Humans are hardwired to dismiss facts that don’t fit their worldview

The article itself provides the answer:




In other words, the emotion hit and/or the removal of emotional discomfort is the reward. If those things\ didn't happen, you wouldn't see the behaviour, its that simple. It's an incredibly well understood aspect of psychology across species, if you lesion the brains of monkeys so they stop feeling fear, they do things they previously wouldn't, like handling poisonous snakes,. If you hook an electrode up to the pleasure center of a rats brain and connect that to a lever, it'll push that lever until it dies, which other rats who don't get that hit of good feelings will not do. If compulsions like that counts as altruism, then I guess taking heroine must be spiritual.

The better question though,is why isn't that enough for people? What, do they need the universe to pat them on the head and tell them they're a good boy before its worth doing things? The desire to defend altruism itself demonstrates that it doesn't really exist.

There's a fair amount of very different ideas all bundled up together there.

Here, for example,

The better question though,is why isn't that enough for people? What, do they need the universe to pat them on the head and tell them they're a good boy before its worth doing things?

That has certain resonance with the history of fear-based religious teachings, the idea that one will be sent to hell for eternity if one doesn't conform to the rules. Even in those who no longer adhere to such beliefs, the concepts are still echoing around our Western culture.

But this:

The desire to defend altruism itself demonstrates that it doesn't really exist.

That's just nonsense. The desire to defend the validity of observations made with a telescope proves that the moons of Jupiter don't exist? It really isn't an argument. Perhaps the non-argument is an attempt to express a strongly-held belief? But then, one might ask, why is it necessary to support one's belief at the expense of making oneself appear foolish? Something doesn't quite add up.

There's more going on here than meets the eye. It isn't an objective or neutral assessment of the subject.