can humankind act truly altruistically? i hold that all our actions can eventually be shown to be...... 'self' centered.
Proximately yes, ultimately no; altruism is an evolved mechanism which ultimately aids the survival of the organism and the replication of its genes. That does not mean that certain acts are not genuinely altruistic because we do not act with ultimate goals of survival and reproduction on our mind.
Hmm. 5 People on a plane. 4 parachutes. It's going to crash, and you immediately stand up and say you're the one that will stay on the plane, and crash and burn. The other 4 people jump, and you stay on and die. A not too outrageous scenario, and I don't see what you'd have to gain, as whatever small amount of glory you may get wouldn't be worth dying for.
That's not how evolution works The evolution of altruism works by outfitting someone to be the kind of person that would engage in self-sacrifice and put others' needs above her own. In most cases this will involve small, not life-threatening degrees of self-sacrifice; this behaviour is witnessed by other members of her peer group and they then choose to be generous and to co-operate more fully with this apparently selfless person. There is a small but statistically significant payback to selfless behaviour which then provides a selection pressure for that kind of behaviour to be passed on. The trouble, as you point out, is that sometimes the costs of selflessness will outweigh the benefits; but the situation you describe is somewhat rare and would be an example where evolution has equipped a person to behave in a certain way where that mode of behaviour does not amount to a successful strategy for that particular environment. All that is required is that the strategy is successful for the typical environment in which humans live, not every conceivable situation, and this behaviour provides on average and across many iterations a slight advantage outweighing the costs.
No. That is not how evolution works either. You ought to have prefaced evolution with some other word.
It is actually a somewhat oversimplified but nonetheless accurate description of current theories on the evolution of selfless behaviour in human populations, namely "strong reciprocity", or the adherence to modes of behaviour which may be at cost to the individual but which benefit her in terms of survival and reproduction in the long term by the mechanism described... See Bowles and Gintis http://ideas.repec.org/p/wop/safire/98-08-073e.html http://ideas.repec.org/p/ums/papers/2000-05.html
1. When i'm driving I let people into traffic on busy roads. this means i will not get where i'm going as quickly. but i still let people in. because A) it's easy to do, and B) i've been in their situation before. i react to a situation without regard for my self. 2. Acting without regard to self is, in the long run at least, beneficial to humans. it allows for greater sociability, and cements relationships.
