How Altruism Works

Is there such a thing as a truly unselfish act? Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast and learn more about the nature of altruism.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
from how Stuff Works dot Com? You're getting smarter. I
am welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff
writer here at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me
is Trusty Edit Tricks Candice Gibson. Candice, what are we

(00:20):
talking about today? The question is is there such a
thing as a truly unselfish act? And what do you
think is there? I don't know. I'm sort of on
the fence about this one, but one of my favorite
sitcoms of all time, Friends had an episode in which
they sought to answer the question, and this episode was
called the one where Phoebe hates PBS five I remember

(00:42):
exactly and um, just to bring up to speed, she
had just given birth to her brother's triplets and Joey
said that wasn't really an unselfish thing to do because
it made her feel so good. So she sets out
to find something that is good for someone else but
not good for her in any way, and she stumped,
and finally she decides to let a bee sting her

(01:03):
because it'll help the be look cool in front of
his b friends that that didn't work though, right, no,
because they be died. So finally, towards the end of
the show, she decides that she is going to make
a pledge to PBS and Jerry is taking pledges and
when he receives Phoebes, he actually gets to be on
TV and that does something good for him and the
planet is foiled because Phoebe feels great. Yes, so her

(01:26):
altruistic act is ruined. No, So, in the span of
about what at thirty minutes sitcom, that question couldn't be answered.
But there have been some deeper perspectives throughout the centuries. Yeah,
and I'm sure you already know this, but what Phoebe
and Joey were engaged in is a centuries old philosophical debate.
Is there such a thing as a truly unselfish act

(01:48):
or an altruistic act? We should probably define that real
quick um. Altruism is performing some self sacrificing act for
the benefit of another person. Clear enough, I don't think
we'd be even having the discussion if that was it.
But there's one caveat to that, and which was posed
by philosopher Emmanuel Kant who liked to shake things up. Um,
and that was that the person performing the unselfish act

(02:12):
can't get anything out of it. And we're not just
talking about tangible things. We're talking about the intangible warm fuzzy.
Sure sure, now, Um, this has already been shown to
actually have an effect on us humans, these warm fuzzies
you just describe and uh, using MRI machines, we we've
seen that by at least donating to charity, the pleasure center,

(02:34):
the reward center in our brain sets off a flow
of endorphins and we feel just as good giving out
money as we do receiving money. Um. So clearly there
are warm fuzzies, which kind of supports Kant's idea that
there is no such thing as an altruistic act. But
so too does evolution. Right. Yeah, So in the Nashville world,
there's also a couple of perspectives on dust. And we

(02:54):
look at something, um, from the flora side. We have
a tree, and when the tree sheds its sleep and fall,
essentially what it's doing is it's providing a kitschien of
warmth to protect its roots throughout the winter so that
it can regenerate again when there's warmer weather. So it's
propagating itself for future generations. And you could say the
same holds true for a mother who protects her child

(03:16):
and in the face of adversity too, she's also trying
to protect her lineage. But again, you know, both of
these things, the tree and the mother, they get something
in return. The tree gets longer life, the mother gets
the love and loyalty of her child. Well, let me
ask you this. What happens if the mother sees her
child in the street about to be hit by an
eighteen wheeler, runs out, pushes her child out of the way,

(03:37):
and it's hit herself. She's not getting anything out of that,
is she? Well, I don't know. I guess at that
point you're sort of tapping into religion and storing up
good deeds for the afterlife and final judgment, aren't you.
I guess. So that's one way to look in might
be a question for another day, though, And we have
to talk about Josh's favorite philosopher, a meal der Kind.

(03:58):
Their kin was here's a pretty heavy fellow. He um
he had the impression that altruism was merely a social
construct that was used to control people. Um it basically
if if we just all went around stabbing one another
because we needed money, and rather than just going out
and working for it or borrowing it, society would fall apart. Um.

(04:21):
To Dirkheim, one of the things we have to have
to function as a society is something like altruism, self
sacrifice for the greater good. Um. But Dirkheim's view kind
of makes us all look a little bit like dopes. Actually,
like we're performing on these self sacrificial acts, and under
his view, the person who's benefiting from it isn't really

(04:42):
benefiting from it. It's really all for society, which is
about as depressing a view of altruism as as can be.
So clearly, once again, the philosophers, sociologists and evolutionists have
really screwed up the warm fuzzies had in there. They
really have. They're trying to take the heart out of
the issue. But you know, at the end of day,
it's all the same. If you do something nice for

(05:02):
someone else and you happen to feel good in return,
I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.
I think I agree with you. Actually, Well, Candice and
I are going to go not stab anyone for money,
so We'll be performing your own altruistic acts. Be sure
to read is there such a thing as a truly
unselfish act? On how stuff works dot com For more
on this and thousands of other topics. This is how

(05:23):
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