Altruism

During prolonged heat waves which can cause blackouts and brownouts, electric utilities always request that customers limit energy consumption by raising thermostats and turning off the air conditioning when not home. It is uncertain if these requests are heeded, and if they arc, it is uncertain whether conformity is out of altruism (help the utilities) or self-interest (save money). 

The accommodation of some piece of evidence e by some theory T undoubtedly tells us something positive about T—namely that it is at least consistent with e. When, as sometimes happens, it begins to seem as if there is no possible explanation for some evidence within some theory, then even finding an accommodation of that evidence may give scientists more confidence in the theory. Something like this happened, for example, with Darwinian evolutionary theory and the widespread phenomenon of apparently altruistic behaviour—the consistency proof in that case coming in the form of the theories of kin selection and reciprocal altruism. 

The theories on individual decision making from other scientific disciplines tend to stress factors such as status, social peer pressure, time availability, mood, cultural aspects, self-affirmation, altruism, and self-perception, as explanatory variables to decision making [12, 13]. These latter factors are far less favourable for economic valuation since the value would be unpredictable and varying dependent on situation. They may, however, provide an equally or even better description of decision making. 

Many theories attempt to explain why people are willing to voluntarily give money to a public good, and empirical research has been done on this issue. There are three main theories of individuals motives to voluntarily give money to a public good altruism, warm glow and conditional cooperation. 

Andreoni J (1990) Impure altruism and donations to public goods a theory of warm-glow giving. Econ J 100 464 -77... 

Gerard-Varet L-A, Kolm S-C, Ythier J (2000) The economies of reciprocity, giving and altruism. Macmillan, Basingstoke... 

Trivers description of human reciprocal altruism certainly gives prominence to emotions. This behavioral system may have evolved from dominance hierarchization, an ethological concept (Weisfeld, 1980). There seems to be an opportunity to analyze other social psychological phenomena in adaptive terms usually they are explained only in terms of very narrow, specific mini-theories. Roes (1993) has offered an evolutionary explanation of reactance theory, for example. 

A small set of economists and psychologists has over the years proposed formal models of time-inconsistent preferences and self-control problems.8 Edmund S- Phelps and Robert A. Poliak (1968) put forward an elegant model of intertemporal preferences in the context of inter-generational altruism, which David Laibson (1994a) later used to capture self-control problems within individuals.9 If ut is the instantaneous utility people get in period x, then their intertemporal preferences at time f, U, can be represented by the following utility function ... 

Note that this does not turn upon altruist motivation. Altruism can also act as a multiplier on the benefits from voting, but there is of course nothing irrational about this. 

S For extensive discussions of the analogies between prudence (i.e. long-term selfishness) and altruism, see Nagel (1970) and Parfit (1984). Norm-guided behaviour is not, however, the same as altruistic behaviour. For a discussion, see Elster (1985). 

Margolis, H. (1982) Selfishness, Altruism and Rationality, Cambridge Cambridge University Press. 

Nagel, T. (1970) The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford Oxford University Press. 

Collard, D. (1978) Altruism and Economy, Oxford Martin Robertson. 

It is also worth recalling that, of the two great forms of Buddhism, mahayana Buddhism places more emphasis on altruism than theravada Buddhism does. This is one of the main distinctions between them. In mahayana Buddhism, the saint is the bodhisattva who so loves others that, when he arrives on the threshold of nirvana, he refrains from entering it so that they may rejoin him and he may help them by lending them some of his numerous merits. However, it may certainly be asserted that theravada Buddhism is the purest form, being closest to the origins and therefore more properly the true Buddhism. 

In this conception, Buddhist egoism is purely instrumental it does not belong to the realm of ends, and is in no sense an egotism. We have even seen that, in a fundamental sense, Buddhism formed its doctrine in opposition to egoism, just as the great moral systems of the West had done. But these doctrines define the contrary of egoism quite differently, so that they actually seem opposed to each other. In the West, we have altruism, charity and fraternity, in the East, the no-self. In the former case the opposite of the me is the you, in the latter it is the not-me. I have just observed, admittedly, that Buddhist practice contains many altruistic features. But they always seem to be a means or a consequence stemming from the basic quest, which is the effacement of oneself. 

J In the next chapter I look at altruism and similar nonselfish motivations and in chapter xn at the elusive phenomenon of social norms. In chapter XIU the various explanations arc brought together in a more unified exposition. 

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