A Fat Lady in a Corset: Altruism and Social Theory

This manuscript reviews the literature on altruism as it has been discussed traditionally in economics and rational choice theory, evolutionary biology, and psychology. All of these fields assume self-interest is the norm for human behavior; all, therefore, experience great difficulty explaining action that risks sacrificing one's own welfare in order to benefit another. The literature on altruism is reviewed here not just to understand and explain the phenomenon itself, but also to use our understanding of altruism as an analytical tool that can yield insight on the validity, universality, and limitations of the intellectual theories about human behavior that organize so much of our daily lives and public policies.