Evolutionary Determism of Altruism
March 17th, 2008 ecoliParabasis talks about a theories that evolutionary biologists have come up with to explain determined altruism.
Parabasis on the ‘Potlatch Effect’:
… you’re trying to destroy your enemies by engaging in a competition to outspend each other, using charity as the means to the end of their bankruptcy.
I share his skepticism of this theory. It does a messy job of explaining human behavior within the context of culture, because it seems to ignore ultimate causation of human culture.
global RSS feed.