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07/05/2007: "Altruism is fake"

The results were showing that when the volunteers placed the interests of others before their own, the generosity activated a primitive part of the brain that usually lights up in response to food or sex. Altruism, the experiment suggested, was not a superior moral faculty that suppresses basic selfish urges but rather was basic to the brain, hard-wired and pleasurable.

The research enterprise has been viewed with interest by philosophers and theologians, but already some worry that it raises troubling questions. Reducing morality and immorality to brain chemistry -- rather than free will -- might diminish the importance of personal responsibility. Even more important, some wonder whether the very idea of morality is somehow degraded if it turns out to be just another evolutionary tool that nature uses to help species survive and propagate.

[ Morality and altruism are fake emotions that make you feel more powerful for helping out others. If you're honest, you recognize this, and don't engage in them more than you have to. Otherwise, you get caught up in them because you're tripping out on a brain drug and it feels too good to stop. ]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/27/AR2007052701056.html