Elliott Sober
Auteur de Core Questions in Philosophy: A Text With Readings
A propos de l'auteur
Elliott Sober is Hans Reichenbach Professor and William F. Vilas Research Professor in the Philosophy Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and winner of the 2008 Prometheus Prize for his lifetime contribution to expanding the frontiers of research in philosophy and science. He is the afficher plus author of nine other books, including Evidence and Evolution: The Logic behind the Science and Reconstructing the Past: Parsimony, Evolution, and Inference, winch won the prestigious Lakatos Prize in the Philosophy of Science. afficher moins
Œuvres de Elliott Sober
Did Darwin Write the Origin Backwards: Philosophical Essays on Darwin's Theory (Prometheus Prize) (2010) 23 exemplaires
Unto Others 1 exemplaire
Oeuvres associées
Étiqueté
Partage des connaissances
- Date de naissance
- 1948
- Sexe
- male
- Nationalité
- USA
- Lieux de résidence
- Madison, Wisconsin, USA
- Études
- Harvard University (Ph.D, Philosophy)
University of Pennsylvania (M.S., Education)
University of Pennsylvania (B.A.) - Professions
- philosopher of science
- Organisations
- University of Wisconsin-Madison
- Prix et distinctions
- President, American Philosophical Association Central Division (1998-99)
Prometheus Prize (2008)
Membres
Critiques
Prix et récompenses
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Auteurs associés
Statistiques
- Œuvres
- 16
- Aussi par
- 1
- Membres
- 716
- Popularité
- #35,436
- Évaluation
- 3.8
- Critiques
- 3
- ISBN
- 67
- Langues
- 1
By "altruism," the authors mean that the altruist makes him/herself less fit in evolutionary terms, i.e., less likely to leave offspring, while making or attempting to make others more fit. It is only altruistic if the ultimate goal of the act is to help the other without hope of a reward. When a plane went down in the Potomac river, for example, one of the passengers repeatedly passed rescue device to one of the others trying to stay afloat, until he, himself, drowned. The authors think that our understanding of altruism is hindered by the assumption that all acts are basically selfish, if only to feel good about oneself for having helped another. Personally, I have always found that assumption absurd, since to be happy to have helped another is in itself proof of altruism. What appears to be altruistic can be selfish if the motive is to impress other people rather than actually help someone; I have known people to be publicly considerate to others that they are abusive to in private, but some people truly are unselfish.
The idea of group selection is that traits of individuals within a group may make the group stronger and better able to compete with other groups, even though they may not be related to all the group members. Thus, even if altruists are at a disadvantage compared to the selfish within a group, their contributions may allow the group, including other altruists, to flourish, thus increasing the number if not the percentage of altruists. In addition, societies often have ways of punishing the selfish and maintaining reciprocity. The authors give examples of groups of both related and unrelated individuals that prosper because the group works better. The idea goes back to Darwin, but it was considered to have been discredited in the 1960s. The authors blame this in part on the the averaging fallacy: averaging all the numbers together can mask the amount of variation. In his book How to Lie with Statistics, Darrell Huff points out that the average temperature in Death Valley is in the 60s, but that masks the extreme variation in temperatures.… (plus d'informations)