Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!floyd!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!hocda!spanky!burl!duke!unc!tim From: tim@unc.UUCP Newsgroups: net.politics Subject: Re: True Altruism - (not love) Message-ID: <5533@unc.UUCP> Date: Sun, 10-Jul-83 15:01:26 EDT Article-I.D.: unc.5533 Posted: Sun Jul 10 15:01:26 1983 Date-Received: Tue, 12-Jul-83 02:43:52 EDT References: houti.340 Lines: 31 One factor seems to be missing from all this discussion of altruism. That fact is that altruism has been observed in non-primate mammals. This observation was a big thing for sociobiology (which I hear has been discredited, but the observation predates the theory). The belief that humans are not inherently altruistic seems to be made from the prevailing view in this Judeo-Christian culture that humans in a state of nature are inherently base and immoral. The statement was even made that "Nothing about morality has to do with physiology", which is just another way of claiming that there is such a thing as original sin. The human mind is most emphatically not originally a tabula rasa. The fact that members of various cultures have similar emotions is sufficient demonstration of this. It is frustrating for me to see people building on the irrational legacy of Judeo-Christianity without even examining their assumptions. My feeling is that certain morals are more or less hard-wired. Killing another human without cause is repulsive to most people regardless of society's training. Since this is true of almost all other species of animal, I see no reason to assume it untrue of people as well. It can be wholly explained by evolutionary processes, since tribes without this code hard-wired would certainly not live as long or reproduce as efficiently as tribes with it. ______________________________________ The overworked keyboard of Tim Maroney duke!unc!tim (USENET) tim.unc@udel-relay (ARPA) The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill