Altruism - a philosophical analysis
Details
State: Public
Version: Final published version
Serval ID
serval:BIB_11D7B2FED332
Type
A part of a book
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Altruism - a philosophical analysis
Title of the book
eLS
Publisher
John Wiley & Sons Ltd,
Address of publication
Chichester
ISBN
9780470015902
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2012
Pages
6
Language
english
Abstract
Altruism is a malleable notion that is understood differently in various disciplines. The common denominator of most definitions of altruism is the idea of unidirectional helping behaviour. However, a closer examination reveals that the term altruism sometimes refers to the outcomes of a helping behaviour for the agent and its neighbours - i.e. reproductive altruism - and sometimes to what motivates the agent to help others - i.e. psychological altruism. Since these perspectives on altruism are crucially different, it is important to use a clear terminology to avoid confusion. In particular, we show that the notion of altruism used by biologists profoundly differs from the ones used by philosophers, psychologists and economists in cross-disciplinary debates about human altruism.
Keywords
altruism, helping, kin selection, Hamilton's rule, human altruism, motivation, proximate versus ultimate explanation, psychological altruism, reproductive altruism, weak altruism
Open Access
Yes
Create date
30/11/2011 19:00
Last modification date
20/08/2019 13:39