Sorry for the lateness of this reply. Work demands got in the way.
Michael,
Can you are anyone else, better read than I am, introduce me to the essence of what George Price and Oren Harman say. I promise to study myself, but for now, can you provide some flavor of their thoughts on kindness and decency?
Obviously in has something to do with nurturing, family and neighborlyness, but what about the "Big Five"?
Asher
Asher, Charlotte did the work for me by finding a good review/summary of Oren Hartmen's book.
Asher
Found a bit of info for you...seems a scientific and evolutionary debate altruism and species very exciting to read! I haven't had time yet to check out the book @ the library but I do understand what Price wrote-
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/11/books/review/deWaal-t.html?pagewanted=all
Charlotte, you can get a used copy for $1.40 or an ebook Kindle version for $10.35at <Amazon.com> if your library hasn't got a copy.
Among the contributions of George Price's to evolutionary science, most notable was his mathematical demonstration of the viability of what became known as
kin selection. The traditional evolutionary model of
individual selection proposed that a gene gained frequency within a population if its inheritance increased the production of offspring, such that a greater number survived to reproductive age. In contrast, kin selection proposed that a gene gained frequency within a population if its inheritance resulted in increased survival of offspring to reporductive age. An implication is that genes able to facilitate altruism toward kin (e.g., nuturing, kindliness, helpfulness, compassion) can become more frequent in the population. A proviso is that such facilitation provides a favourable survival balance for the recipients compared to costs to the donor. For example, Price's contemporary, JBS Haldane, laughingly reported that "he would willingly die for two brothers or eight cousins".
Price's own life ended in tragedy after his all too brief sojourn at the University of London. In 1970, he had a religious conversion to Christianity and became a New Testament scholar. Quickly disillusioned with bible scholarship, he began community work with the homeless and alcoholics. During this time, he tried to demonstrate the benefits of altruistic behavior through acts of kindness to random strangers and dispossession to needy others of nearly all his assets. By the end 1974, he had been evicted from his rented dwelling, now lived in squats, and became increasingly disillusioned and depressed. He killed himself in January of the following year. At his memorial service, only two former academic colleagues attended, along with a few random strangers.
For over a quarter-century his contributions to science and attempts to demonstrate the positive side of community altruism were ignored or forgotten. The title of Harman's book,
The Price of Altruism was well chosen: few people before Price championed altruism to the extent he did: the cost of altruism was the price of his life.
So what happened to altruism in the half-century since Price's death? First, the contribution of kin selection to survival of the fittest became a recognized landmark in evolutionary theory. Second, altruism rose to occupy center stage in the positive psychology that emerged during this millenium. Briefly, current state of the art findings in positive psychology depict comparable genetic underpinnings for the Big Five personality traits and subjective wellbeing (e.g., life satisfaction, happiness), with altruism a structural mediator between the former and the latter. In other words, positive psychologists envision altruism as both a natural consequence of favourable personality traits (e.g., emotional stability and extraversion) and a positive determinant of happiness.
Therein, perhaps, lay reasons why altruism failed George Price. Harman's biography indicates a less than favourable profile of personality traits, with altruistic inclinations foreign to his nature. Consequently, his support of altruism arose from intellectual reasoning rather than emotive and behavioural dispositions. Only after such reasoning caused him to adopt altruism as a modus operandi for everyday living did his behaviour incorporate such tendencies on a regular basis. Sadly, altruism proved to be a foreign body for him that brought about not happiness but depression and disillusionment. How awful it must be when the major work of your life proves toxic to yourself. Surely it must have made him question the viability of the mathematical model that was to be his legacy to posterity. The lesson, I guess, is that the costs of altruism may be excessive for individuals with non-supportive genetic profiles, the receipt for which they are not to blame.
Cheers, Mike