If you’re interested in some data on the issue, Dale Miller had a nice paper in American Psychologist in 1999 on the norm of self interest. It’s available here: http://faculty-gsb.stanford.edu/millerd/docs/1999amerpsyc.html. Miller’s basic point is that most people are not selfish, but they believe they should appear to be, in order not to stand out. That is, most people are not selfish but respond to the “norm” that humans are self-interested. See also Miller’s work with Holmes & Lerner on the exchange fiction – that people will give more to charity if they get some trinket in exchange, so that they can unlock their compassion without feeling that they are doing something weird. Here’s a brief intro: http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/ob_whypeoplegive.shtml
Being altruistic is central to being human. It reflects the extent to which humans understand other people by internally reproducing those people’s mental states. That is, we are able to live in society because we are pretty good at figuring out what someone else is feeling or planning to do. That skill involves internally simulating the other person’s feelings or plans using our own mental resources for feeling and planning. So, other people’s subjective states are available to us much more than was once supposed. See for example Vittorio Gallese’s very interesting work on mirror neurons and “intentional attunement”. There’s a brief intro here: http://www.interdisciplines.org/mirror/papers/1.
We are an altruistic species.
