Altruism – A Philosophical
Analysis
Philip Kitcher, Department of Philosophy, Columbia University, New York, USA
Altruism can be defined in both biological and psychological senses. Biological altruists are
organisms that act so as to raise the expected reproductive success of other organisms by
reducing their own reproductive success. Whereas psychological altruism is more difficult
to define.
Two Concepts of Altruism
An apparent implication of Darwin’s theory of evolution
by natural selection is that selfish behaviour will become
prevalent. If an altruistic variant were to arise in a
population of organisms, it would seem that the variant
would sometimes act to aid others at cost to itself, and
would therefore be less likely to leave descendants.
Moreover, even if altruists were common, they would be
at a competitive disadvantage with respect to selfish
variants in the population. So it appears that altruism is
extraordinarily unlikely to emerge when selfishness is
rampant, and just as unlikely to be maintained for very
long if it should chance to become widespread.
This pessimistic line of reasoning presupposes a very
particular way of thinking about altruism. On the biological
conception of altruism, altruists are organisms that act so as
to raise the expected reproductive success (the number of
mature offspring left in the next generation) of other
organisms by reducing their own expected reproductive
success. When the pessimistic line of reasoning is understood
in terms of the biological conception of altruism, it initially
appears cogent, but there are complications.
Of course, there are everyday uses of the terms ‘altruism’
and ‘selfishness’, and it would be a mistake to conclude that
whatever biologists conclude about altruism as they
conceive it automatically carries over to the kinds of
behaviour we pick out under these names. For, in the first
place, the altruism we prize has no direct connection with
reproductive success, either in terms of benefits to the
recipient or costs to the unselfish agent. Second, and
perhaps more important, altruism as ordinarily understood
depends crucially on the intentions of the agent, while, on
the biological conception, altruism is a matter of the effects
of the action. Thus the biological conception is indifferent
to the intentions of the agent, or even whether the agent has
intentions at all; organisms that lack any psychological
capacities – like plants or even bacteria – could turn out to
be altruists in the biological sense. Biological altruism
contrasts with psychological altruism. Giving a precise
definition of the latter notion, and deciding when it applies
to an organism, are both tricky issues.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES / & 2001 Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group / www.els.net
Introductory article
Article Contents
. Two Concepts of Altruism
. Biological Altruists and Selfish Genes
. Psychological Altruism
. Evidence for Psychological Altruism
Biological Altruists and Selfish Genes
From the early twentieth century on, many biologists
pointed to examples of animal behaviour that seemed to
count as altruistic in the biological sense. Classic examples
included the supposed phenomenon of ‘census-taking and
population regulation’ among birds (embodying the idea
that birds limit their reproduction when they take the
population size to be too large), the existence of sterile
castes in social insects, and the giving of alarm calls in a
variety of animal groups. For the first part of the century, a
dominant style of explanation suggested that the altruistic
behaviour was maintained because of a benefit to the
group. During the 1960s, however, more rigorous analyses
demonstrated that simple appeals to a process of group
selection were seriously flawed. Recent studies have
showed how a notion of group selection can be rehabili-
tated, but they have done so by developing further the
insights of the critical analyses.
The attack on group selection was supplemented by two
positive proposals. One, kin selection, originally articu-
lated by W. D. Hamilton, recognized that alleles associated
with altruistic behaviour will spread if the recipients of the
behaviour are likely to be bearers of those alleles. Thus, if
an organism sacrifices its own reproductive interests to
increase the reproductive success of close kin, it is likely
that the net result will consist both of a decrease in the
number of altruistic alleles passed on to the next generation
(because the altruist leaves fewer offspring) and an increase
in the number of altruistic alleles transmitted (because the
kin have a significant probability of sharing the alleles and
their reproductive success goes up). Provided that the kin
are sufficiently close, so that the probability of sharing
alleles is high enough, and provided that their reproductive
boost is large enough, the increase may more than
compensate for the decrease. As a result, the altruistic
alleles, and consequently the altruistic behaviour, may
spread.
The second suggestion, stemming from work of Robert
Trivers, saw that the losses occurred on one occasion might
be made up by gains on others. In reciprocal altruism,
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 Altruism – A Philosophical Analysis
organisms engage in a sequence of interactions with one
another; at each stage one makes a small reproductive
sacrifice to generate a larger reproductive gain for its
partner, and the roles of donor and beneficiary vary over
the stages so that, over the entire sequence, both organisms
gain. This approach was later extended by W. D. Hamilton
and Robert Axelrod, who investigated strategies for
behaving in an indefinitely long sequence of interactions
with the same partner. Using the iterated ‘prisoner’s
dilemma’, Axelrod and Hamilton suggested that a strategy
with three characteristics – being ‘nice, provokable, and
forgiving’ – would be favoured. Subsequent work on this
line of analysis has raised further complications, especially
in understanding how altruism can spread from an initial
state in which it is rare. Nonetheless, just as kin selection
offers an account of how altruism towards relatives might
have a selective advantage, reciprocal altruism explains the
possibility of altruistic behaviour towards non-relatives.
