[lit-ideas] Re: Altruism and Egoism: A Griceian Perspective
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- Date: Tue, 27 May 2014 07:50:51 -0400 (EDT)
Or how pirots karulise elatically (and baboons behave heroically): some
simpler ways
Grice loved Kantotle.
Kantotle possibly is most famous for his graffito: "Your best egoistic
choice is to be an altruist". He said that in a mixture of Greek and German --
and the phenomena may apply to baboons.
"If altruism gets displayed in self-sacrifice, egoism should possibly get
displayed in other-sacrifice" (Geary, "Random thoughts on the Holy
Trinity").
In a message dated 5/26/2014 5:44:21 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
"In the above post, Lawrence then goes on to refer to humans and human
altruism and does not bring in animals or other organisms." But in a previous
post, "Here Lawrence clearly refers to baboons." ... "[O]nce his comments
stray so as to encompass "baboons" then he is talking of "group selection"
where Darwinian principles apply."
For the record, here (b in ps) are the bibiliographical references to
animals other than homo sapiens sapiens sapiens and baboons, as per "Biological
altruism" that McEvoy and I were commenting.
As the author (S. O.) notes, 'altruism' becomes a bit of a puzzling word
when applied to the 'biological' unless we are ready to use the term in a way
'other' than what philosophers like Grice (ordinary language philosophers)
adore: to wit: ordinary language!
It may also do to look for the source of the baboon example, since the way
it gets 'described' may tell the difference. As Wittgenstein noted, the way
we 'describe' (apparently objectively) a piece of behaviour may already be
loaded with 'psychological' conceptualisations that belong to the observer
rather than, er, the baboon, or Simia hamadryas if you must (Linnaeus,
1758)
Cheers
Speranza
(a) Helm: "One early author ... referred to a pair of adult baboon males
guarding their tribes passage up through a narrow passage where they would
be safe for the night. The leopard came and they set upon it with
precession. The leopard killed both of them, but before he did, one of them
bit into
the leopard’s jugular."
(b)
Avital, E. and Jablonka, E., Animal Traditions: Behavioural Inheritance
in Evolution, Cambridge University Press.
Bowles, S. and Gintis, H., A Cooperative Species: Human Reciprocity and
its Evolution, Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Bourke, A. and Franks, N., Social Evolution in Ants, Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Carter, G. G. and Wilkinson, G. S., ‘Food Sharing in Vampire Bats:
reciprocal help predicts donations more than relatedness or harassment’,
Proceedings of the Royal Society B, 280.
Cronin, H., The Ant and the Peacock, Cambridge University Press.
Dugatkin, L. A., Cooperation among Animals: an Evolutionary Perspective,
Oxford University Press.
Gardner, A. and West S. A., ‘Greenbeards’, Evolution, 64(1): 25–38.
GRICE, H. P. Method in philosophical psychology: from the banal to the
bizarre. Repr. in Conception of Value. (on squirrels and squarels).
GRICE, H. P. Unpublications. The Grice Papers. Bancroft Library,
UC/Berkeley.
Hamilton, W. ‘Altruism and Related Phenomena, mainly in the Social Insects’
, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics, 3.
Hammerstein, P., ‘Why is Reciprocity so Rare in Social Animals? A
Protestant Appeal’, in P. Hammerstein (ed.) Genetic and Cultural Evolution of
Cooperation, Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Lehmann, L., Keller, L., West, S., and Roze, D., ‘Group Selection and Kin
Selection: Two Concepts but One Process’, Proceedings of the National
Academy of the Sciences, 104
Marshall, J. A., ‘Group Selection and Kin Selection: formally equivalent
approaches’, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, 26
Maynard Smith, J. ––– ‘The Theory of Games and the Evolution of Animal
Conflicts, Journal of Theoretical Biology, 47
Wilkinson, G. S., ‘Reciprocal Food Sharing in the Vampire Bat’, Nature,
308
–––, 1990, ‘Food Sharing in Vampire Bats’, Scientific American, 262, 2:
64–70.
Wilson, D. –––‘On the Relationship between Evolutionary and
Psychological Definitions of Altruism and Egoism’, Biology and Philosophy, 7
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