What Is Altruism?

French philosopher Auguste Comte coined the word altruisme (with meaning 3) in 1851, and two years later it entered the English language as altruism. Many considered his ethical system - in which the only moral acts were those intended to promote the happiness of others - rather extreme, so meaning 1 evolved. Now universal in evolutionary theory, meaning 2 was coined by scientists exploring how unselfish behaviour could have evolved. It is applied not only to people (psychological altruism), but also to animals and even plants.

Altruists choose to align their well-being with others - so they are happy when others thrive, sad when others are suffering. Essential in establishing strong relationships, most societies acknowledge the importance of altruism within the family. By motivating cooperation rather than conflict, it promotes harmony within communities of any size. Of course, peace within communities does not necessarily herald peace between communities, and the two may even be inversely related - witness for example, the way in which social strife tends to decrease within countries at war.

Altruists broaden their perspectives in an effort to overcome the artificial categories that break up the complex web of life. Altruism is the abdication of claims of power over others. To state that "None of us are worth more and none are worth less than anyone else" is almost a truism, but modern technology has given a new urgency to all such appeals for altruism. Life on earth is being destroyed at an alarming rate, and evidence is mounting of impending disasters such ecological collapse and climate change that threaten us all. Until a fundamental shift of consciousness occurs, such disasters can only get worse. Communications technology - and WWW in particular - is boosting altruism and establishing a global consciousness. It is encouraging to see how easily individual acts of altruism can have a global impact (e.g. Wikipedia, free software, or give away websites). In spite of massive investment by the corporate world, a mentality shift in the IT sphere is well underway from scarcity to abundance.

The most effective counter to the spread of altruism is the modern money system, since it is responsible for an unnatural transactional mentality. The inherent conflict in conventional money establishes zero-sum (competitive) relationships between people and organizations - so that those who help others necessarily disadvantage themselves. Such a system places a destructive overemphasis on self which erodes true society, fuelling consumerism and accompanying depression. Our main project is therefore to help develop an alternative to centralised money. If resistant to selfish attack, an internet-wide gift economy will act as a breeding ground for altruism. Many people would love a chance to ignore money and concentrate instead on helping others. A decentralised global gift economy system would do just that. By uniting altruists everywhere, coordinating local acts of altruism in a coherent fashion, the world could finally understand the power of getting back to our altruistic roots and escaping from Win-Lose thinking.

Everything that makes it possible and enjoyable to live is a free gift. For almost all of history, humans never saw the need to buy and sell things, or even to barter. Altruism is its own reward. Positive relationships with others have always been a more natural basis for self-esteem than either material objects or illusions about money or power over others.

"There is a power in love that our world has not discovered yet. Jesus discovered it centuries ago. Mahatma Gandhi of India discovered it a few years ago, but most men and most women never discover it. For they believe in hitting for hitting; they believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth; they believe in hating for hating; but Jesus comes to us and says, "This isn’t the way." And this morning, I think of the fact that our world is in transition now. Our whole world is facing a revolution."     Martin Luther King, Jr.

FURTHER READING	» Altruistic Economics
	» The Idea of Altruism
	» Psychology & Altruism
	» Problems of the Money System
	» Consumerism & Altruism

