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Altruism: Brand management or uncontrollable urge?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2003

Daniel Read
Daniel Read
Affiliation:
Department of Operational Research, London School of Economics and Political Science, London, WC2A 2AE, United Kingdomd.read@lse.ac.uk
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Abstract

The act-pattern model of altruism is primarily a brand-equity model, which holds that being altruistic can be traded for social benefits. This is a variant of the “selfish” altruism that Rachlin decries, with altruism being dictated by cold calculations. Moreover, personal and social “self-control” may not be as similar as Rachlin suggests – although we have good (biological) reasons to sacrifice the interests of our current selves in favour of our future selves, we have no such reason to sacrifice ourselves for our neighbours. When we do sacrifice ourselves – giving in to true altruism – we will be repaid with extinction.

Type
Brief Report
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 25 , Issue 2 , April 2002 , pp. 271
Copyright
© 2002 Cambridge University Press

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