Altruistic Behavior Essay

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For instance, many Americans disagree with capital punishment as being a valid response to criminal behavior. Yet many Americans firmly stand behind capital punishment as a means to maintain the social order. In this sense, capital punishment is like the Doomsday Machine in Dr. Strangelove. As Pinker (n.d.) shows, the philosophy behind revenge punishment may serve no one, and yet it is uniquely compelling on an emotional level. When emotions are stripped from the equation, parties are freer to make decisions based on reason. Yet reason is too often absent from human decision-making. Given the predilection for humans toward emotional responses, altruism has evolved to serve biological, sociological, and psychological functions.
Fehr & Gachter (2002) suggest that altruistic punishment is remarkable because it is practiced upon those who are not biologically related. Generally, altruism is more easily understood when applied to persons of the same kinship group. Yet treating people from the kinship group may not constitute true altruism, because of the biological tendency to protect those within the social circle (Booman, 1980). True altruism would only manifest when people do noble acts for those they have never and possibly will never meet. A wealthy person who donates $1 million to a village in Africa, expecting nothing in return, would be conducting a genuinely altruistic act. The motivations are not biological in this case, or at least, biology does not provide the proximate cause for the behavior.

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A deeper analysis of the behavior from an evolutionary biology perspective might, however, reveal that such behaviors do contribute to the betterment of the human race and promote peace on earth and because of these benefits, absolute altruism can be programmed into human DNA. Until genetic science improves its understanding of altruistic behavior, though, the cluster of altruistic behaviors are more easily traceable to psychological motivations and needs.
Altruism serves distinct psychological, biosocial, and evolutionary biological functions. Each case must be considered differently, of course, but generally altruistic behaviors do promote common welfare and could therefore serve biological functions. Just as a mother is biologically prone to protecting her child, an ordinary human being might be biologically motivated to intervene and help another, or in other cases, use revenge or punishment on others to promote group harmony. Altruistic punishment is an odd manifestation of altruism, but reveals some of the complex intersections between the different domains of altruism......

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