The study of biological altruism is a cornerstone of modern evolutionary biology. Associated with foundational issues about natural selection, it is often supposed that explaining altruism is key to understanding social behaviour more generally. Typically, ‘biological’ altruism is defined in purely effects-based, behavioural terms—as an interaction in which one organism contributes fitness to another, at its own expense. Crucially, such a definition isn’t meant to rest on psychological or intentional assumptions. We show that appearances and official definitions notwithstanding, the notion of biological altruism carries a vestige of the psychological, intentional concept familiar to us from the human domain. In particular, definitions of altruism from Hamilton onwards presuppose an actor-recipient distinction—a distinction, so we argue, that has questionable biological grounding. We arrive at this conclusion step-by-step, first looking at several simple, ‘austere’ definitions and their problems, and then critiquing the actor-recipient distinction directly. If successful, our arguments suggest that the category of biological altruism requires a significant rethink.

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如果有的话，什么是生物利他主义？

生物利他主义的研究是现代进化生物学的基石。与自然选择的基本问题相关，人们通常认为解释利他主义是更普遍地理解社会行为的关键。通常，“生物”利他主义被定义为纯粹基于效果的行为术语，即一种有机体以自身为代价为另一种有机体提供适应性的相互作用。至关重要的是，这样的定义并不意味着基于心理或有意的假设。我们表明，尽管有表面现象和官方定义，生物利他主义的概念仍然带有我们在人类领域所熟悉的心理、意向概念的痕迹。特别是，从汉密尔顿开始，利他主义的定义就预设了行为者与接受者的区别——因此我们认为，这种区别的生物学基础值得怀疑。我们一步步得出这个结论，首先看看几个简单的、“严肃的”定义及其问题，然后直接批评行动者与接受者的区别。如果成功，我们的论点表明生物利他主义的范畴需要进行重大的重新思考。