
Altruism Isn’t Always Attractive - EndXA
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2019/8/27/20829758/altruism-morality-molly-crockett-study-dating-do-gooders
======
EndXA
The main study which prompted this article is available here:
[https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S002210311...](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0022103117308181)

Abstract:

> Previous work has demonstrated that people are more likely to trust
> “deontological” agents who reject harming one person to save many others
> than “consequentialist” agents who endorse such instrumental harms, which
> could explain the higher prevalence of non-consequentialist moral
> intuitions. Yet consequentialism involves endorsing not just instrumental
> harm, but also impartial beneficence, treating the well-being of every
> individual as equally important. In four studies (total N = 2086), we
> investigated preferences for consequentialist vs. non-consequentialist
> social partners endorsing instrumental harm or impartial beneficence and
> examined how such preferences varied across different types of social
> relationships. Our results demonstrate robust preferences for non-
> consequentialist over consequentialist agents in the domain of instrumental
> harm, and weaker – but still evident – preferences in the domain of
> impartial beneficence. In the domain of instrumental harm, non-
> consequentialist agents were consistently viewed as more moral and
> trustworthy, preferred for a range of social roles, and entrusted with more
> money in economic exchanges. In the domain of impartial beneficence,
> preferences for non-consequentialist agents were observed for close
> interpersonal relationships requiring direct interaction (friend, spouse)
> but not for more distant roles with little-to-no personal interaction
> (political leader). Collectively our findings demonstrate that preferences
> for non-consequentialist agents are sensitive to the different dimensions of
> consequentialist thinking and the relational context.

~~~
CSSer
For those who have studied Philosophical Ethics in High School or Undergrad,
you'll probably be familiar with the term "deontological" (lit. 'derived from
god') but are perhaps not used to the term "consequentialist" or
"consequentialism". Per the study, "consequentialism" is Utilitarianism, which
may be more familiar to you.

> "...said to be making a “consequentialist” (or “utilitarian”) judgment in
> line with consequentialist ethical theories (Bentham, 1789/1983; Mill,
> 1863)."

~~~
jfengel
Strictly, there are other forms of consequentialism besides utilitarianism,
though utilitarianism is perhaps the most familiar.

Consequentialism means (duh) judging your morality based on the consequences
of your actions. Utilitarianism means making that judgment in terms of some
quantifiable "utility" or "value". But there are other ways to make that
judgment, including applying intuition or even applying some kind of
deontological deity-given rules.

The utilitarian framework is so broad that it can be extended to cover all of
this, and to cover deontology for that matter ("utility is defined as
following the rules of X ethical framework").

~~~
gowld
For example, a deontological ethic might say "you must not drive drunk" under
a theory of negligence, and "you must not negotiate with terrorists", but a
consequentialist ethic might say "you may drive drunk but not kill someone
while driving" and "you should acquiesce to terroristic threats to prevent a
murder". And a utilitarian ethic would measure how many lives would be lost
under each choice, and perhaps assign variable value to those lives (by age or
health or potential future productive output)

------
whatshisface
Deontological agents are the most predictable because they can tell you their
moral rules, and if they aren't too complicated, you can "compute" them
yourself if you're wondering what they are about to do. Consequentialists
aren't predictable unless you know them so well that you can forecast all of
their utility calculations, value judgements, and mistakes. Being able to
predict someone's behaviors makes them a lot more trustworthy.

~~~
dlkf
Nailed it. I'd go so far as to suggest that mere reliability - and not
deontological ethics - is probably where all the effect is coming from. In the
article's example, the problem with the anti-hawaii-trip partner is not that
they care about victims of malaria, it's that they seem to be reneging on an
agreement.

------
ranie93
A related piece from Jeremy Waldron on the topic of "moral distance":

"The parable of the Good Samaritan, as it has become known, is cited most
often by moral philosophers to open a debate about the duty to rescue [...] We
all agree that it was wrong for the thieves to attack the man, and that it
would be equally wrong for the Samaritan, the priest, or the Levite to join in
such an attack. The hard question is: do the Samaritan, the priest, or the
Levite also have an obligation to help the man who fell among thieves?"

