The Heart of Altruism

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Summary: Why I like this book
Review: Altruism is usually ignored, or explained away by analysts who see the world as a self-interested place. Evolutionary biologists, for example, attempt to explain away altruism by saying it's all the gene's way of reproducing itself, or economists say altruism provides psychic altruism. Kristen Monroe takes the phenomenon seriously. She talks with real altruists and lets them show us that altruism does exist, that it is genuine, and that we need to reconstruct our models of public policy to allow for people's genuine desire to help others. Every government official and policy maker should read this book before constructing public policy. The stories of the actual altruists are so real and moving, that this book should be assigned for high school students too.

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Summary: Fascinating social science
Review: One of the dominant theories of political theory is the idea of rational choice. It basically holds that people rationally choose to perform specific actions to fulfill their self-interest. But this approach has always had limitations in explaining certain actions, such as altruism. Monroe seeks to examine the validity of traditional rational explanations of altruism.

In constructing her study Monroe decided to focus her analysis through interviewing numerous individuals that fall into four broad groups: Entrepreneurs (people who made significant amounts of money through innovation); Philanthropists (wealthy individuals who give away significant sums of money); Heroes (ordinary people who risk there lives helping others); and Rescuers (people who saved Jews in WWII). If you read nothing else from this book read the chapters recounted some of these peoples stories, they are pretty amazing. After presenting some of these individuals, Monroe seeks to examine the evidence through four traiditonal modes of explaining altruistic behavior and she finds each one lacking.

Having found the traditional explanations inadequate she presents an adimtedly partial new theory of ethical political behavior: perspective. Perspective is how one views themselves in relation to others. Monroe found that altruists all shared a similar vision of a universal, common humanity in which all people are essentially the same. Monroe uses this view to suggest a reapplication of rational choice theory. Where our basic identity is involved with a particular choice, people are not going to seriously engage in rational analysis, they feel as if there is no choice. One example given is an Orthodox Jew who doesn't see eating at a kosher establishment as a choice. But where choices do not implicate our basic idenity, traditional rational analysis kicks in.

Of course the study has its limitations, princably in its small numbers. Only a couple of dozen individuals were examined for this study and this raises some concerns for the ability to generalize the results. But the only real way for such a study to be conducted is through small numbers because of the complexity of the task. I look foward to further studies seeking to test her conclusion against new sets of evidence. While the reading can get somewhat dull in points this book is well worth the effort.

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Summary: Altruism Analyzed from a Variety of Angles
Review: The author considers various influences that produce or encourage altruism by addressing empirical evidence for altruism. This evidence of altruism provides insights into the strengths and limitations of various theories about human behavior that typically emphasize individual self interest.

Monroe develops her own theory for why altruism emerges, in which she argues that altruists have a different way of seeing things or a different perspective about the world and how to live in it. She concludes that the self-interest paradigms that dominate explanations of human behavior produce only limited explanations for altruism.

In the book's opening segment, Monroe confronts various definitions of altruism. She ends up defining altruism as "action designed to benefit another, even at the risk of significant harm to the actor's own well-being" (4). Various approaches to understanding altruism have proven dissatisfying. The traditional economic, socio-cultural, biological, and psychological understandings of human nature cannot explain adequately altruism as Monroe defines it. One's perspective, i.e. how one views the world, themselves, and others and how each are related, captures the importance of understanding altruism.

In the second part of the book, Monroe pieces together various narratives from interviews of those who act altruistically. Her interviews are of types of individuals she labels "entrepreneurs," "philanthropists," "heroes and heroines," and "rescuers" of Jews in Nazi Europe. Following the narratives, Monroe systematically examines the traditional explanations of altruism from economics, evolutionary biology, and psychology.

Surprisingly, Monroe finds that among the altruists she interviews, few if any considered religion relevant to their altruistic acts. Altruists did identify a spiritual feeling of closeness to others or a belief that all humans are a part of a large family. She concludes that what generates altruistic acts is the individual seeing themselves and others as humans of valuable.

Monroe addresses various other social and cultural factors that some have suggested induce altruism, and she found these factors as not important in the narratives she collects. When examining economic explanations, Monroe concludes that "altruism is one area in which the limitations of the economic approach are abundantly evident" (160). Her conclusion after examining explanations of altruism from evolutionary theory is that these theories do not specify the origin of altruism nor do they help contribute to the understanding of the most extreme forms of altruistic behavior. To those who argue that altruism comes from the education and socialization patterns handed down from authorities, Monroe replies "it was the rescuers, precisely those individuals who come closest to approaching pure altruism in my sample and who most frequently expressed the universal moral principles of the highest stage of moral development, who deviated most wildly from their learned ethical beliefs, and they did so precisely in order to save victims of Nazi persecution. Their altruism necessitated this deviation from their learned ethical systems" (194).

In the fourth and final section, Monroe offers her own theory as a basis for understanding human nature, particularly expressions of altruism. Monroe found that the most relative, cognitive component of the altruists she interviewed centered upon (1) their particular world views and (2) their expectations about what constitutes normal behavior. Altruism became "a logical outgrowth of their sense of a self in relation to others" (197).

Altruists described their world-view as universalistic in the sense that they valued all of human life and often all of non-human life. Rescuers, for instance, were not motivated by the belief that the world is ultimately fair, nor did self-image seem to become a major factor in altruism, nor did the feel obligations because of felt communal ties. Instead "altruists have a particular perspective in which all mankind is connected through a common humanity, in which each individual is linked to all others and to a world in which all living beings are entitled to a certain humane treatment merely by virtue of being alive" (206).

Monroe concludes her analysis by claiming that "humanity plus need: this is the only moral reasoning, the only calculus for altruism" (212). While she admits that it may be possible that various mechanisms precipitate development or growth of an altruistic perspective, it is the perspective itself, she claims, that constitutes the heart of altruism. The altruistic perspective consists of a common perception, held by all altruists, that they are strongly linked to others through a shared humanity. The closing pages entail an ethical-political theory based upon the primary notion that one's sense of self in relation to others is the fundamental concept for ethics.

Thomas Jay Oord