Downloads	Category	Title	Author(s)	Date	Reference
	Economics	Altruism, Nonprofits, and Economic Theory	Susan Rose-Ackerman	1996 Jun	Journal of Economic Literature 34, pp.701-728
	Economics	Precautionary Saving and Altruism	Katarina Nordblom	1997
	Economics	Does Altruism produce Efficient Outcomes? Marshall vs. Kaldor	David Friedman	1987-05-27
	Medical	Approaches to Defining Mechanisms by Which Altruistic Love Affects Health	Esther Sternberg	2001	Institute for Research on Unlimited Love, Altruism, Compassion, Service
	Evolution	Population Viscosity Evolves Altruism	Joshua Mitteldorf & David Wilson	2000-01-10	Academic Press Journal of Theoretic Biology 204, pp.481-496
	Psychology	Genuine Love Is More Than an Altruist’s Daydream	Stephen Post	2002	The Institute for Research on Unlimited Love
	Evolution	Varieties of altruism - and the common ground between them	Nicholas Humphrey		New York Department of Psychology, New School for Social Research
	Medical	Age Erasers for Women - Altruism	Unknown
	Society	Detrimental Effects of Sanctions on Human Altruism	Ernst Fehr & Bettina Rockenbach	2003-03-13	Nature Publishing Group Nature 422, pp.137-140
	Society	Army of Young Altruists Grows	Larissa Dubecki	1999-05-05	The Age Company
	Society	Community loses when altruism wanes	O.K. Carter	2004-08-08	Star-Telegram WWW
	Society	Altruism in Contemporary America	Tom W. Smith	2003-07-25	Prepared for Fetzger Insitute by National Opinion Research Center
	Evolution	Heterogeneity Stabilizes Reciprocal Altruism Interactions	Micheal Fishman, Arnom Lotem & Lewi Stone	2000-12-09	Academic Press Journal of Theoretical Biology 209, pp.87-95
	Society	A Justification Of Societal Altruism According To The Memetic Application Of Hamilton's Rule	John R. Evers
	Game Theory	Altruism in Anonymous Dictator Games	Catherine Eckel & Phillip Grossman	1996	Academic Press Games and Economic Behaviour 16 (Article 81), pp.181-191
	misc	Altruism: A Scientific Perspective	Douglas A. Vakoch	2002	Science & Spirit Magazine
	Economics	An economic analysis of altruism: who benefits from altruistic acts	Klaus Jaffe	2002-06-30	Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 5 (Issue 3)
	Economics	Is Extended Family in Low-Income Countries Altruistically Linked? - Evidences from Bangladesh	Cheolsung Park	2001 Nov
	Evolution	From Reciprocity to Unconditional Altruism Through Signalling Benefits	Lotem, Fishman & Stone	2002-12-10	Proceedings of The Royal Society London 270, pp.199-205
	Evolution	Sex causes altruism. Altruism causes sex. Maybe	Joel Peck	2004-04-08	The Royal Society, London Proceedings of The Royal Society London 271, pp.993-1000
	Evolution	A Mechanism for the Evolution of Altruism Among Non-kin - Positive Assortment Through Environmental Feedback	B.B. Smuts & J.W. Pepper
	Evolution	Biological Altruism	Samir Okasha	2003-06-03	Edward N. Zalta (ed.) Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
	Evolution	Sex Differences In Altruism	Stephen Van Hook	1985-05-30
	Evolution	Siblings, Strangers and the Surge of Altruism	Oded Stark	1999 Nov	Economics Letters 65 (Issue 2), pp.135-142
	Philosophy	Altruism & Ethical Theory	S. E. Bromberg
	Philosophy	A Defense of Altruism	John Baggaley	1999
	Philosophy	The Fallacies of Egoism and Altruism, and the Fundamental Principle of Morality	Kelly Ross	2002	The Friesian School
	misc	Commencement Speech on Altruism	Malka Drucker	1992 Aug
	Economics	Altruism & Envy in Contests - An Evolutionary Stable Symbiosis	Kai Konrad	2002 Dec	Social Science Center Berlin CESIfo Working paper FS IV 02-19 (Issue 825)
	Psychology	Nominal kinship cues facilitate altruism	Kerris Oates & Margo Wilson	2001-12-17	Proceedings of The Royal Society London 269, pp.105-109