[https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/menonfall16/files/2016...](https://eportfolios.macaulay.cuny.edu/menonfall16/files/2016/08/Jeremy-
Waldron-Who-is-My-Neighbor.pdf)

~~~
gowld
How is that Waldron's commentary and not the original parable?

------
tarkin2
People look for mates who will care for them. If you value the group over the
individual then that's less likely.

The ideal, surely, is someone who looks after themselves, their partner and
their friends foremost and the group after that.

When those two things come into conflict, however...

~~~
Ididntdothis
Exactly. I know altruists who don't take care of themselves but instead need
help from others. They are sort of generous but I always wonder if they are
really generous if in turn their lifestyle is not self sufficient. For example
if somebody helped somebody else with a big vet bill but now I am being asked
to buy a car for that person I feel that actually I am the real giver and the
person that thinks she is generous is not giving anything of her own but
basically is giving away my money.

I have come to believe that the first duty of an adult is to be self
sufficient. Only then you can be truly generous or altruistic in a sustainable
way.

~~~
TheOperator
I've been taking money from government, family, or wealthy friends most of my
life. Yet I've also given more than I've received to most of the friends I've
known. I've thought much about how selfish or generous I was. You can get
really cynical and say that altruism doesn't exist at all if you really get
cynical and that people are just trying to fire off pleasure receptors in
their brains.

Ultimately though yes people who give to others are altruistic. Some people
you will give money to will keep every penny, some will give away every cent
they can. The former are selfish the latter altruistic and there is no need to
overcomplicate things.

I've only become more self-sufficient over time and today am a net "giver".
Did I just become less selfish over time? No I've actually started valuing
selfishness MORE over time because it became more appealing as I became
stronger. Focusing on results confuses things because people in bad situations
CAN'T be as giving as somebody in a good one. Somebody in a good situation can
be generous enough to change people's lives without any meaningful personal
sacrifice.

A person who is a taker and has no desire to stop being one is not truly
altruistic though. Selfishly taking from others and being performatively
charitable is selfishness in the veil of altruism. The desire to be seen as
the "real giver" is also selfish.

------
JulianMorrison
They are probably _not_ a utilitarian. They are probably suffering distorted
deontology of an anti-self sort.

Pure consequentialism is _computationally implausible_. There are seven and a
half billion humans. How can you consider them equally? How could you even
have enough knowledge to try? I think that people who try to be
consequentialist are emulating it and generally poorly.

~~~
Throw_Away_6389
You can't know exactly what is best, but you can act to the best of your
knowledge. Just because you can't do something perfectly doesn't mean you
shouldn't do it as well as possible.

~~~
AstralStorm
The fun stuff happens when deontologist meets conflict between their moral or
other laws...

It always happens and is a fact of life. That's how you can gauge how "lawful"
someone is - using simple D&D model of morality.

The other axis is altruism vs egoism.

So lawful good is deontological altruist, while chaotic evil is non-
deontological egoist. There are decent stereotypical descriptions in SRD.

[https://open5e.com/characters/background.html](https://open5e.com/characters/background.html)

------
michalu
Nothing that new. It's been established the attraction is rather heavily
linked to the dark triad traits:
[https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-
uncove...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/psychology-uncovers-sex-
appeal-dark-personalities/)

... one of them being narcissism and the rationale is that self-centered
people have higher chances of survival, therefore they're a good "genetic
match."

~~~
AstralStorm
I'd add "are perceived" to that statement. Agents never have actual knowledge
of survival odds and we don't even have statistics like that...

------
wongarsu
There was some interesting discussion on reddit about this

[https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/cx7me3/morality...](https://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/cx7me3/morality_study_we_admire_dogooders_we_just_dont/)

------
kstenerud
It comes down to trust. You trust those who are in your group, and whom you
believe will consistently act in the interests of your group.