Even if we restrict ourselves to the biological notion of
altruism, the reasoning with which we began is flawed. To
amend its difficulties, we need to do two things. First, we
must recognize the distinction between temporary costs
and benefits and the net results of a sequence of
interactions: the kind of altruism threatened by darwinism
is one in which the total effect of an organism’s behaviour
towards another is to increase the other’s reproductive
success at cost to its own. Second, we must formulate this
notion of altruism not in terms of organisms, but in terms
of alleles. Let’s say, then, that an allele is altruistic just in
case it disposes its bearers to behaviour that across the
lifetime of the bearer yields a net increase in the expected
transmission of rival alleles and a net decrease in the
expected transmission of the allele itself. The idea that
selfishness is the hallmark of darwinian selection can now
be seen as the thesis that altruistic alleles (in just this sense)
will be at a selective disadvantage. This is the residual
content of the concept of the selfish gene.
Psychological Altruism
The alleles in the genomes of contemporary organisms
(including our own species) have undergone darwinian
selection. Waiving any concerns about the possibility that
selection might operate on complexes rather than indivi-
dual alleles, let’s grant that these alleles are selfish. Does it
follow that all animal behaviour, including our own, is
invariably selfish, in the sense that most concerns us? No.
Consider the behaviour of mothers in many species, who
regularly put themselves at great risk and who work
tirelessly to feed and protect their offspring. Even when we
view their actions as the products of alleles that dispose
their bearers to behave so as to transmit more copies of the
alleles to the next generation, that does not detract from the
altruism. For what is crucial to the kind of altruism that
2 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES / & 2001 Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group / www.els.net
interests us is that the mothers sacrifice their own wants to
promote the wellbeing of the young.
If there is a threat to the imputation of altruism (in the
interesting sense), it comes from a much older line of
reasoning that is quite independent of biology. To claim
that the mothers sacrifice their own wants is, the critic
alleges, a misdescription. The mothers act as they do
because they want their children to thrive. There is thus no
real difference between them and any other egoist. All try to
realize their desires.
This philosophical defense of egoism has been available
at least since the writings of Thomas Hobbes, and a reply to
it was offered, in the early eighteenth century, by Bishop
Joseph Butler. Butler conceded that altruists, like egoists,
strive to obtain the outcomes they prefer, but he suggested
that altruists differ from egoists in the character of those
preferences. Using more contemporary terminology, we
might say that some desires are directed solely to the
wellbeing of the agent, calling these desires ‘self-directed’.
Altruists, however, are motivated by ‘other-directed’
desires, desires that aim at the flourishing of other
individuals.
Butler’s distinction is suggestive, but it needs clarifica-
tion. If someone wants a benefit for someone else because
of some ulterior aim, perhaps hoping to cement a
relationship that will bring later satisfaction of self-
directed desires, that is hardly altruistic. Nor does ceding
things one doesn’t care about strike us as especially
praiseworthy. So we need to be careful in understanding
which desires count as other-directed in the critical sense.
Here is a simple psychological picture of the kind of
transformation we take to go on in genuine altruism. The
altruistic agent starts with a collection of preferences, so
that outcomes are ranked without yet taking into account
the impact on others. Recognizing that some of those
outcomes have an impact on the welfare of others, the
altruist’s preferences are adjusted so as to value more
highly states of affairs in which those others receive the
things they are taken to want. Outcomes that the altruist
had regarded with dislike, or even dread, may thus come to
be preferred because of the consequences for others.
Furthermore, the transformation is not caused by the
altruist’s perception that valuing the wellbeing of the
others will be a good strategy for satisfying the desires that
were initially present: there is no hobbesian calculation
that this is a good way to get what was originally wanted.
Imagine, for example, an animal coming across some
food. If there were no possibility of an effect on the
condition of certain other animals (offspring, mates,
friends), the animal would prefer to consume the whole
of the food. But, given the presence in the vicinity of some
of the favoured animals, the animal prefers to share.
Preferences have been transformed to value the state of
eating a portion of the food more than the state of eating
the whole. Moreover, the animal does not revise the
preferences by pondering the consequences for future

foraging, for example by considering how sharing today
will increase the chance of receiving food tomorrow.
Instead, there is a noncalculational process that produces
the desire to help satisfy the perceived preferences of
others.
