Okay, so I think I'm recording now. 
So hello philosophy of biology class. I'm
here with Professor Elliott Sober
professor at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison who was kind enough to
speak to us today.
So Elliott we just read a paper of yours
called "Did evolution make us
psychological egoists?" so I was hoping we
could talk about that paper and any
surrounding issues. Maybe you could start
by just saying what psychological egoism
actually is and what it has to do with
selfishness and altruism.
okay psychological egoism has is not
defined in terms of anything about
evolution and it's a familiar idea just
from you know ordinary life
psychological egoism is the thesis that
the only ultimate goals people have are
selfish. The only thing we care about ultimately
is our own welfare and we care about the
welfare of others only to the extent
that that helps us do better. So it's not
it is not the claim that we never have
desires concerning what happens to
others of course we do but the egoism is
the thesis that the only reason we do
have concerns about what happens to
others is the way in which that
happening will impinge on how well we do.
So that's what the ultimate was doing in
your definition? Yeah so the important
distinction is between your ultimate
goals and your
instrumental goals we might call
you the goal you have you care about
others only instrumentally --okay--  you care
about them only because it serves your
ultimate goal of doing well on yourself
okay so so the psychological egoism does
that mean that we're never altruistic or
what would you think that altruism means
well now it's okay so altruism sometimes
uses a name for a behavior in
evolutionary biology it kind of just
means helping others although that
should be refined maybe later in our
conversation let's just talk about
motivation so if you are a psychological
illness it does not mean you never help
people because maybe helping them will
help you so of course if you're going to
do that if you're any good um so what's
the what's the
alternative to it well psychological
altruism is the view that some of our
ultimate goals concern other people it's
not the view that the only thing we care
about is others it's not the claim that
we're kind of purely selfless you know
self-sacrificers no it's the it's the
idea that among our goals of course we
sometimes care about ourselves what
happens to ourselves in addition we have
ultimate goals concerning the welfare of
others so maybe I shouldn't have called
that altruism I should have called it
what I called it in one of my books
motivational pluralism --okay-- and
pluralism is to indicate that there are
two kinds of ultimate goals that people
have doing well yourself in some regard
and also seeing that other individuals
do well so by psychological egoism you
mean all of our ultimate goals our
selfish whereas altruism is just well
some of them may be you know maybe not
all but some of them are actually aimed
at others
yes about motivation that's not about
the actual effect so I think in the
paper --yeah-- in the paper we read you
distinguish two kinds of altruism one
you call biological altruism and so
that's the
behavior that lowers your own fitness
but raises the fitness of someone else
--that's right-- --right-- let me say a little
bit about that I said quickly and then
put it aside that not... so altruism in
evolutionary biology is all about
behaviors you don't have to be a mind to
be an altruist in the evolutionary sense
it's not about what we care about or
what we think or feel at all so a
mindless organism could be an altruist
in the evolutionary sense
I mean imagine a plant that produces an
insecticide and it not only uses the
insecticide itself but it spreads it
around the neighborhood so that its
neighbors get protected from the pests
that would count as an altruistic behavior
if you want to call it a behavior and
altruistic trait and of course the plant
doesn't have to have a mind to be
an altruist in that sense 
second refinement that I need to make
and I meant -- it is the one I mentioned
earlier is that not all helping behavior in evolutionary biology would be
classified as altruistic and the the
obvious example of that is parental care
so when you did the sort of more careful
definition is not in terms of helping
but uh evolutionary altruism means that
you enhance the fitness of some other
individual at a fitness cost to yourself
if I help my kids
that's not hurt that's not helping my
evolutionary ... my
evolutionary fitness because my fitness
is defined in terms of my reproductive
success helping your kids makes perfect sense
from the point of view of evolutionary
selfishness you're trying to maximize
your reproductive success of course
you're gonna take care of your kids so
not all helping behavior counts as
evolutionarily altruistic according
to the definition -- yeah so before we read
your paper we read The Selfish Gene by
Richard Dawkins so there I mean he's
talking about altruism and selfishness
but would you say that he's always
talking about the biological version
right he I think he kind of mentions
over and over again look I'm not talking
about motives I'm just talking about the
actual effects but he does seem to think
of parental care as altruistic and I
think he has in mind something like you
know this entity the parent might
actually do worse by for example feeding
their kids so you're thinking of Fitness
in a way that says well if my kids
survive that actually enhances my
fitness and I think -- I'm surprised... I'm
surprised that you would count parental
care as evolutionary altruism that
is not typical in the --sure-- --yeah-- that a
little bit right okay don't think
here its going to get a little
complicated so suppose we had we didn't
have two parents we're gonna people or
that species which has one parent I said
doesn't require any qualification
helping your kids maybe the way that you
enhance your fitness if so it's in your
self-interest in the relevant sense for
evolutionary biology that parental care
will evolve
here's the complication think about
organisms that have two parents like us
when you take care of your kids you're
helping your partner to be
reproductively successful so there's ... there is a kind of
opening for the discussion of altruism
and selfishness in the context of
parental care but its not that taking care
your kids and ... it has to be
another parent and it's ... you're being
altruistic towards that other parent --mmm-hmm--
you do more than your share or you help
more help your kid more than the other
one does that kind of thing but they but
the this complication aside its weird I
think in the evolutionary context to
think of parental care as altruistic
yeah well he wants to think of it in
terms of you know I've got my body and
from the organism point of view there's
things that I can do to preserve you
know my body but I can also do things to
help other organisms and that would
include my kids now the reason he says
parental care evolves that he thinks of
it as a case of kin selection that is
your kids have a lot of copies of your
genes and so from the point of view of
your own genes it's useful to sometimes
help other bodies because they have your
genes too - I'm not sure that really -- well
that's not taking care of your own body
that's taking care of somebody else's
body that has copies of your genes inside of it
um okay so let's suppose that I mean I
think the more familiar way of doing it
is... is to argue that your parental...