Consequentialists are distrusted because they deliberately choose to disregard
social group weighting and circles of loyalty in their moral decisions.

That's not to say that all consequentialist actions are disliked; only those
that come at significant cost to your group (of any size - even 2).

The article says that people like a consequentialist political leader, but
that's not entirely correct. They like a political leader who is
consequentialist for entirely "in-group" decisions. The moment he prioritizes
outside peoples welfare at a high cost to his own, no matter how much
objective "good" it brings, he'll soon find himself out of office. A leader
who is too deontologist with his in-group decisions will be seen as corrupt
for helping out his cronies.

In fact, this whole "consequentialist vs deontologist" kind of misses the
point. Deontologists ARE consequentialists for entirely in-group decisions,
and that's how social creatures like it, and how evolution would have shaped
social animals.

Trump's appeal comes in a large part due to his motto: "America First", even
if it's at the cost of everything else.

~~~
Throw_Away_6389
Also note how the label "do-gooder" is particularly often applied to people
who care too much about foreigners or animals, but rarely to people who care
too much about their friends.

------
marc_abonce
> Yet consequentialism involves endorsing not just instrumental harm, but also
> impartial beneficence, treating the well-being of every individual as
> equally important.

I think that impartial beneficence applies as much to deontology as it does to
consequentialism though, doesn't it? If I'm not mistaken, impartial
beneficence is categorical under the Kingdom of Ends. Conversely, the
assumption that consequentialism always leads to altruism mainly applies for
utilitarianism, but not necessarily for all forms of consequentialism.

So I don't think it's a good idea to conflate deontology with in-group
favoritism and vice versa as the article seems to imply.

------
reportgunner
I haven't read the article yet, but what is this title? I thought that one of
the characteristics of altruism is that it's _not_ attractive.

Definition of altruism:

 _> unselfish regard for or devotion to the welfare of others charitable acts
motivated purely by altruism_

 _> behavior by an animal that is not beneficial to or may be harmful to
itself but that benefits others of its species_

edit after skimming the article: Perhaps they meant to say "Altruists are not
always attractive"

~~~
kazinator
I feel you're splitting some sort of grammatical and/or semantic hair there.

Like, for instance, what is the difference between "obesity is unattractive"
and "the fat are unnatractive", really.

In "altruism is unattractive", it looks like there is a rhetorical device
being used known as _metonymy_ : referring to a subject indirectly by naming
an attribute or adjunct of that subject in its place; it in fact means
"altruists are unattractive".

------
caymanjim
Altruism is almost always false. It's usually selfish. People do things which
are, on the surface, selfless and benevolent. But they do them because it
makes them feel better in some way, or to assuage guilt, due to peer pressure,
or increasingly due to pathological virtue signalling.

It's not necessarily bad when someone does something "altruistic" for these
reasons, but the people who are the most visible and vocal about it are the
ones who are the least honest about it. They are gaining (or at least think
they are gaining) the most social credit, and they expect the most
reciprocation. If you do something "kind" but expect or demand recognition,
you're not altruistic; you're just taking your payment in other ways.

This manifests in myriad ways we've all seen: church bake sale tyrants,
celebrity cause-o-holics, corporate misdirectors, activism tourists, etc. It's
only altruism if it costs you something and you gain nothing in return. Even
if you quietly and anonymously help others, but in turn sleep better at night
and feel beatific, you're gaining something. If you think it'll get you into
heaven or some other incorporeal reward, you're being selfish.

In almost all cases, this is a good thing, but true altruism doesn't exist.

------
neilv
Update to het. male dating best practices: Be tall, confident, _and
deontological_.

~~~
cookieswumchorr
if you tell girls that you are deontological they will think you have money,
because, you know, those dentists are expensive

~~~
sebastianconcpt
Hypergamy don't care about definitions but says that she liked what you
suggested there.