Psychological altruism is a multidimensional concept.
For each animal, there’s a range of potential beneficiaries,
a class of organisms whose prospects for welfare have an
effect on the animal’s preferences. Further, with respect to
any organism and any potential beneficiary, the altruistic
response may be produced in some contexts and not in
others; if, for example, the rewards from self-interested
action are too great or the sacrifices involved in promoting
the desires of the other too large, an animal who reacts
sympathetically on other occasions may be unmoved.
Next, even when an altruistic response does occur, its
intensity may vary; in the food-sharing example, altruists
might share a crumb or give up the entire amount. Finally,
any altruistic response depends on a perception of how
others will be affected by the various possible outcomes,
and altruists differ in their empathetic abilities to recognize
what others want or need; we are all familiar with well-
meaning people who try hard, but have a very limited
understanding of what will please those around them.
There are many possible forms of altruism. Between the
total egoist (never disposed to respond, even to the slightest
degree, to the interests of another in any context) and the
pan-altruist (ready to make the most intense responses to
all others in every context), there are many interestingly
different types. Perhaps some people have a relatively small
class of potential beneficiaries, with respect to whom they
are willing to make large sacrifices across a broad range of
contexts; others, maybe, are prepared to react to a much
broader class of beneficiaries, but only to make relatively
mild transformations of their preferences. So there
naturally arise two questions. Are the pessimists right to
suppose that human beings (and other animals) never
exhibit the slightest degree of altruism? If they are wrong,
what varieties of altruism do we actually find, in our own
species and in other animals?
Evidence for Psychological Altruism
There are several possible sources of evidence for
psychological altruism. The most obvious is our experience
of ourselves and of the records of self-sacrificing behaviour
from the history of our species. It would be hard to deny
that there have been cases in which people have adjusted
their preferences to accommodate the wishes of others, and
have acted on this basis without consciously calculating the
possible returns to themselves. Sceptical concerns about
these examples must turn on the idea that there has been
some unconscious reasoning to the effect that the chosen
course of action will promote the selfish goals of the agent.
ENCYCLOPEDIA OF LIFE SCIENCES / & 2001 Macmillan Publishers Ltd, Nature Publishing Group / www.els.net
Altruism – A Philosophical Analysis
In this domain, it is important to recognize that sceptics
need a basis for introducing such unconscious processes,
and that appealing to the doctrine that our genes are selfish
does not provide the needed evidence. That doctrine is
quite irrelevant to the psychological issue at stake.
Students of animal and human behaviour can study
interactions among subjects in artificial and natural
situations. Psychologists have devised laboratory experi-
ments that reveal forms of behaviour that are at least
candidates for altruism, and recent studies of primates
have uncovered some striking examples of kindliness
among our evolutionary relatives. Again, in these cases,
there is room for sceptical complaint, but, as with our
everyday experience, it is important for the sceptic to
justify an alternative explanation of the phenomena.
Finally, one can attempt to address the question of the
evolution of psychological altruism. On the face of it,
psychological altruism towards relatives would offer a
selective advantage. If a mother has a disposition to adjust
her desires to the perceived needs of her young, the
resultant actions may well spread copies of any underlying
alleles. Similarly, if juvenile members of a social species
have a propensity to identify a small group of other
similarly-aged conspecifics and to promote the preferences
of their ‘friends’, then they may reap long-term advantages.
In this latter case, close analysis may reveal that the
complexity of the interactions makes calculation of the
preferred strategy highly implausible (for it may require the
animals to solve problems that defy the efforts of
professional mathematicians).
Although scepticism about psychological altruism has
been prominent in the history of reflections about human
nature, we now have reason to think that belief in the
possibility of altruism is not merely a sentimental delusion.
The current challenge is to extend and deepen the evidence,
and to enquire more closely into the kinds of altruism that
actually exist.
Further Reading
Axelrod R (1984) The Evolution of Cooperation. New York: Basic Books.
Batson CD (1981) The Altruism Question: Toward a Social–Psycholo-
gical Answer. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Dawkins R (1976) The Selfish Gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
De Waal F (1996) Good Natured. Cambridge MA: Harvard University
Press.
Feinberg J (1984) Psychological egoism. In: Cahn S, Kitcher P and Sher
G (eds) Reason at Work, pp. 25–35. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace.
Kitcher P (1993) The evolution of human altruism. Journal of Philosophy
90: 497–516.
Sober E (1994) Did evolution make us psychological egoists? In: Sober E
(ed) From a Biological Point of View, pp. 8–27. New York: Cambridge
University Press.
Sober E and Wilson DS (1998) Unto Others: The Evolution and
Psychology of Unselfish Behavior. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Uni-
versity Press.
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