The Meme Machine

A MEMETIC THEORY OF ALTRUISM 153
Let us take a few examples in more detail. Imagine an Australian who sends
money to the starving in Africa, or an American who sends money to
Bangladesh. Many people do this and some make no fuss about it. They send
off a cheque and never even tell anyone they have done so. This cannot be kin
selection because the final recipients are probably about as unrelated to the
average donor as they could possibly be. You might even argue that on a planet
with limited resources, this kind of generosity is strongly against the genetic
interests of the donor – over and above the cost of the gift, So is it reciprocal
altruism? Clearly not in any straightforward sense because the donor never
expects to see the recipients or to be thanked by them in any way. However,
evolutionary psychologists argue that such generosity is a way of building up the
donor’s reputation as a generous person (Matt Ridley 1996). In that case,
though, we should expect people to brag about their donations, which often they
do not. Even this can be explained as part of reciprocal altruism on the theory
that the feeling of guilt is evolution’s way of making sure the system works, and
so these hidden acts of generosity are just mistakes – the price we pay for having
our uniquely human emotions.
The examples I have given so far are mostly isolated acts of generosity, but
altruism is much more deeply embedded in our lives than that. Vast numbers of
people choose to do jobs that are badly paid, poorly rewarded, have very long
hours, and are highly stressful, because they want to be of service. Such jobs
include social work, psychotherapy, working in old people’s homes, looking
after delinquent children, and environmental protection. Why would anyone
want to spend several years training to become a nurse and then spend their life
working irregular hours, long shifts, dealing with difficult people, clearing up
horrible messes, spending hours giving out pills and making beds in an
environment of sickness and disease, all for an uncomfortably low salary? The
answer cannot be for material gain or genetic advantage. Nurses may say it is
because they want to help people, because it makes them feel fulfilled, because
they believe that life is only worth living if you help others, because they are
grateful to be healthy and want to help those who are not, because they
recognise that money alone is not the way to happiness, and so on.
According to sociobiological theory these reasons must all be by-products of
reciprocal altruism, but to me that stretches the theory to breaking point. The
problem is that natural selection is ruthless and the cost of this kind of
generosity could be very high indeed. People who managed to avoid paying it in
the past would have been at an advantage and would have passed on their genes