Poverty and the Peril of Particulars

Moral extremists argue for a demanding duty of poverty relief by leveraging powerful intuitions about our duties to rescue those close at hand. I clear the way for a less demanding duty by arguing that this argumentative strategy commits the extremist to a conception of our duty in the face of global poverty that is deeply at odds with our convictions about how we may discharge that duty. These convictions reveal that global poverty and easy rescue cases give rise to duties of different kinds: whereas duties of rescue are ultimately explicable by appeal to moral claims to assistance, duties of poverty relief are not. The extremist’s most compelling argumentative strategy is therefore not viable—he may not straightforwardly appeal to facts about the demandingness of duties of rescue in arguing for demanding duties of poverty relief.     

Beyond Altruism: Identity-Construction as Moral Motive in Political Explanation

This article explores conceptual issues pertaining to the role of moral motivation in political explanation. Employing data drawn from long interview with political activists from across the spectrum of American politics, I criticize both rational actor models and so-called "dual" motivational theories, that focus on altruism as the primary moral motive in politics, in contrast to the narrow focus on a certain conception of self-interest. Against both of these approaches, I offer an identity-construction approach to moral motives in politics. This model focuses on the complex interweaving of self and moral motives, and in particular focuses on the concerns political activists have for what kind of person they are and what kind of life they are living. These types of concerns are both moral and self-regarding, and therefore defy the dichotomy between self- and other-regarding at the heart of both rational actor and "dual" motivation accounts of moral motives.     

Introduction: Egoism,Altruism and Impartiality

The distinction between egoistic and altruistic motivation is firmly embedded in contemporary moral discourse, but harks back too to early modern attempts to found morality on an egoistic basis. Rejecting that latter premise means accepting that others’ interests have intrinsic value, but it remains far from clear what altruism demands of us and what its relationship is with the rest of morality. While informing our duties, altruism seems also to urge us to transcend them and embrace the other-regarding values and virtues constitutive of a good life. This rather wide conception of morality may strike us today as too demanding. At the same time, however, currently popular impartialist accounts of morality can disrupt much everyday altruism in their insistence that each person’s interests are weighed precisely equally. Having sketched this problematic of altruism, the second half of this Introduction outlines the arguments of the four papers and review essay in this collection, each of which, in a different way, negotiates the difficult relationships between egoism, altruism, morality and impartiality. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Parochial Altruism and Political Ideology

Parochial altruism refers to the propensity to direct prosocial behavior toward members of one's own ingroup to a greater extent than toward those outside one's group. Both theory and empirical research suggest that parochialism may be linked to political ideology, with conservatives more likely than liberals to exhibit ingroup bias in altruistic behavior. The present study, conducted in the United States and Italy, tested this relationship in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, assessing willingness to contribute money to charities at different levels of inclusiveness—local versus national versus international. Results indicated that conservatives contributed less money overall and were more likely to limit their contribution to the local charity while liberals were significantly more likely to contribute to national and international charities, exhibiting less parochialism. Conservatives and liberals also differed in social identification and trust, with conservatives higher in social identity and trust at the local and national levels and liberals higher in global social identity and trust in global others. Differences in global social identity partially accounted for the effects of political ideology on donations.     

社会抑制性与父母教养方式对幼儿利他行为的影响

采用实验室实验和问卷法相结合的方法,以92名3～5岁幼儿为被试,着重探讨了社会抑制性与父母教养方式对幼儿利他行为的影响。在实验室条件下的研究结果表明,幼儿气质中的重要维度—社会抑制性影响幼儿的利他行为。爱社交的幼儿利他行为多于害羞的幼儿。权威型父母教养方式的幼儿利他行为比溺爱型的多。社会抑制性、父母教养方式对幼儿的利他行为产生交互作用。     

医疗活动中的利他主义与医务人员的价值取向

医学的目的是增进人的健康,当今医疗技术主义和医疗市场在诱惑医学超越固有疆界。医疗行业必须坚持正确的价值取向,社会公众利益最大化是医疗卫生服务的基本目标。市场经济条件下的医疗卫生服务具有无私利他的道德责任和追求利益的需求,医疗市场中的利他行为包括无私利他与为己利他,为病人最大利益着想是医护专业最根本的道德规范与责任。     

