After reading Richard Dawkin's The Selfish Gene, I've come to speculate the true motive(s) of altruism; or...is there such thing as altruism in the world? Dawkin's logic is understandable. Everyone is for himself/herself. You cannot deny that of the altruistic deeds that you have done, whether charity or community service, some of them do have hidden goals; altruism is merely a means to an end. However, in light of the fact that humans and animals (to an unknown extent) have developed a thinking process we believe to be far superior in logically and causally explaining how or why we perform certain actions. In this case, is the "selfish gene" theory simply an oversimplified (or the brainchild of some crazy guy's attempt to explain the capricious headlines on the newspaper) theory of human action?
All opinions are welcome--scientific, philosophical, or whatever you can think of.
Post edited at 10:48 pm on Jan. 13, 2008 by TRIPonME
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Read what's up there ^, not here!