Altruism needs a better explanation than current evolutionary theory | Letter from Mary Midgley

Tom Stoppard and David Sloan Wilson both assume that “explaining altruism” means fitting it somehow into the highly individualistic pattern that is used by current evolutionary theorists (The hard problem, Review, 23 May). But motivation is far too complex a thing to be spelt out like this, simply in terms of conflicting interests. This competitive model, along with its exciting background of a meaningless cosmos, is simply a projection of our current social mythology. Until we get some bett