社会生物学伦理观评介

威尔逊通过社会生物学的研究,指出动物的社会行为有其生物学的基础。他认为人类的利他主义伦理也同样有着生物学基础,从而提出了以生物行为科学解释伦理本质的伦理观。社会生物学伦理观,是一座联接伦理学与自然科学的桥梁。当今时代,进一步深入研究社会生物学伦理观,对于完善伦理学的科学基础,对于如何恰当地开展社会伦理教育都具有重要的意义。     

Altruism predicts mating success in humans

In order for non‐kin altruism to evolve, altruists must receive fitness benefits for their actions that outweigh the costs. Several researchers have suggested that altruism is a costly signal of desirable qualities, such that it could have evolved by sexual selection. In two studies, we show that altruism is broadly linked with mating success. In Study 1, participants who scored higher on a self‐report altruism measure reported they were more desirable to the opposite sex, as well as reported having more sex partners, more casual sex partners, and having sex more often within relationships. Sex moderated some of these relationships, such that altruism mattered more for men's number of lifetime and casual sex partners. In Study 2, participants who were willing to donate potential monetary winnings (in a modified dictator dilemma) reported having more lifetime sex partners, more casual sex partners, and more sex partners over the past year. Men who were willing to donate also reported having more lifetime dating partners. Furthermore, these patterns persisted, even when controlling for narcissism, Big Five personality traits, and socially desirable responding. These results suggest that altruists have higher mating success than non‐altruists and support the hypothesis that altruism is a sexually selected costly signal of difficult‐to‐observe qualities.     

New Evolutionary Perspectives on Altruism: Multilevel-Selection and Costly-Signaling Theories

Social psychological theories tend to be primarily concerned with the immediate causes of altruism, whereas evolutionary explanations focus more on the origins and ultimate functions of altruistic behavior. Recent developments in the evolutionary psychology of altruism promise an even richer understanding of this important category of social behaviors. Specifically, new perspectives offered by multilevel-selection theory and costly-signaling theory may help to shed light on some of the more problematic issues in the study of altruism.     

Humanitarian Intervention, Altruism, and the Limits of Casuistry

This essay argues that the ethics of humanitarian intervention cannot be readily subsumed by the ethics of just war without due attention to matters of political and moral motivation. In the modern era, a just war draws directly from self-benefitting motives in wars of self-defense, or indirectly in wars that enforce international law or promote the global common good. Humanitarian interventions, in contrast, are intuitively admirable insofar as they are other-regarding. That difference poses a challenge to the casuistry of humanitarian intervention because it makes it difficult to reason by analogy from the case of war to the case of humanitarian intervention. The author develops this point in dialogue with Michael Walzer, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and President Clinton. He concludes by showing how a casuistry of intervention is possible, developing a motivational rationale that draws on the Golden Rule.     

Religion,Altruism, and Helping Strangers: A Multilevel Analysis of 126 Countries

This article tests how religion relates to helping strangers, an important but rarely studied measure of social solidarity and informal social capital. It uses the Gallup World Poll, a survey with nationally representative samples of 179,961 respondents from 126 countries. It finds that religious people, members of minority religions, and people in religiously diverse countries were more likely to help a stranger. Individuals living in devout countries were more likely to help strangers even if they themselves were not religious. The results suggest that religion plays a particularly important role in promoting the prosocial norms and values that motivate helping strangers.     

