Pets and Altruism
Altruism – something my personal philosophy places at the peak of ethical importance – is also something that seems completely counter-intuitive and contrary to human – or animal – nature. It seems that in any situation where a person does for another, there is always something for that person to gain, even if it is only personal validation. But altruism is not merely doing for others merely for its own sake, but implies a measure of self-sacrifice. And there are even fewer instances of this behavior. One may immediately think of how parents or relatives will do anything to protect or promote the the well-being of their children. But the selfish gene argument has provisions for that kind of behavior – that the genes are acting on their own “best interests”, or rather, in the interest of propagation.
But then a rather common and obvious example of altruism came to my attention. Taking care of animals as pets. Granted, it could be said that we feed and maintain animals for the apparent “love” and “companionship” they provide in return, but this is not true in all cases, as there are some belligerent animals out there. And there is no guarantee going into a pet situation of how or if the owner will benefit. While we take care of our pets much like our children, and indeed often sacrifice some things for their sake, the selfish gene argument does not work here. While we do share some genes with our pets – the same genes common to the entire animal kingdom – the provisions we make for our pets are of a special character. Since the keeping and maintaining of pets is a practice that seems to extend as far back as human civilization itself, perhaps there is some genuine capacity for altruism in our nature, after all.
Not at all related to this subject, I’ve posted a short essay pieced together from email correspondence between myself and another skeptic.