The Compassionate Beast: The Humane Side of Humankind. - book reviews

Nutrition Health Review, Fall, 1990

THE COMPASSIONATE BEAST, The Humane Side of Humankind

Why did a middle-aged bank examiner on the airplane that crashed into the Potomac in 1982 pass the rescue rope to other crash survivors and sacrifice his life so that they could live?

Why do more than 15 million Americans donate their blood every year for the benefit of people they never have seen?

The author defines altruism as behavior "carried out to benefit another at some sacrifice to oneself, and without the expectation of reward from external sources."

Morton Hunt proceeds to explore the human psyche with the purpose of proving that humans have an innate capacity to be generous, caring, and kind.

Basing his expectations upon studies proving that animals are instinctively altruistic, he discusses the worker-bee's instinct to protect the honeycomb to the point of death. There are numerous other examples among both insects and other animals.

In humans, Hunt notes, the development of altruism is more complex. Our altruistic acts are learned in a variety of ways, through conditioning at home, experiences at school, and demonstrations by people around us.

The author describes the reinforcement of altruistic behavior by charting the various stages of development in children: the importance of parental modeling and helping children experience the satisfactions of altruistic behavior.

The altruistic personality, according to Hunt, is someone who has a generally happy mood, is empathetic, emotionally free and expressive, high in self-esteem, reliant, and possesses a positive view of others.

Trying to determine why some people perform altruistic acts, Hunt brings in opinions from various sources. He quotes a psychologist who attributes the behavior to an internal reward: the relief of discomfort we feel when we witness distress in someone else.

For those who cannot understand why there are nurses "born to be nurses" or doctors "who will work themselves to exhaustion because their patients need them," the above theory fits well.

Others have argued, says Hunt, "that all generosity, all natural affection, is only self-love of a socially subtle, delusive and diabolical quality."

Is there an altruistic gene? Hunt acknowledges that the question and implication are seemingly absurd. "How could any single gene, out of the million each of us possesses, produce behavior as complex and subtle as altruism?"

"It couldn't," he hastens to answer, not any more than a single gene could produce political ambition, religious fundamentalism, or romantic love. Only a few scraps of simple behavior are genetically programmed in human beings - the startle response to noise, babies' suckling, for instance - and even those are results of complex interactions among many genes and the body systems they chemically direct.

"But the phrase `the altruistic gene' is used by many scientists as shorthand; it refers to those built-in neural and visceral reactions to distress in others that are the substructure of altruistic behavior."

We have witnessed the worst side of mankind, says the author. Perhaps understanding altruism will permit the best side of humans to manifest itself. The book is delightful reading - and compelling.