任务框架及利他人格对社会折扣的影响

与自我存在一定社会距离的他人获得收益或遭受损失都会给自我带来一定的效用,这种效用随着与他人间社会距离的增加而减少,该现象被称为社会折扣。本研究采用情境式选择滴定程序,探索并比较了“为他人得益而放弃自我得益”(NG-G)、“为他人不失而放弃自我得益”(NG-NL)、“为他人得益而承担自我损失”(L-G)以及“为他人不失而承担自我损失”(L-NL)4种任务框架下的社会折扣程度。结果发现：(1)4种框架下,指数模型均比双曲模型更好地描绘了被试的社会折扣规律;(2)任务框架影响社会折扣程度,“为他人不失”框架下(含NG-NL、L-NL)的折扣程度比“为他人得益”框架下(含NG-G、L-G)低;(3)任务框架与社会距离的交互作用影响社会折扣程度。随着社会距离增加, NG-G与NG-NL框架下折扣程度的差异逐渐变小, L-G与L-NL框架下折扣程度的差异也逐渐变小;(4)社会距离与利他人格的交互作用显著,高低利他人格者的社会折扣程度只在社会距离较远时存在显著差异。上述结果表明,个体不仅存在自我损失规避倾向,也存在不同程度的他人损失规避倾向。     

Some Implications of Beliefs in Altruism,Free Will,and Nonreductionism

ABSTRACT

In this research, we explored correlates of individuals’ beliefs in altruism, free will, and nonreductionism, as opposed to contrasting beliefs in psychological egoism, determinism, and biological reductionism. Beliefs in altruism, free will, and nonreductionism were associated with heightened a) senses of meaning in life, b) levels of life satisfaction, c) beliefs in morality as a legitimate and important dimension of life, and d) standards of personal moral conduct; they were not associated with levels of social isolation. Implications of these findings are discussed.     

CPM领导行为模式对员工利他行为及工作投入的作用机制

通过对我国26个省市企事业单位员工的问卷调查,探讨了CPM领导行为模式对员工利他行为和工作投入的影响途径。采用潜变量路径分析的方法,对两个阶段的模型进行检验和比较,结果表明：（1）C因素和M因素通过信任上司的完全中介作用影响利他行为和工作投入,而P因素则通过信任上司的部分中介作用对它们产生影响。（2）信任上司通过情感承诺的完全中介作用影响工作投入,通过情感承诺的部分中介作用影响员工的利他行为。     

Dynamic integration: affect, cognition, and the self in adulthood

Positive self- and emotional development is often measured by optimization of happiness, but a second aspect of positive development—the ability to tolerate tension and negativity in the interest of maintaining objective representations—needs to be integrated with this hedonic emphasis. The integration of these two aspects, optimization and differentiation, reflects a dynamic balance. Such integration is possible when emotional activation or arousal is moderate, but is impaired at very high levels of activation. From youth to middle adulthood, the capacity for integration increases, but later in life, limitations or poor regulation strategies foster compensatory processes that compromise integration.     

亲缘利他的不对称性：进化视角的分析

内含适应性理论是进化生物学和进化心理学中最重要的理论之一。该理论假设, 个体的亲属是其适应性的载体, 但亲属们的价值有所不同。大量研究发现, 亲属的利他行为表现出不对称性, 即遗传相关系数相同的亲属表现出不同的利他倾向。如祖父母对孙辈的投资中, 外祖母往往投入最多, 外祖父和祖母次之, 祖父投入最少。研究者用内含适应性理论来解释这种亲缘利他差异, 进而提出了“父亲身份不确定性”等具体的进化假设。未来研究中, 国内研究者应在正确理解内含适应性理论的基础上, 更多关注亲缘利他的不对称性, 采用多种数据采集方法和统一的评定指标。     

金钱概念激活与金钱功能偏好对自我损耗后利他的影响

金钱启动能够提高自我损耗后个体的利他,而金钱功能也可能对损耗后个体利他产生不可忽视的影响。实验让处于自我损耗状态的被试数金钱或白纸,然后测量其利他水平及其对金钱功能的内隐偏好。结果证实了金钱启动的积极效应。此外,在数金钱和数白纸两种条件下,金钱象征性功能偏好对自我损耗后个体利他的效应是相反的。这表明,激活金钱概念与偏好金钱象征性功能都有可能补偿自我损耗后的消极影响,但两者的补偿作用是相互独立的。