Moral psychology, empirical work in

2. Egoism and altruism

Morality sometimes requires beneficence, but it can seem morally problematic to be beneficent for an ulterior purpose, such as self-interest. Psychological egoism maintains that we are always ultimately motivated by what we perceive to be in our own self-interest. While psychological egoists admit that one can care about the wellbeing of others, they maintain that such desires are not ultimate or intrinsic – they are merely instrumental to a desire for one’s own benefit (see Egoism and altruism). This theory has not been defended by many philosophers, but some have argued that empirical work lends it some credence (e.g. Slote 1964; Morillo 1990). Despite its lack of popularity, attention has recently been drawn back to psychological egoism in light of work in social psychology, as well as the apparently weak philosophical foundation on which rejection of the view rests (Sober and Wilson 1998: ch. 9).

Some discussion of egoism infuses evolutionary theory, especially given the proliferation of literature on ‘altruism’ (see Units and levels of selection §2). One might think, for example, that we must be fundamentally self-interested because the evolution of our species via natural selection is governed by ‘selfish’ genes that simply ‘seek’ to replicate themselves; evolution makes altruism impossible. But this line of thought conflates evolutionary versus psychological senses of ‘altruism’ and related terminology (Sober and Wilson 1998). Whether psychological egoism is true turns on whether all of one’s ultimate desires concern one’s own benefit. It would take more than the basic tenants of evolutionary theory to establish this, since ‘selfish’ genes could, in principle, just as easily produce an ultimate desire for self-preservation as they can an ultimate desire to for the wellbeing of another. The question is whether it is more likely that human psychology evolved with altruistic ultimate desires in its repertoire. Philosopher Elliott Sober and biologist David Sloan Wilson (1998) have argued against psychological egoism precisely by appealing to the comparatively weak reliability of an egoistic mental mechanism in generating certain behaviour, such as parental care (for criticism, see Stich et al. 2010: §3).

Addressing a debate about motivation by appeal to evolutionary theory is rather tricky. An arguably more direct empirical approach is employed by those who study the mind more directly. Neuroscientists studying the brains of humans and other mammals, for example, may seem to have revealed that our actions are ultimately driven by pleasure and the avoidance of pain. After all, neuroscience thus far has identified a ‘reward centre’ of the brain, which regulates action, and it turns out to be intimately tied to pleasure (Morillo 1990). Yet recent research indicates that pleasure is dissociable from motivation. The behaviour of rats, for instance, can be affected by increasing or decreasing dopamine levels, independently of pleasure. When addicted to a substance, they can be motivated to obtain it even if they do not show normal signs of deriving pleasure from it. As the neuroscientist Kent Berridge and his collaborators have put it, different structures in the brain regulate ‘wanting’ or motivation and ‘liking’ or pleasure (Schroeder 2004: ch. 3; Holton 2009: ch. 5).

Another approach to altruism emerges in psychological research on empathy-induced helping behaviour. The key starting point is the finding that higher levels of empathy felt for someone believed to be in need tend to increase helping that person (the empathy–helping relationship). This well-established effect, however, does not prove that true altruism exists, since the ultimate motivation could be to benefit oneself. For example, one popular account among psychologists is that taking on another’s perspective when empathizing causes one to blur the distinction between oneself and the other. Thus, concern for the wellbeing of the ‘other’ isn’t really altruistic (for criticism, see May 2011).

In any case, a series of experiments conducted over several decades seem to rule out many, if not all, of the relevant egoistic explanations. For example, in one experiment, subjects were asked to observe a fellow undergraduate, Elaine, receive some mild electric shocks. After several trials, the experimenter led participants to believe that Elaine is reacting badly to the shocks due to a traumatic past experience she had with an electric fence. They were then asked to help Elaine by taking the rest of the shocks in her stead. Some subjects, however, were experiencing higher levels of empathy, and some in that group were led to believe they would have to finish watching Elaine receive the rest of the shocks if they didn’t help, as opposed to those who believed they could simply leave. According to one egoistic hypothesis, empathically aroused individuals tend to help more only because empathy makes watching another suffer especially unpleasant, and they would rather help than continue enduring this. If this is true, we should expect higher empathy to increase helping only in those who believe they must endure further empathic arousal upon choosing not to help. Yet this is not the case: several experiments have shown that those experiencing higher levels of empathy are still more likely to help whether or not they could easily escape the situation (Batson 2011: 96ff.).

Moreover, the results of such experiments all conform to an altruistic theory, the empathy–altruism hypothesis, which states that empathy induces an altruistic ultimate desire for the welfare of the victim (Batson 2011). If this is correct, we have empirical evidence for the existence of altruism in humans, which entails that psychological egoism is false. While many agree the experiments have clearly ruled out a number of egoistic hypotheses, some believe there are plausible ones that remain unscathed (see e.g. Sober and Wilson 1998, ch. 8; Stich el al. 2010: §4).