Is Altruism Real or is Giving To Others A Way of Buying Feelings of Virtue?
Some believe that people are inherently selfish. That life in general is built up on selfishness, competition, and that cooperation evolved as a means to promote long term survival.
Others believe that altruism is a real thing. That some people give because they actually care about others for reasons which do not include satisfying their own individual brains.
Feelings of virtue is in a sense to feel as if they did the right thing, as if they are a good person, as if they are virtuous.
Some call this a virtue signal if they are trying to convince others by way of signalling that they are a good person by public displays of "altruism".
What do you think?
When I give to others, I do it because I know I have a life many would die for, it gives them a chance, maybe a little boost, so I believe I am fortunate enough to be able to do it for them...it does make me happy seeing others happy but I don’t think. I only do it to show out or help my self esteem by any means.
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Most any action will be connected to some impulse or value. Even if someone is being selfless, they will be doing it for the belief in something.
The way this value became instilled in them then becomes important to this question, maybe they hold this value as a compression out of fear of getting a spanking, or in hope of getting a cookie from when they were younger.
The real question is can altruism exist in a system of rewards an punishment, like steem? Is any one really commenting or posting to build interesting discussion, or because they want to share with others? or are they just looking for those little steem dollars to save up for the next bull run?
Maybe it can be both at the same time.
Reciprocal altruism does exist on Steem. But it's not selfless. I am arriving slowly at the conclusion that all behavior is just profit seeking and all behaviors can be explained by there being a market for them in terms of supply and demand.
What makes good behavior abundant? When there is a market for good behavior. What makes bad behavior abundant? When there is a market for bad behavior. What ranks and rates behavior? The reviewers who judge all behaviors.
To me it's no different from markets, businesses, products and services. We could say behaviors result from stimulus in the environment. We could say also businesses produce products and services via the equivalent of stimulus in the environment (signals in the form of revenue).
How does a business know to make more of a certain product or service? Because people keep buying it.
How do people know to do more of a certain behavior? Because it keeps getting rewarded.
Psychologically, we evolved in small groups where everyone was needed to contribute and everyone knew how much everyone else contributed. So unconsciously even today we think people are watching what we do and we want them to be happy with what they're doing so we won't be ostracized from the tribe, which led to death back in our tribal days.
Rationally, we're are the type of animal that needs assistance to survive for the first several years. By the time we're old enough to contemplate how to act towards others, our ledger with society is deeply in debt. Once we realize all the assistance we've gotten over the first years in our lives from so many different people, it's only rational to pay back the community that already gave so much to us.
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Not everyone received much assistance or rewards. I think yes pay back if there is a community which rewarded you and you have the means to do it but what motivates that behavior? Some sense that you either receive psychological profit in the form of a feel good or some external profit in the form of social rewards such as the label of virtuous person. Is it really altruism or is it just a way for some people to avoid depression?
Everyone was a few hundred people. But how we evolved isn't important now. Society is now billions of people, or hundreds of millions if you just consider the people who can speak your language.
If they can speak your language they can interact with you and with markets. If they can interact with you and with markets they can influence your behavior. Why? Because behavior is all about profit seeking in the social sense.