Altruism

Abigail Marsh tells us in one of her lectures on altruism how when she was 19 years old, on her way home, she swerved to ski a dog and ended up in the oncoming lane of the motorway. He stopped and thought he was going to die and was left in a state of shock.

However, a stranger who witnessed the scene did not hesitate to stop his car on the shoulder, cross the motorway and rescue her. The stranger managed to put the car in gear and drive Abigail to safety. Once he was sure she was safe, the stranger drove off and was never seen again .

The question is: Why would anyone risk their lives to save the life of someone else they don’t know at all? Because some people constantly do it, some do it sometimes, some do it exceptionally, and some never do it…. Even if the cost of the response to help is minimal for them.

Different kidney donors were asked why they had done it, i.e. why they had given one of their kidneys to other people they did not know at all, and what they thought made them different from the rest. They said nothing, that in fact, the answer to their altruism was not in them, as they had simply done it for the other person.

Somehow they had included this anonymous, unknown recipient of the organ in the same circle as their own, they had confused him. So it was a natural act for them? Or wouldn’t we give a kidney to ourselves?

🧠 From the point of view of evolutionary and neo-Darwinian theories, altruism has no reason to exist, unless there is some kind of interest behind these actions, or they benefit people in our environment or family .

Is there such a thing as pure altruism? For Steve Taylor, a psychologist at the University of Leeds, the answer is yes, and the reason is our capacity for empathy: “There is no doubt that many altruistic acts are motivated by the pursuit of self-interest, either to feel good about ourselves or to return the favour in the future“, but he adds that it is possible for us to have kind impulses for the sole reason of reducing the suffering of others .

💡 In a way, it is not just a cognitive ability that allows us to see the world through the eyes of others, but something deeper that allows us to establish an almost transcendental connection between all human beings. Empathy would lead us to feel in ourselves part of the suffering of others: “we are all interconnected” and we feel the need to ease the pain of others, to protect them and to promote our own well-being as if we were ourselves.

Proponents of evolutionary theories have also tried to explain altruism, when it occurs with strangers, as a kind of evolutionary mistake , something akin to a confusion of instinct derived from our past as beings living in small tribes with whom we shared a genetic heritage.

In prehistoric communities, where the ties of consanguinity extended to almost all members of the group, one’s own security depended on the security of the group as a whole.

This is also how we are: remembering this, we accumulate arguments to confront that mirror in which we can see ourselves distorted on the basis that its glass only reflects our dark side, through the galloping frequency with which we are spectators of acts of cruelty that open and close the news.

However, we are also like those people who thought that others were no less, that they were just as “more” than themselves.

On 3 June 2017, while half the world was watching what happened to 22 people running after a ball, the knight of the sad figure, Don Quixote de la Mancha, was resurrected: he did it in London, with an electric scooter instead of a lance. He came back to life, for a few moments, in the person of Ignacio Echeverría and the rest of the brave people who, that day, decided that their duty was greater than fear .

Or like Florin Morariu, the Romanian baker who sheltered two Brazilian students in his Bread Ahead establishment and then went out onto the street carrying two wooden boxes as weapons: one he threw at the first terrorist he met, the second a donor – taking advantage of the confusion and giving the nearby police time to shoot him .

Or the taxi driver who got out of the taxi in a rush to protect the life of a woman who was, never better said, between a rock and a hard place .

These are just a few examples of stories of unsung heroes and heroines who will be forgotten and who, in a way, rescue humanity from this tragedy and give us hope.

Sometimes the right thing to do is heroic because whoever is willing to do what many others will not do when we all should do it. Heroes and heroines who die like this give meaning to death. A life that remains in others because they include others in their identity.

If we understand that psychopathy is at the other end of altruism, understanding what characterises psychopaths can help us understand what is going on. Studies tell us that this type of person, who seems insensitive to the suffering of others, would have three characteristics :

• Insensitivity to signals from people in danger, such as facial expression of fear.
• They have an underactive amygdala (part of their emotional nervous system is not activated with equal intensity).
• They have a smaller than average amygdala (about 19% smaller).

💡 Normally, signs of distress are a strong inspiration for altruism and compassion.

Could altruism, which is the opposite of psychopathy in terms of compassion and desire to help other people, therefore emerge from a brain that is also the opposite of psychopathy – a kind of anti-psychopathic brain, more able to recognise other people’s fear, with an amygdala more reactive to this expression and perhaps larger than usual? Apparently, yes.

Altruistic people also have certain features in their brain architecture and dynamics that identify them: a greater sensitivity to expressions of fear and, therefore, to demands for help. In addition, the amygdala consists of more cells, is slightly larger and more active.

What actually characterises altruists and what makes them so special is that they do not have a distinct centre in which they are themselves and others are around them, but that others would be part of that centre. This distinction would prevent selfishness, or rather extend it to everyone .

Less transcendental and more aware of the selfishness that sometimes drives our society are other explanations from the field of psychology, which have tried to clarify the phenomenon of altruism as a practice that makes us feel better about ourselves.

Although sometimes we are not really aware of this benefit, it may also be because we harbour the hope that, one day, we will be repaid for the favour done, as if altruism were necessarily reciprocal.

For evolutionary psychologists, it may even be an effective way of showing others how good we are, which, according to evolutionary theory, would serve to make us more attractive to the opposite sex and increase our chances of reproducing . In the case of LGTBQ+ people this would also apply, without the reproductive component, of course!

Unamuno said that in times of despair, the only thing that can save us is a madness like Quixote. A challenge to common sense to commit ourselves to the most worthy causes, which are the lost causes. Thus, perhaps it should not be the odds of success that decide in which battles we should employ our forces, but rather it should be the justice that closes these same battles that gives priority to some and subtracts it from the others.

📎 Alcaine, A. [Albert]. (2024, 07 October). Altruism. PsicoPop. https://www.psicopop.top/en/altruism/

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