Where does altruism collide?

In evolutionary biology, altruism is a behaviour that lowers the actor's own reproductive success while raising that of another individual: it is defined purely by its effect on survival and breeding, with no reference to any intention or feeling. Hamilton's 1964 The genetical evolution of social behaviour showed how such a costly act can still spread when the recipients are genetic relatives, through kin selection and inclusive fitness, so that helping kin propagates copies of the helper's own genes. The referent here is an outcome measured in offspring, and it is a different thing from a welfare term in an economic model, a helping motive studied in the mind, or a moral principle argued in ethics.[1]

Unit

One fitness-lowering act, scaled by the actor's cost and the recipient's benefit in offspring

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Estimated from reproductive costs and benefits and the coefficient of relatedness, following Hamilton's rule that relatedness times benefit must exceed cost

In economics, altruism is a formal property of a person's preferences: another party's well-being enters the actor's own utility function, so the actor gains satisfaction when the other party gains. Andreoni's 1990 Impure altruism and donations to public goods separated pure altruism, where only the recipient's final outcome matters, from impure or "warm-glow" giving, where the act of giving itself yields a private reward. The referent is a mathematical weight in a preference model, calibrated to choices and money, and unlike the biologist's meaning it carries no notion of reproductive cost, nor is it the psychologist's inner motive or the philosopher's moral rule.[2]

Unit

A weight the actor places on another party's payoff within a utility function

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Inferred from giving in experiments and field data, and estimated as parameters in models of preferences over one's own and others' outcomes

In psychology, altruism names a motivational state: a helping act driven by the goal of improving another person's welfare as an end in itself, rather than to earn a reward or to ease one's own discomfort. Batson, Duncan, Ackerman, Buckley, and Birch's 1981 Is empathic emotion a source of altruistic motivation? set out the empathy-altruism hypothesis, arguing that empathy felt for someone in need can evoke genuinely other-directed motivation. The referent is the goal behind a helping act, not its outcome, so it differs from the biologist's fitness accounting and the economist's preference weight, both of which ignore motive, and from the philosopher's claim about how one ought to act.[3]

Unit

One helping act classified by its underlying goal, other-directed or self-serving

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Inferred in experiments by varying empathy and the ease of leaving the situation, then observing whether a person still chooses to help

In moral philosophy, altruism is a normative doctrine: the principle that one ought to act for the good of others, standing opposed to egoism. Dixon's 2008 The Invention of Altruism traced how Auguste Comte coined the word in the 1850s to name living for others as a moral ideal, and MacAskill's 2019 The Definition of Effective Altruism recast it as using evidence and reason to benefit others as much as one can. The referent is a claim about how a person should live, defended by argument rather than measured, and it prescribes conduct instead of describing a reproductive cost, a preference weight, or an observed motive.[4][5]

Unit

A normative principle about how much weight one owes to the good of others

Recovery means

Not applicable

Measured by

Not measured; assessed by philosophical argument about the doctrine's coherence and the demands it places on a person