Introduction: The biology of psychological altruism
Abstract
I develop a distinction between two types of psychological hedonism. Inferential hedonism (or “I-hedonism”) holds that each person only has ultimate desires regarding his or her own hedonic states (pleasure and pain). Reinforcement hedonism (or “R–hedonism”) holds that each person's ultimate desires, whatever their contents are, are differentially reinforced in that person’s cognitive system only by virtue of their association with hedonic states. I’ll argue that accepting R-hedonism and rejecting I-hedonism provides a conciliatory position on the traditional altruism debate, and that it coheres well with the neuroscientist Anthony Dickinson’s theory about the evolutionary function of hedonic states, the “hedonic interface theory.” Finally, I’ll defend R-hedonism from potential objections.Author's Profile
DOI
10.1016/j.shpsc.2015.11.007
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References found in this work
Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior.Elliott Sober & David Sloan Wilson - 1998 - Harvard University Press.
Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior.Paul E. Griffiths - 2002 - Mind 111 (441):178-182.
Altruism.Stephen Stich, John M. Doris & Erica Roedder - 2010 - In John M. Doris & The Moral Psychology Research Group (eds.), Moral Psychology Handbook. Oxford University Press.
Evolution, altruism and cognitive architecture: a critique of Sober and Wilson’s argument for psychological altruism.Stephen Stich - 2007 - Biology and Philosophy 22 (2):267-281.