Many years ago at a teenage disco at our local Polish centre, I was chatting up an attractive girl after dancing with her. I asked her what she considered to be the one most important quality she looked for in a boy. I was expecting something like 'determination', 'courage', 'intelligence', or 'energy'. Her reply surprised me. She said: "kindness".
As a teenage male, I was genuinely struck by that unexpected answer, and I have pondered upon it from time to time. There we were, innocently engaged in the ritual of finding a partner, and I receive what was in effect an answer of biological significance; here is a potential mother potentially looking for a mate who's able to empathise and behave altruistically.
Richard Dawkins is famous principally for two books; The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Central to the thinking of the British evolutionary biologist and notable atheist is the role of the gene in evolution. The idea he propounds is that replicating one's genes into the future is what matters most in the cold calculus of evolution. If there is altruism in the strict Dawkinsian sense, it is limited to helping carriers of your gene propagate it further. So being a caring, mentoring grandparent, then, or even or an uncle or aunt, fits the model. There are even studies that show that strangers with the same surname are extended more help than a randomly named person would get.
A panpsychist approach, however, to altruism extends beyond the family, indeed – beyond the human species even. Consideration is shown to the ecosystem as a whole on the basis that it is conscious, we are part of the whole, that the ecosystem is essential to the survival of humanity and everything else on the planet. Including our genes!
Long-term thinking, whether selfish or altruistic, requires an ecosystem within which consciousness can continue to flourish hundreds, thousands, of generations into the future, evolving spiritually. Genes and biology and ego are linked. Consciousness stands above that, on the meta-level, as it were.
Altruism includes, but is not limited to, acts of charity or selfless help to our fellow (non-related) human beings. I see altruism in a broader sense as co-existence in harmony with animals, plants and insects. Removing a spider or two from my shower cubicle before I turn on the hot water. Warding off ants from my doorstep with used coffee grounds rather than ant-killer. (Ticks and gnats/mosquitos –Culex pipiens – are dealt with mercilessly, however.)
On the basis that we are all one or something, I feel an intense, personal responsibility for our environment, stewardship of the land.
Is altruism somehow linked to karma? Here I am stuck, calling for an intuition to steer me towards an answer. If we are to believe the concept that bad deeds bring on bad karma, does altruistic behaviour attract karmic reward? Here I am stepping into purest metaphysical space; for if there is no physical effect without a physical cause, as physicalist reductionists would say, the attribution of random happenings, misfortune or good fortune to one's behaviour is pure magical thinking.
However, the well-disposed consciousness, benignly wandering through life without any sense of entitlement, receiving with simplicity everything that happens to it, wishing no harm to those of good will, does ultimately bring reward – hope, and meaning.
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