well from the point of view of kin selection
he wants to say that parental care is
altruistic but I'm not sure your notion
of it's a very weird notion of fitness
that we're talking about here since when
does just taking care of my body whoever
thought that not Darwin --right-- not maybe
the people who talked about altruism in the
history of the subjects oh right yeah so
in your paper you you know you think a
lot about whether parental care is an
example of altruism that is whether your
ultimate goal is to help your kids or to
help yourself
so psychological we're talking about
psychology yeah right now this is so
this is psychological altruism now so
the basic argument there I guess is that
if you have the right motives that is
for example you actually love them it
could be that that's actually the most
effective way of getting you to take
care of your kids so well what if I say
you know lots of other organisms take
care of their kids and probably don't
love them right so you know what's going
on there when you're comparing parental
care among you know lizards is that
different than humans is there some
reason to think that we're special here
well yeah I guess so I mean we're
psychologically different if we suppose that we
love our kids and lizards don't its not that they
hate their kids they just don't have
that emotion that said oh yeah so it's
an example that's I think familiar in in
evolutionary biology um of something
that's called proximate mechanisms so
never you get an organism that produces
a behavior and the example I sometimes
use is sunflowers turning towards the
Sun you could say well the evolutionary
reason that evolved is that that's an
efficient way to extract energy from
sunlight but there's a sort of separate
and...and so biologists will sometimes
say the ultimate explanation of why the
behavior exists is that it helps
organisms to ... that the organism
survive and reproduce but there's there's a
question that that doesn't answer
it's not that that's mistake but there's
something incomplete about the answer
which is look okay turning towards the
Sun is adaptive for sunflowers but
what's the machinery inside of a
sunflower that makes a turn that's the
proximate mechanism so the general idea
is whenever a behavior evolves because
of some fitness advantage that occurs there
is the additional question of what the
proximate mechanism is well to produce
that behavior so back to parental care
maybe the proximate mechanism in us to
get us to take care of our kids involves
all these emotions and beliefs and
desires that are more or less unique to
human beings maybe they are but in other
organisms you get parental or by some
other approximate mechanism so is it
that happens all the time in
evolutionary yeah is it that our our
love for our kids sort of makes us even
more likely to take care of the kids or
is it kind of a replacement for whatever
other proximate mechanism is in the
other animals it could be it could be an
addition an addition to other mechanisms
there's no reason why a single organism
has to have two mechanisms for producing
a behavior
so yeah yeah so in your in your paper I
mean the way I read it is that you're
you're taking kind of the default view
at least the the view that you claim is
really common among you know psychology
economics etc is that we are
psychological twists and then you're
trying to say well look there's no
particular reason to think that
evolution would lead to that --right-- I
guess I would think I mean maybe this is
just a sociological question but you
know why do you think psychological
egoism is so prevalent on the face of it
it seems like well yeah I love my kids
maybe there's some sort of weird
mechanism where turns out that really
it's all selfish somehow ultimately but
on the face of it it doesn't seem that
way so why ...  maybe you know maybe
introspectively it doesn't seem like we
have some purely selfish motives but
there is this historical tradition of
saying things like the following: look
the only reason you take care of your
kids is because it makes you feel good
and if you didn't do it you'd feel guilty
and your goal is to feel good enough to
feel bad so you do this stuff you do the
behavior that lead to the outcome the
feelings you like and allow you to
avoid the feelings you hate so that's
the sort of story that defenders of
egoism will tell when you see helping
behavior they'll say look the only
reason you're engaging in is because it
makes you feel a certain way so that
that's the hedonistic story
so I mean do you take that as a pretty
powerful argument I know in the paper
you're more worried about what evolution
would do well I so that's a very
influential argument I from an
evolutionary point of view it's a bit
puzzling --could you say more--
well why let's just go back to the
problem of approximate mechanism here we
are creatures who have sophisticated
cognitive capacities why should the only
mechanism we have in place that will get
us to take care of our kids
be purely egoistic why not load this
organism up with the ultimate goals of
seeing that it's children do well we do
that I mean you could do that you can wire human
beings to do that so why is it so stupid
to think that that's part of the story
and why we take care of our kids because
we care about them not as means to our
own selfish ends but as ends in themselves ok
all right well I think ... I haven't
reread that paper in a long time I think
that the basic idea is not I'm not
trying to prove that altruism-
psychological altruism is true I'm just
