The Meme Machine

152 THE MEME MACHINE
altruism. Acts of kindness and cooperation can be explained because they
ultimately help the survival of the selfish genes on which they depend. Is that
the problem solved, then? Does all of human altruism ultimately come down to
kin selection and reciprocal altruism?
The oddities of human altruism
In today’s world we frequently deal with people who are unrelated to us and
whom we know we will never meet again. This suggests that society ought to
be becoming less kind and cooperative, but this does not seem to be happening.
Psychologists have long studied helping and cooperative behaviour.
Experiments in the 1970s concentrated on bystander apathy – the depressing
finding that people often do nothing to help a person injured in the street. They
found that helping is greatly increased if the bystander is the only one who can
help, and is decreased if other people can be seen not helping – so this is another
situation in which people imitate each other. More recent studies, however,
show that people will offer help in a wide range of situations. Experiments
teasing out the effects suggest that people help because they feel empathy for the
sufferer, and not because they are related to them, nor because they can expect
any reward for helping (Batson 1995).
Try to think of the most altruistic of human acts you can. Dawkins gave the
example of giving blood. In Britain every healthy adult is encouraged (or at
least invited) to give blood twice a year, and donors are not paid – you get a cup
of tea and a biscuit, and a little badge after ten donations. He suggested this was
a case of ‘pure, disinterested altruism’ (Dawkins 1976, p. 230.). Others have
suggested giving a large tip in a restaurant you will never visit again, or going to
Ethiopia to help standing orphans. We might add picking up valuables found in
the street and handing them in to the police, clearing away someone else’s
abandoned rubbish, recycling your waste, or setting up a standing order to a
charity whose members you will never meet. Then there are dogs’ and cats’
homes, and many people who care for birds with broken wings or maltreated
donkeys. All these may appear to be examples of ‘true’ altruism but,
sociobiologists would argue, they are really the by-products of kin selection and
reciprocal altruism. We are most generous to our relatives (or those we think
might be relatives) and we are nice to others so as to build up a reputation for
being good and trustworthy. Is this explanation adequate?