know about a good deed, then it cannot contradict your perspective, can it?)
This way, everyone can stay convinced that their general theory of altruism is correct.
So maybe the truth is that (1) people are different, and (2) even the same person can do different good deeds for different reasons, and (3) even one deed can have multiple reasons. For example:
I may expect to maybe get something in return, but the probability of such thing happening multiplied by the average reward may be so small that this simply doesn’t make sense economically; there are more profitable things I could be doing instead, if I only cared about my profit
some people may help the poor to signal how rich they are, but that alone does not explain why they chose to signal their wealth this way, instead of e.g. buying a really expensive car, which is what some other rich people do
some people are more likely to help others after their own needs are satisfied, but that may be just a subset of all people; other people respond to having their needs satisfied by simply having more needs, without any altruism manifesting as a side effect
similarly, some people are more likely to help others after seeing a role model, but other people just laugh at the role model, or invent a hypothesis why the role model (1) actually secretly benefits from their seemingly selfless actions, and (2) is actually making the world a worse place
How people feel about receiving charity (e.g. whether they feel degraded by it) may also depend on their model of altruism, which probably is a result of what they would do in the reversed situations, and what motives they have observed (or hypothesized) at others. For example, the kind of person who would only help others to feel smugly superior to them, will probably fight hard against being a recipient of help. The kind of person who gives gladly will be more likely to also receive gladly. (Although, a scammer will also receive gladly; they won’t feel humiliated by having successfully exploited others.)
Some smaller points I haven’t see in the article:
When considering altruism as reciprocity, i.e. helping others while expecting to get something in return, it probably makes sense to distinguish a few different meanings:
helping someone, because I expect that specific person to later pay back what they owe me
helping people, and expecting that some of them will later somehow reciprocate and many probably won’t, but I am okay with such outcome, because so far I am profitable on average—helping others costs me little, and once in a while someone reciprocates in a way that feels like winning a lottery
helping people in order to establish a general culture of “people in need should be helped” as an insurance in case I would later need some help myself, although I hope not to need this insurance
All of these could be summed up as “helping others, expecting to get something back”, but they lead to different behaviors. In the first case, I would only help the people who seem most likely to pay it back later; I wouldn’t help the homeless, or strangers. The second case… is actually how it works for me (I think it is not the true reason why I do it, but the fact is that it works). The third case, I think the difference is in the mood: if you only help others because you expect to be poor in future, it feels sad, and you will probably only try doing the minimum necessary.
I noticed a seeming paradox: When I help a person, I don’t expect them to do something for me in return. And yet, I would feel better to learn that “this is the kind of person who helps others, when they can”. At first I thought, okay, maybe this exposes some kind of hypocrisy or inconsistency on my end: I do not consciously expect to be paid back, but unconsciously I do, so I feel better when I learn that I have helped a person who is likely to reciprocate. But then I noticed that there is also another possible explanation: there are many people in need, and my possibilities to do good are limited; if I help a selfish person, it stops there; but if I help an altruistic person, they may later help someone else, and thus I may have started a chain reaction of good.
Similarly, helping a person who seems to be on a way to improvement feels better, to me. (I think this is not universal. At least I have heard that there are people who help others, but feel betrayed (?) when those people start working on themselves to be less likely to need help in the future.) One possible explanation is that people who get stronger are more likely to reciprocate. But another possible explanation is that when I help people, my hope is to make their situation better; and a person who works on themselves along with receiving my help is acting like a multiplier to that help. You know, “when you give a fish, you feed someone for a day; when you teach them fishing, you feed them for a lifetime”, except people actually also need to eat when they are learning, so when you give someone a fish and then they learn fishing (sometimes they don’t need you to teach), it’s like you have fed them for a life using a single fish, which is an effective act of altruism.