Whether “altruism” exists among animals or not

An ape reviving another after a small electric shock; a herd of pigs pushing back to the river to a fish stranded on the shore; a group of crows discovering the gigantic carcass of a reindeer and calling other crows to enjoy the feast. Examples are reproduced everywhere in the four corners of the Internet, and behind them often lies a voluntaristic question: are animals altruistic?

In the background lies a moral reading: unlike selfish human beings, animals are capable of teaching us authentic goodness. Give without expecting anything in return. This is what happened some time ago as a result of the viral image of a duck covering a young dog under its wings. It does not matter that the facts themselves be diffuse or that the conversation starts from two image captures without reference to the original source. The debate is legitimate, and it is alive.

Was the bird protecting a cub of another species out of mere compassion, out of high moral altruism? It is common for the answer to this question to be pregnant with moral conditions. We want to project our own insecurities, anxieties and emotional conflicts onto animals. For years, the idea of ​​”animal altruism” was reduced to the margins of science due to its connotations anthropocentric.

However, the issue has enjoyed an interesting revival during the last decades. Numerous studies have tried to put an end to the question of altruism, and to provide an effective response to the sometimes inexplicable behavior of some animal species.

Altruism, a definition

Biology and ethology have reached a definition relatively accurate of “altruism”: that action that benefits a third party to the detriment of oneself. That is, acts that have positive consequences without at the same time deriving self-interest. Dissecting the wheat from the chaff is complex, because many “altruistic” acts actually hide deeply selfish motivations.

In the late 1980s, a biologist specializing in animal behavior, Bernd Heinrich, noticed something peculiar during a walk through the Maine woods. A group of crows had found the succulent remains of a huge reindeer, and had begun to attract the attention of other reindeer in a striking and scandalous way. At first glance, it seems that the crows wanted to share the abundance of meat found by chance.

Did it make sense? From a somewhat simplistic point of view (survival of the fittest), not too much. Evolutionary logic (at least as we usually understand it) dictated that crows they had to compete for that piece of meat. It is a basic impulse and a vector that explains much of animal relationships, the fight for scarce food and self-survival. By calling other crows to enjoy the banquet, those birds were breaking a dynamic long accepted by the scientific community.

He Heinrich’s particular discovery It has been discussed for years. Ultimately, it is likely that the crows did not display any altruistic behavior. Finding the reindeer in the territory of an adult, and therefore more powerful, crow, the young, upstart crows had done something pretty smart: call other colleagues to avoid retaliation. Pure defense by accumulation. In that way, the adult crow would limit any type of territorial defense.

The case of the crows is very unique, but there are others that help limit the scope of “altruism.” It is known that, in some species, female bats are able to share part of their food with the males when they have a lean season. The behavior is social, but not altruistic: the act of sharing arises from need to perpetuate the species, to protect its own in the long term.

It is a defense mechanism explained by well-established theories (the “kin selection”for example), and that we can identify in other animal species (such as packs of wild dogs that warn by barking of dangers lurking on the horizon or ants kamikaze who sacrifice themselves for the colony). Is there a point of genuine goodness in the help of others? The question comes from an erroneous human perspective. Bats, ants or dogs seek something more basic: the benefit of the species. And therefore one’s own benefit.

Okay, but what about the duck and the puppy? Although it is tempting to explain almost all animal behavior from determinism, there are cases that escape to your logic. There is evidence, for example, of groups of orcas that have adopted dolphins with certain genetic malformations. for several weeks. Orcas are not very social animals nor do they tend to interact with other species in a friendly way.

The known examples

In 2009, two researchers attested something even more exceptional. During an exploration in Antarctica, they came across a seal in distress. Pursued by a group of orcas, her days seemed numbered. In the middle of the fray, a pair of humpback whales appeared and began to maneuver to protect the seal. Humpbacks only feed on fish and crustaceans: what the hell were they whistling in that scene?

According to scientists, manifesting an act of rare altruism among animals. The whales managed successfully protect at the seal, getting between the orcas and making it reach dry land (predictably hallucinated). There was no direct individual benefit for those humpbacks, nor was there a deep biological mechanism that could explain their actions. From any perspective, they had decided to help that poor seal.

In the process, the humpbacks had identified a situation of danger and vulnerability of others and had decided to put themselves in danger despite the absence of self-interest. But is it like that?

It was not an isolated incident. Some compilation studies have identified more than 115 encounters between humpback whales and orcas over the past 62 years. On some occasions up to fifteen humpbacks came to the rescue of calves of other species of whales. It could be due to a mechanism of automatic defense based on previous incidents (orcas also attack humpback calves) or a response to the calls of the orcas themselves (in such a way that the humpbacks would go to the scene of the incident blind).

But it could also be purely and simply a help. Disinterested It is known that dolphins and cetaceans are capable of generating sophisticated thoughts and making decisions based on them; to solve problems; and more or less complex forms of communication. That is, a certain intelligence that, in extraordinary circumstances, could lead them to act altruistically. Whether it’s seals, dogs or of humans.

How might we fit altruism beyond moral considerations, so how might we accommodate the acts of the duck covering the puppy? Science still has not reached a consensus too much discussion on this issue. The simplest way, the emotional desire to help other individuals, the goodnessis complex to test: we don’t know what animals think, and we do know that humans enjoy complex cognitive processes.

The moral adjustment is diffuse. Our moral perceptions arise from our ability to think abstractly, and often serve as an accommodation, a set of rules, that helps explain our behavior (and adjust it to social norms). None of this can be extrapolated to animals.

Which does not mean that thinking about “animal altruism” is projecting ourselves onto nature. Other studies have associated certain genetic characteristics (such as the size of the amygdala, for example) to the selfless acts manifested by some animal species. Certain brain structures would allow some to identify the pain or risk of others, and link it to a very common characteristic: care and protection.

That is, there would be biological mechanisms that, at a simpler level and detached from any moral consideration, would push the altruistic behavior of humans and animals in the same direction. Is the duck, then, caring for and protecting the cub out of pure altruism? We don’t know, just as we don’t know if the whales protected the seal out of compassion. Perhaps she was seeking warmth, or perhaps she was manifesting a psychological motherhood syndrome.

What we cannot rule out is that it is due to altruism. The possibility exists.

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