	Game Theory	Ecological Symmetry Breaking can Favour the Evolution of Altruism in an Action-response Game	Ezequiel A. Di Paolo	2000	Journal of Theoretical Biology 203, pp.135-152
	Society	Altruism - The Importance of Being Asked	Federico Varese & Meir Yaish	1998 May	Discussion Papers in Economic and Social History 24
	Economics	Altruists, Egoists, and Hooligans in a Local Interaction Model	I. Eshel, L. Samuelson & A. Shaked	1998	American Economic Review 88, pp.157-179
	Evolution	The Nature of Human Altruism	Ernst Fehr & Urst Fischbacher	2003-09-23	Nature 425 791, pp.785-791
	Game Theory	Altruism may arise from individual selection	Angel Sánchez & José Cuesta	2004-05-20
	Economics	Economics, Altruism and Manners	A. Allan Schmid & Lindon Robison	1995 Sep	Michigan State University Staff Paper 95-59
	misc	Dalai Lama on Altruism	Dalai Lama	2004-01-25	The Times Of India
	Evolution	Evolution and altruism - Combining psychological mediators with naturally selected tendencies	Daniel J. Kruger	2002-11-13	Elsevier Evolution and Human Behavior 24, pp.118-125
	Psychology	Recipients of altruism likely to pass it on	Heather Smith	2002 Sep
	Psychology	Altruism, Equity & Reciprocity in A Gift Exchange Experiment	Gary Charness & Ernan Haruvy	1999 Mar
	Psychology	Identifying Altruism In The Laboratory	Glenn Harrison & Laurie Johnson	2004-05-08
	Economics	AE4: Altruistic Economics Questions & Answers	Robin Upton	2005-02-11	Altruists International Altruistic Economics AE4
	Economics	Optimal Provision of Public Goods with Altruistic Individuals	Eduardo Ley	2004-04-01
	Evolution	Fair Punishment supports Human Altruism	James Randerson	2003-03-12	New Scientist
	Evolution	Altruistic Punishment and The Origin Of Cooperation	James Fowler	2005-05-10
	Evolution	Explaining altruistic behavior in humans	Herbert Gintis, Samuel Bowles, Robert Boyd & Ernst Fehr	2003	Evolution and Human Behavior , p.153–172
	Medical	Altruism more than a step on the road to recovery	J. Scott Tonigan	2004 Feb	Science & Theology News
	Psychology	Egoism and altruism share our hearts	C. Daniel Batson	2004 Feb	Science & Theology News
	Game Theory	Modeling Altruism and Spitefulness in Experiments	David Levine	1997-10-17	Revew of Economic Dynamics 1, p.593 622
	Economics	Economics and the Spirit of Altruism	Ken Shimoda	2001
	Game Theory	Altruistic Agents in Uncertain, Dynamic Games	Eduardo Camponogara, Sarosh Talukdar & Haoyu Zhou	2003-03-09
	Economics	Risk-Sharing, Altruism and the Factor Structure of Consumption	Hayashi, Altonji & Kotlikoff	1991 Sep	National Bureau Of Economic Research (Issue 3834)
	Economics	What can happiness research tell us about Altruism? - Evidence from the German Socio-Economic Panel	Johannes Schwarze & Rainer Winkelman	2005 Jan
	Economics	Giving With Impure Altruism - Applications To Charity and Ricardian Equivalence	James Andreoni	1989 Dec	The Journal Of Political Economy (Issue 97), pp.1447-58
	Economics	Privately Provided Public Goods In A Large Economy - The Limits Of Altruism	James Andreoni	1988 Feb	Elsevier The Journal Of Public Economics (Issue 35), pp.57-73
	Economics	Parental Altruism and InterVivos Transfers - Theory and Practice	Hayashi, Altonji & Kotlikoff	1995 Dec	National Bureau Of Economic Research (Issue 5378)
	misc	Implementation and Evaluation of a Satisfaction/Altruism Based Architecture for Multi-Robot Systems	P. Lucidarme, O. Simonin & A. Liégeois
	Economics	Analyzing Choice with Revealed Preference: Is Altruism Rational	James Andreoni & John Miller	2002-07-28	The Handbook Of Experimental Economics Results
