The Altruistic Brain: How We Are Naturally Good

232 Pages·2014·2.29 MB·English

by  Donald W. Pfaff

THE ALTRUISTIC BRAIN
THE ALTRUISTIC BRAIN
How We Are Naturally Good
DONALD W. PFAFF, PhD
WITH
SANDRA SHERMAN
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pfaff, Donald W., 1939–author.
The altruistic brain : how we are naturally good / Donald Pfaff.
 p. ; cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978–0–19–937746–6 (alk. paper)
eISBN 978–0–19–937748–0
[DNLM: 1. Altruism.  2. Brain—physiology.  3. Behavior—physiology.
4. Biological Evolution. WL 337]
BF637.H4
155.2′32—dc23
2014012452
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CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
Introduction
PART ONE
EVIDENCE FOR ALTRUISTIC BRAIN THEORY
1. The Biological/Evolutionary Roots of Altruism
2. Altruistic Brain Theory Introduced
3. Primary Neuroscience Research Underlying Each Step of Altruistic Brain
Theory
4. Neural and Hormonal Mechanisms that Promote Prosocial Behaviors Once
the Ethical Decision Is Made
5. New Neuroscience Research: The Theory’s Link to An Ethical Universal
PART TWO
IMPROVING PERFORMANCE OF THE MORAL
BRAIN: REMOVING OBSTACLES TO GOOD
BEHAVIOR
6. How Altruistic Brain Theory Changes Our Perceptions of Ourselves and of
Altruism
7. Why the Altruistic Brain Matters: Its Significance to Addressing Individuals’
Bad Behavior
8. Multiplier Effect: From Bad to Worse in a Social Setting
9. No Easy Answers...But No Pessimism Either
Index
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book explains a set of new ideas in neuroscience to readers who lack a
scientific background. This would have been impossible without the insight,
resourcefulness, and organizational skill of Sandra Sherman. I am immensely
grateful for all her hard work. She frequently understood the implications of my
ideas better than I did, and was able to express them with a clarity that I can only
envy. As a former lawyer and English professor now working in finance, Sandra
drew connections between my theory and the world outside of my lab, which I
think will give this book a far greater resonance.
We both thank our splendid editor at Oxford University Press, Craig Panner,
whose generous support we have greatly appreciated. His perspicacious reading
benefited our presentation enormously.
I have been thinking about these ideas for a long time. First, I am grateful that
the Sarah Lawrence College Library had an excellent comparative religion
section, because that is where I got started thinking about the Golden Rule as an
ethical universal. Once the main ideas of this book were formulated, I was able
to try them out in a course for Neurology residents at Cornell Medical School, in
a series of talks organized by the late great Chief of Neurology, Fred Plum. The
lecture received useful criticism from the psychiatrist Marguerite Lederberg,
widow of Rockefeller University’s President Joshua Lederberg. An abbreviated
account of that lecture is in the Springer-Verlag book Ethical Questions in Brain
and Behavior (1982). The Altruistic Brain uses new data, new points of
departure, and many new insights from Sandra Sherman to build on my
Neuroscience of Fair Play (2007) sponsored by the Dana Foundation. Writing
from that book is acknowledged here and in the text. Sandra and I also wrote a
chapter on Law and Neuroscience in Current Legal Issues, Vol. 13 (Oxford
University Press, 2010) from which we quote, and we thank Oxford University
Press for giving us permission to do so.
Science writer Robin Nixon generously helped me get started with this book.
Some of the best aspects of its organization can be credited to her early efforts.
Several scientists gave me excellent leads and advice. Two of my colleagues
at the Rockefeller University, neuroscience professors Bruce McEwen and
Winrich Freiwald, were outstanding in this regard. Also, my colleague Daniel
Kronauer, head of Laboratory of Insect and Social Evolution, provided crucial
guidance with regard to my use of terms, enabling me to clarify some of the
book’s fundamental concepts. Joshua Greene (Harvard University), James
Gilligan, M.D. (New York University), Richard Davidson (University of
Wisconsin), and Jonathan Haidt (University of Virginia) were also most helpful
in contributing to this account of how we are “wired” to behave altruistically. In
particular, James Gilligan’s positive view of the manuscript, in view of his
experience as a psychiatrist overseeing a prison system, has been much
appreciated. My administrative assistant at the Rockefeller University, Susan
Strider, a professional artist, made all of the illustrations.
Scientists and authors Professor David Barash (University of Washington),
Prof. Russell Pearce (Fordham Law School), Prof. Winrich Freiwald
(Rockefeller University), and Colin Rule (Stanford) generously took time to read
and criticize the text.
Thanks to Mark Greenberg of the Pennsylvania State University who sent us
some of his work on helping troubled children. Thanks also to Stephen Post of
Stony Brook University Medical Center, who provided us a broad-ranging
critique of our ideas, and helped us to contextualize them. Three social workers
who know gangs or who have been in a gang, wishing to remain anonymous,
looked over the relevant chapters.
Finally, I want to thank Russ Pearce, Mary Gordon, and Colin Rule for
sharing with us their own fascinating insights into the operation of moral
reciprocity, especially with regard to how it can be applied to make our lives