saying it's ridiculous to... to
dismiss it out of hand
-right- because from the evolutionary point of view
it makes total sense that organisms
would have ... would evolve altruistic
motives towards their own children the
most direct efficient way to get
organisms taking care of their kids is
to care about them
as ends in themselves --do you think this
is gonna apply to non-parental care
cases so I think I have friends and it
seems like again introspectively
sometimes I do things for their good not
just for mine is the exact same argument
gonna work that is there's no reason to
think that evolution would say that it's
ultimately selfish but there there's
it's a little harder to make the
evolutionary argument because it's not
obvious that actually helping my friend
is really good for me whereas in the
kin case you were mentioning look that's
part of your fitness it's not surprising
at all yeah that you care about them so
what about non non parental care cases
--right I'm inclined to extend the
argument to that but whether that's
successful I want to leave separate from
whether the parental care thing works I think
it does the parental care thing works
what about not parental care but care
taking care of others who are not
related to you this is where I want to bring
group selection in and say that there's
in human evolution there's been a lot of
work done by groups competing with other
groups and one of the things that's evolved is cooperative behavior within groups
and now we ask the question of proximate mechanism what sort of psychology would
you have what would evolution give
organisms who are being selected for
cooperative behavior if they have minds
like ours why not make them care about
the other people in their group so that's I
think the origin of the evolutionary
origin of we might say fellow-feeling
the idea that you care about your
friends the history of this is not
living in large cosmopolitan cities
where there are you know thousands tens
of thousands of hundreds of thousands of
millions of people around you these are
small bands of primates we're talking
about
oh not all your not all of them are your
children or your or your close relatives
and a lot of human history before 10,000
years ago which was when agriculture
began Agriculture's a very recent thing
in human history before that we were
nomadic hunter-gatherers and we were
moving around and how well the group did
it got groups were involved in
competition with each other that's the
opening for group selection in human
history didn't stop there but it's the
place to begin thinking that's the
opening for group selection and then the
question of proximate mechanism comes up
why ... what are the
proximate mechanisms we had that make us
cooperate with non-relatives I think
it's the same kind of answer yeah so do
you mean cooperation in the sense that
it's beneficial for another organism but
also for ourselves or do you mean like
biologically altruistic behavior where
you know you're helping your group and
you can get group selection but actually
it's it's bad for the individual
organism that's behaving yeah I mean I
should have said altruistic yeah I'm a
help does it cost itself okay so you
bring in group selection and you mention
it kind of quickly in your paper but you
don't spend a lot of time on that so
what's the connection between group
selection and the evolution of
altruistic not biologically altruistic
behaviors okay
way--so altruism is helping someone else
at cost to self where the costs and
benefits have to do with fitness so and
selfish and if you imagine a group in
which there are altruistic and
selfish individuals these selfish
individuals are going to do better
because they're going to be recipients
of altruistic donations without ever
having to pay the costs of being
an altruist
okay so given that if you have a group
that's got altruistic and selfish
individuals in it the selfish
individuals are going to be more
successful at surviving and reproducing
and so what you predict by this purely
within-group process of individuals
competing with other individuals is that
selfishness will go to a hundred percent
and altruism will go to zero percent so
how can altruism as its defined in
evolutionary biology evolve what you
have to do is move away from the single
group picture I just described and have
a bunch of groups
that's what biologists now call a meta
population it's a population of groups
its a big group containing lots of
little groups and this what's what's the
story about evolution in a meta
population is part of it's just what I
said before that within groups selfish
individuals are doing better than
altruists but between groups altruistic
groups are going to do better than
selfish groups so you have these two
opposing forces within group selection
is promoting the evolution of
selfishness and between group selection
is promoting the evolution of altruism
you've got these two vectors that are
opposed and what will evolve will depend
on how strong the push this way and the
push that way are
okay so maybe this is a good time to to
mention morality so I guess there's this
famous quote from Darwin where he
thought that maybe in the Descent of Man
that part of the explanation for the
evolution of morality is this kind of
group selection think you know moral
groups do better what do you think
altruism has to do with morality and
group selection I mean where does this
enter the picture okay a lot of human
morality is about taking care of others
I won't say all of it is but just as just