	Economics	Impure Altruism & Donations to Public Goods - A Theory Of Warm Glow Giving	James Andreoni	1990 Jun	The Economic Journal (Issue 100), pp.464-477
	Economics	AE104: Altruistic Economics & The Internet Gift Economy	Robin Upton	2005-07-06	Altruists International Altruistic Economics AE104
	Economics	AE104KR Altruistic Economics & The Internet Gift Economy	Edward Lee	2005-11-11	Altruists International
	Economics	Altruism & Economics	Herbert Simon	2001	83 (Issue 2)
	Economics	Global environmental problems, efficiency and limited Altruism	Olof Johansson-Stenman	2004-10-09
	Economics	Altruism, Exchange or Indirect Reciprocity - What do the Data on Family Transfers Show	Luc Arrondel & André Masson
	Economics	Verified Trust - Reciprocity, Altruism & Noise in Trust Games	Marius Brulhart & John-Claude Usunier
	Economics	Discounting and altruism to future decision-makers	Maria Saez-Marti & Jörgen Weibull	2004	(Article 3)
	Economics	The Economics of Altruistic Punishment and the Demise of Cooperation	Martijn Egas & Arno Riedl
	Evolution	Reciprocal altruism and group formation	Evelien Zeggelin, Henk de Vos & Donald Elsas	2000-06-30	Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation 3 (Issue 3)
	Psychology	Blood, Bribes and the Crowding-Out of Altruism by Financial Incentives	Paul Seabright	2002-02-08	University of Toulouse
	Economics	The Wealth Repartition Law in an Altruistic Society	Richard Trigaux
	Evolution	Strong altruism can evolve in randomly formed groups	Jeffrey Fletcher & Martin Zwick	2004	Elsevier Journal of Theoretical Biology 228, pp.303-313
	Evolution	The Evolution of Altruism Between Siblings	Robert Rowthorn
	Society	The Flip Side of Altruism	Herbert Gintis
	Society	Altruism and Empathy in America - Trends and Correlates	Tom Smith	2006-02-09	National Opinion Research Center, University of Chicago
	Evolution	Altruism and Darwinian Rationality	Howard Margolis	2002-10-29	Working Paper Series 02 (Issue 11)
	Game Theory	Altruism, Fairness and Evolution - the case for Repeated Stochastic Games	Matthijs van Meelen
	Computer Science	Considering Altruism in Peer-to-Peer Internet Streaming Broadcast	Yang-hua Chu & Hui Zhang
	Evolution	Is Altruism Encoded in Our Genes	William Orem	2006-07-04	Science & Theology News
	Evolution	Altruism Of Cleaner Fish	Unknown	2006-06-22	University of Queensland, Australia
	Economics	The Economics of Altruism	Chhavi Sachdev	2006-01-12
	Economics	Altruism, Evolution, and Welfare Economics	John Gowdy	2004	Elsevier Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 53, pp.69-73
	Game Theory	Altruism, The Prisoner’s Dilemma, And The Components Of Selection	Jeffrey Fletcher & Martin Zwick	2001
	Evolution	Is prospective altruist-detection an evolved solution to the adaptive problem of subtle cheating in cooperative ventures? - Supportive evidence using the Wason selection task	William Brown & Chris Moore	1999-07-08	Elsevier Evolution and Human Behavior 21 (Issue 2000), pp.25-37
	Medical	Altruism Relates to Health in an Ethnically Diverse Sample of Older Adults	William Brown, Nathan Consedine & Carol Magai	2004-02-04	The Gerontological Society of America Journal of Gerontology 60B (Issue 2005) (Article 3), pp.142-153
	Economics	The Economic Impacts of Altruism, Trust and Reciprocity - An Experimental Approach to Social Capital	Marco Castillo & Michael Carter	2002 Jan
	Evolution	Why Evolution Drives Some Cells to Altruism		2006-10-02	PhysOrg.com
	Computer Science	AESOP: Altruism-Endowed Self-Organizing Peers	Nikos Ntarmos & PeterTriantafillou
	Economics	The Effects of Spiritual Capital on Altruistic Economics	Dean Lillard & Masao Ogaki	2005 Sep

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