The Meme Machine

CHAPTER 12
A memetic theory of
altruism
Altruism in the service of the genes
Once one of the greatest mysteries for sociobiology – and now probably one of
its greatest successes – is the problem of altruism.
Altruism is defined as behaviour that benefits another creature at the expense
of the one carrying it out. In other words, altruism means doing something that
costs time, effort, or resources, for the sake of someone else. This might mean
providing food for another animal, giving a warning signal to protect others
while putting yourself at risk, or fighting an enemy to save another animal from
harm. Examples abound in nature, from the social insects whose lives revolve
around the good of their communion to rabbits that thump warnings of
approaching footsteps, and vampire bats that share meals of blood. Humans are
uniquely cooperative and spend a great deal of their time doing things that
benefit others as well as themselves: what psychologists sometimes refer to as
‘prosocial behaviour’. They have moral sensibilities and a strong sense of right
and wrong. They are altruists.
Altruism is a problem for many social psychologists and economists who
assume that humans rationally pursue their own interests. It is also a problem
for Darwinism, although it was not always seen that way. The problem varies
according to the level at which you think selection takes place – or, putting it
another way – what you think evolution is for. If you believe, as many early
Darwinians did, that evolution ultimately proceeds for the good of the
individual, then why should any individual behave in such a way as to incur
serious costs to itself while benefiting someone else? All individuals ought to be
out for themselves alone, and nature ought truly to be ‘red in tooth and claw’.
Yet clearly it is not. Many animals live social and cooperative lives, parents
lavish devotion on their offspring, and many mammals spend hours of every day
grooming their friends and neighbours. Why do they do it?
An answer that does not work is what the British philosopher Helena Cronin