Lisa & Ian Murray wrote:
>
> The larger question is whether the selection "mechanisms" would be stable
> enough to prevent the re-emergence of egoists, given the improbability of NS
> wiping them out. One can't refute egoism any more than one can refute
> capitalism.
Do altruism and egoism exist? That is a serious question. We are not talking about a fat right thumb or the capacity to taste salt. We are talking about a really fantastic agglomeration of habits and activities -- and it seems almost bizarre to fancy that there are enough genes in the human genome to account for such complex traits (and have any genes left over for breathing or scratching lice out of one's hair).
And when you get beyond the level of complexity in a comic book or the fevered imagination of a libertarian it becomes fairly obvious that "altruism" is not the same in any two "altruistic" individuals (or in the same individual at different times) just as "egoism" is not the same in any two egoistic individuals. People simply have no concept, it seems, of the complexity either of genetics or of the human brain.
Carrol