X-Message-Number: 17019
Date: Wed, 18 Jul 2001 23:48:14 -0700
From: Lee Corbin <>
Subject: Does Human Altruism Arise Partly from our Genes?

To the question "Does Human Altruism Arise Party from our Genes?",
I have recently argued in the affirmative in several threads.  I
have referred to at least two books, e.g., on April 6 I wrote:

>
>> it is easy to argue that consideration for fellow beings 
>> should be important, without requiring any denial that
>> selfish interests, on some level, are really all that
>> matter or can matter for the individual.
> May I characterize these as the "old view"?  I was surprised
> when I read Matt Ridley's "The Origins of Virtue", as he
> summarized (and gave plenty of references for) what anthro-
> pologists have discovered during recent decades.  Once I
> read his account, and several others since then, my views
> changed.

May I now add to the list "Unto Others" by Sober and Wilson,
and "The Mating Mind" by Geoffrey Miller?   But "The Origins
of Virtue" is at the top of a lot of people's recommendations
in this area, not just me:

It's on the Extropy reading list, and also on the Singularity
Institute's reading list.  It's also on the SingularityWatcher's
recommended list (John Smart's LA based organization.)

In addition, just today I received an email from Keith Henson
(not that we often exchange email), but he wrote to say that in
the discussion that Robert Ettinger and I were having, we should
read "The Origins of Virtue" by Matt Ridley!   So it's possible
that if you haven't read this book, you may wish to before
dismissing the idea that human altruism isn't at all in our genes.

Lee

P.S.  The URL http://freehenson.da.ru has the latest on the
$cientology outrage against Keith, and is updated often.

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17019