as an individual can be just as
psychological altruism is something
different from evolutionary altruism
so morality I think is different from
psychological altruism so what's the
difference between having a morality
that tells you to take care of others
and this sort of person who cares about
others this is this is a sort of subtle
question about what about what a
morality is but I hope its... and I
can't really define that in any way but I
hope you and your students get the
feeling of what this would look like you
you have this individual who just cares
about others and they don't have any
general principles about how they ought
to behave they're just spontaneously nice
people morality is something more than
that if you think of it as a social
phenomena not something just the
property of individuals it's a bunch of
rules and maxims and values that a
society has in place and transmits from
one generation to the other it's a
cultural phenomenon a mass social
phenomenon and it's supposed to get
people to behave in certain ways and a
lot of human morality it's not just in this
society or that society seems to be
pretty much a universal of all the many
human moralities we know about that
taking care of others is part of the story
the scope of morality is different from
society to... to society so you can
have a morality which you care about
just your family a morality in which
you care just about your tribe or your
nation or your species and beyond that
you could have a morality that embraces
caring about all sentient beings
so there the scope of morality varies a
lot but it's it has to be something more
than just feeling well disposed towards
other other individuals as it exists I
mean I ... here's a here's a speculation
about that if we were all a hundred
percent nice people if all of us were
super nice caring people there would be
no there would be no reason for
societies to come to have moralities
I mean you notice that the Ten
Commandments do not tell you to avoid
sticking a dagger on purpose in your own
eye well no one wants to do that you
know moralities are kind of there to
stop some people from doing stuff they
might already want to do so I think the
reason part of the reason we social
phenomena exists is that we're not a
hundred percent nice and what has
evolved morality has evolved to sort of
control that that's why its
not just the case that we have that some
of this sometimes have altruistic
ultimate motives that I think that's
true in addition we're a species in which
moralities are a feature of cultures
of societies it's a good question
like why why is that there
what why did that need to happen --yeah
yeah well I think you know maybe I don't
want the video to be too long but now I
can't help but ask one more question so
we read another paper of yours called
prospects for an evolutionary ethics
where you seem to be really
well pooh-poohing the idea that
evolution could really help you
understand you know the sorts of ethical
truths so there maybe that was more of a
meta thing you talked about realism and
conventionalism and subjectivism
and said well look evolution doesn't
favor one or the other
but now it seems like you're giving this
story about the evolution of morality so
maybe it seems like they are connected
what's the you know why didn't you just
undermine your previous paper --maybe I did-- well I
don't think you did I think so the
starting point for me on questions like
this is Hume's distinction of ought from is
and the idea being you cannot derive an
ought statement from purely is premises so
when we talk about why morality exists
we're talking about is propositions it's
just like asking why photosynthesis
exists it's a feature of some organisms
why is the ... but and maybe maybe not only
can evolution explain photosynthesis it
can explain why organisms like us have
this thing called morality it's a
separate question whether any of our
moral beliefs are actually true and
that's where you get into the normative
question of whether we really do have
moral obligations to behave this way
rather than that way and I don't think
that's why... biology doesn't answer
that question biology could explain why
we have these moral thoughts and
feelings it's a philosophical question
to me to say well why should we think
that any of these moral beliefs are true
maybe they're not so in a beginning
ethics class you don't need to really
start learning a whole bunch of
evolutionary theory and biology you can
just go forward and think hard about the
ethical problems separately from that or
should you really be informed by by all
you know how we make these judgments in
the first place
I think that philosophy 101 does very
well just by leaving evolution kind of
out of the discussion
of ethics except like you mentioned
briefly the meta ethical question of
like maybe there are no moral facts I
mean as you know there are philosophers
who have thought and now think that
evolution... the facts about evolution
if it's a strong reason to suspect that
we're we're mistaken if we think that
any of our ethical beliefs are true so
that's the that's a way of getting into
meta ethics by using evolution I think
that's that's a good question well all
the all the evidences that videos should
stay as short as possible I think so I
think this was great I'm very glad that
you agreed to do this and I'm sure that
my students will enjoy it much better
than me just talking so thank you very
much well you're welcome Joel I
enjoyed it it's great talking to you
again after not seeing you
