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How Altruism Works · Stuff You Should Know

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  Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
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  Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
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  Speaker 1: from how Stuff Works dot Com? You're getting smarter. I
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  Speaker 1: am welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, a staff
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  Speaker 1: writer here at how Stuff Works dot Com. With me
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  Speaker 1: is Trusty Edit Tricks Candice Gibson. Candice, what are we
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  Speaker 1: talking about today? The question is is there such a
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  Speaker 1: thing as a truly unselfish act? And what do you
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  Speaker 1: think is there? I don't know. I'm sort of on
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  Speaker 1: the fence about this one, but one of my favorite
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  Speaker 1: sitcoms of all time, Friends had an episode in which
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  Speaker 1: they sought to answer the question, and this episode was
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  Speaker 1: called the one where Phoebe hates PBS five I remember
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  Speaker 1: exactly and um, just to bring up to speed, she
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  Speaker 1: had just given birth to her brother's triplets and Joey
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  Speaker 1: said that wasn't really an unselfish thing to do because
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  Speaker 1: it made her feel so good. So she sets out
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  Speaker 1: to find something that is good for someone else but
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  Speaker 1: not good for her in any way, and she stumped,
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  Speaker 1: and finally she decides to let a bee sting her
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  Speaker 1: because it'll help the be look cool in front of
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  Speaker 1: his b friends that that didn't work though, right, no,
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  Speaker 1: because they be died. So finally, towards the end of
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  Speaker 1: the show, she decides that she is going to make
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  Speaker 1: a pledge to PBS and Jerry is taking pledges and
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  Speaker 1: when he receives Phoebes, he actually gets to be on
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  Speaker 1: TV and that does something good for him and the
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  Speaker 1: planet is foiled because Phoebe feels great. Yes, so her
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  Speaker 1: altruistic act is ruined. No, So, in the span of
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  Speaker 1: about what at thirty minutes sitcom, that question couldn't be answered.
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  Speaker 1: But there have been some deeper perspectives throughout the centuries. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: and I'm sure you already know this, but what Phoebe
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  Speaker 1: and Joey were engaged in is a centuries old philosophical debate.
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  Speaker 1: Is there such a thing as a truly unselfish act
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  Speaker 1: or an altruistic act? We should probably define that real
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  Speaker 1: quick um. Altruism is performing some self sacrificing act for
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  Speaker 1: the benefit of another person. Clear enough, I don't think
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  Speaker 1: we'd be even having the discussion if that was it.
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  Speaker 1: But there's one caveat to that, and which was posed
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  Speaker 1: by philosopher Emmanuel Kant who liked to shake things up. Um,
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  Speaker 1: and that was that the person performing the unselfish act
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  Speaker 1: can't get anything out of it. And we're not just
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  Speaker 1: talking about tangible things. We're talking about the intangible warm fuzzy.
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  Speaker 1: Sure sure, now, Um, this has already been shown to
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  Speaker 1: actually have an effect on us humans, these warm fuzzies
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  Speaker 1: you just describe and uh, using MRI machines, we we've
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  Speaker 1: seen that by at least donating to charity, the pleasure center,
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  Speaker 1: the reward center in our brain sets off a flow
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  Speaker 1: of endorphins and we feel just as good giving out
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  Speaker 1: money as we do receiving money. Um. So clearly there
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  Speaker 1: are warm fuzzies, which kind of supports Kant's idea that
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  Speaker 1: there is no such thing as an altruistic act. But
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  Speaker 1: so too does evolution. Right. Yeah, So in the Nashville world,
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  Speaker 1: there's also a couple of perspectives on dust. And we
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  Speaker 1: look at something, um, from the flora side. We have
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  Speaker 1: a tree, and when the tree sheds its sleep and fall,
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  Speaker 1: essentially what it's doing is it's providing a kitschien of
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  Speaker 1: warmth to protect its roots throughout the winter so that
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  Speaker 1: it can regenerate again when there's warmer weather. So it's
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  Speaker 1: propagating itself for future generations. And you could say the
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  Speaker 1: same holds true for a mother who protects her child
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  Speaker 1: and in the face of adversity too, she's also trying
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  Speaker 1: to protect her lineage. But again, you know, both of
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  Speaker 1: these things, the tree and the mother, they get something
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  Speaker 1: in return. The tree gets longer life, the mother gets
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  Speaker 1: the love and loyalty of her child. Well, let me
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  Speaker 1: ask you this. What happens if the mother sees her
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  Speaker 1: child in the street about to be hit by an
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  Speaker 1: eighteen wheeler, runs out, pushes her child out of the way,
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  Speaker 1: and it's hit herself. She's not getting anything out of that,
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  Speaker 1: is she? Well, I don't know. I guess at that
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  Speaker 1: point you're sort of tapping into religion and storing up
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  Speaker 1: good deeds for the afterlife and final judgment, aren't you.
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  Speaker 1: I guess. So that's one way to look in might
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  Speaker 1: be a question for another day, though, And we have
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  Speaker 1: to talk about Josh's favorite philosopher, a meal der Kind.
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  Speaker 1: Their kin was here's a pretty heavy fellow. He um
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  Speaker 1: he had the impression that altruism was merely a social
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  Speaker 1: construct that was used to control people. Um it basically
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  Speaker 1: if if we just all went around stabbing one another
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  Speaker 1: because we needed money, and rather than just going out
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  Speaker 1: and working for it or borrowing it, society would fall apart. Um.
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  Speaker 1: To Dirkheim, one of the things we have to have
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  Speaker 1: to function as a society is something like altruism, self
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  Speaker 1: sacrifice for the greater good. Um. But Dirkheim's view kind
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  Speaker 1: of makes us all look a little bit like dopes. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: like we're performing on these self sacrificial acts, and under
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  Speaker 1: his view, the person who's benefiting from it isn't really
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  Speaker 1: benefiting from it. It's really all for society, which is
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  Speaker 1: about as depressing a view of altruism as as can be.
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  Speaker 1: So clearly, once again, the philosophers, sociologists and evolutionists have
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  Speaker 1: really screwed up the warm fuzzies had in there. They
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  Speaker 1: really have. They're trying to take the heart out of
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  Speaker 1: the issue. But you know, at the end of day,
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  Speaker 1: it's all the same. If you do something nice for
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  Speaker 1: someone else and you happen to feel good in return,
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  Speaker 1: I don't think there's anything wrong with that at all.
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  Speaker 1: I think I agree with you. Actually, Well, Candice and
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  Speaker 1: I are going to go not stab anyone for money,
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  Speaker 1: so We'll be performing your own altruistic acts. Be sure
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  Speaker 1: to read is there such a thing as a truly
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  Speaker 1: unselfish act? On how stuff works dot com For more
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  Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics. This is how
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