better. Many people are thinking about this issue, and I hope that they will accept
The Altruistic Brain as a contribution to an ongoing conversation.
INTRODUCTION
Just after New Year’s, 2007, New York City—and indeed the world—was
transfixed by the heroism of Wesley Autrey, who dove in front of an oncoming
subway train to rescue a stranger who had fallen on the tracks. The City awarded
Mr. Autrey its highest honor, and Donald Trump publicly wrote him a check.
Suddenly, Autrey was everywhere—interviewed, awarded, celebrated—as if
everyone wanted to get near him, maybe even inhale a whiff of his magic.
“Magic” in this case is not too strong a word, as it quickly became apparent that
the source of Mr. Autrey’s ability to toss away fear was not readily apparent.
How could this guy, standing on a subway platform with his two little daughters,
ages four and six, run the risk of death for someone he didn’t even know?
Autrey’s heroism offered the public a chance to think about human motivation
where an intended act has no other purpose than pure goodness. It posed
questions of enormous complexity, as it made the average person reflect on the
limits of his or her own altruistic motivations. A story in the New York Times
epitomized the dilemma: “Why Our Hero Leapt Onto the Tracks and We Might
Not.”
The Times’ story collected the views of several experts: sociologists,
psychologists, psychiatrists, an evolutionary biologist, a bioethicist. Each had a
theory. Taken together, the story suggested a complicated interplay between
Nature and Nurture, starting in Mr. Autrey’s brain circuitry but not excluding his
training in the Navy. The story’s subtext was that no one had all the answers, and
that—most likely—there could never be an answer that would suit a one-size-
fits-all analysis. Mr. Autrey represented the mosaic of factors that make us
human and humane. Depending on the balance of those factors, the story
suggested, we might or might not be equipped to follow his example.
Yet what was interesting as a sidebar to all this spirited discussion was Mr.
Autrey’s own assessment of his behavior. He saw in it nothing unusual, but
rather cast his action as a clear-cut, normal act of moral responsibility. The BBC
quoted his claim that “I’m still saying I’m not a hero...‘cause I believe all New
Yorkers should get into that type of mode.” Autrey categorized his act as what
anyone should do faced with a similar challenge. “You should do the right
thing.” Talking with CBS, he made the whole event seem as though it had posed
no risk, and that he never calculated the odds of his own survival as he acted to
protect others: “I didn’t want the man’s body to get run over. Plus, I was with my
daughters and I didn’t want them to see that.” As the train approached the man,
Autrey’s thoughts were entirely practical: “The only thing that popped into my
mind was, ‘OK, well, go for the gutter [between the tracks]. So I dove in, I
pinned him down and once the first car ran over us, my thing with him was to
keep him still.” Two cars passed over their clinched bodies before the train
screeched to a halt but, still concerned about his daughters, Autrey shouted at
them from underneath that both men were fine.
Only days later did a certain lovable bravado emerge in Our Hero’s demeanor,
when he gamely remarked, “Donald Trump’s got a check waiting for me. They
offered to mail it. I said no, I’d like to meet the Donald, so I can say ‘Yo, you’re
fired.’”
In the following pages, I will suggest that Autrey’s low-key acceptance of his
own moral courage—his insistence that what he did felt ordinary—provides us a
profound insight into the reality of human motivation toward benevolent action.
That is, it stands as a key to understanding the various conflicting arguments as
to why we act morally, and whether that is what most of us would normally do.
There is something of Mr. Autrey in all of us. So I will, in effect, rewrite that
Times story under the title “Why Our Hero Leapt Onto the Tracks and We Might
Too.”
The Altruistic Brain offers a transformative intervention in the ongoing
discussion of our underlying behavior toward each other and, indeed, it can
explain benevolent behaviors in general. I will show how the brain is wired to
propel us toward empathic behavior and feelings leading to altruistic behaviors. I
will also show how this knowledge of our brain’s wiring can, in turn, add to our
capacity for benevolence. Though I do not plan to take on the sociologists and
psychiatrists, the new scientific theory that follows captures the latest
neuroscience research that can be applied to everyday life. It not only can
explain why we are good but also help make us better. I am not talking just about
heroic altruism, though that is a part of my concern, so much as I am focused on
everyday kindness and decency which, when multiplied by billions of such acts
in the course of 24 hours, can make each of our days livable. On a broader scale,
it makes us inclined to see the goodness in, and hence value our neighbors.
Ultimately, it lends power to the sort of group dynamic required for the large-
scale actions that modern societies must undertake, and that are necessary to
create both a viable sociopolitical regime and, ultimately, a livable planet.
This book advances a new realization of our brain’s functions and capacities.
In extreme cases, when heroic acts are called for and occur, the type of nerve
cell, chemical, and physical mechanisms discussed here explain how those
heroic acts can actually occur. The Altruistic Brain will thus help us reevaluate