{ "model": { "rank": 2750, "code": "thing-q167323", "model_id": "vr.tr.altruism", "name": "altruism", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise and assess candidate instances of altruism and identify supportable actions without treating helpful outcomes as proof of selfless motivation.", "family": "Thing Registry", "category": "Activities and processes", "status": "research-draft", "kind": "thing", "plane": "ACT", "domain": "ACT.ACT", "industry": "", "version": "", "url": "/models/thing/q167323/", "tier": 2, "score": 97, "payload": { "layer": "wikidata", "aliases": [ "self-sacrifice", "biocentric altruism", "ministration", "Altruism in Islam" ], "aliasCount": 4, "merged": 4, "knownIn": 97, "facets": null, "markers": [], "lexicalClass": "", "senseRank": null, "alsoRegisteredAs": null, "source": { "dataset": "wikidata", "item": "Q167323", "url": "https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q167323", "license": "CC0 1.0" } }, "research": { "vercy": "1.0-draft", "publication": { "status": "research-draft", "adjudicationStatus": "unreviewed", "publishableCanonical": false, "generatedAt": "2026-09-07T11:32:10Z", "providers": [ "Codex", "Grok" ], "missingProviders": [], "pass": 2, "cost": { "grok": { "usd": 0.0131733, "turns": 1, "seconds": 166.7, "error": null }, "codex": { "seconds": 76.5, "error": "Reading additional input from stdin...\nOpenAI Codex v0.153.3\n--------\nworkdir: R:\\02_PROJECTS\\02_Meta_Models_Platforms\\Ver.cy\\current\\thing-registry-backlog\nmodel: gpt-6-astra\nprovider: openai\napproval: never\nsandbox: read-only\nreasoning effort: none\nreasoning summaries: none\nsession id: 01a07ba0-9726-7cf2-bdc6-3fc767f18f3f\n--------\nuser\nYou are drafting a Vercy meta-model for one registered thing. Answer as JSON only, no prose around it.\n\nThing: altruism\nRegistry id: vr.tr.altruism\nPlane / domain: ACT / ACT.ACT\nRegistry definition: (none recorded)\nNames folded into this entry: (none)\n\nA Vercy" } } }, "metaModel": { "id": "THING-Q167323", "registryId": "vr.tr.altruism", "name": "altruism", "version": "0.1.0-research.1", "entryKind": "thing", "family": "Thing Registry", "domain": [ "ACT.ACT" ], "status": "research-draft" }, "canonicalUrl": "https://ver.cy/models/thing/q167323/", "model": { "registry_id": "vr.tr.altruism", "name": "altruism", "purpose": "Enable an AI agent to recognise and assess candidate instances of altruism and identify supportable actions without treating helpful outcomes as proof of selfless motivation.", "definition": "Altruism is other-benefiting behaviour or motivation in which the actor incurs a net cost, identified in evolutionary biology by fitness consequences (a loss of the actor's direct fitness and a gain to the recipient) and in psychology by the actor's ultimate goal of increasing another's welfare rather than their own.", "scope_statement": "This model owns the assessment of an action, decision or sustained practice as oriented toward others' welfare, recording evidence about motivation, beneficiaries, personal stakes, voluntariness and effects while keeping unresolved interpretations explicit.", "in_scope": [ "Actions, decisions and sustained practices proposed as instances of altruism", "Evidence that another's welfare is an end rather than solely a means to personal gain", "Intended beneficiaries, their expressed needs and their actual experience", "Costs, risks, rewards and alternatives facing the acting party", "Voluntariness, obligations, reciprocity and conflicting motives", "Differences between intended benefit, observed benefit and unintended harm" ], "out_of_scope": [ "General moral evaluation of people or their character", "Administration of donations, grants and charitable organisations", "Clinical explanations of empathy or personality", "Biological altruism defined through reproductive fitness effects", "General theories of justice and allocation of public resources", "Contractual exchange and legal duties except where they affect an altruism assessment" ], "distinguishing_features": [ "Identify whose welfare the actor sought to improve and what supports treating that welfare as an end; a helpful outcome alone establishes neither intent nor altruism.", "Distinguish expected repayment or strategic advantage from incidental personal satisfaction; record mixed motives instead of assuming either eliminates concern for others.", "Establish what discretion the actor had: fulfilling a duty or following an order requires separate assessment of the actor's welfare-directed reasons.", "Separate the cost borne by the actor from the benefit sought for others; sacrifice alone does not establish altruism.", "Check intended benefit against beneficiary preferences and observed effects; benevolent intent can coexist with unwanted or harmful intervention." ], "characteristics": [ { "name": "Assessment target", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "single action | decision | sustained practice", "why_it_matters": "Prevents evidence about one act from becoming an unsupported judgment about an entire person." }, { "name": "Intended beneficiary", "kind": "relation", "unit_or_values": "Identified person, group, nonhuman recipient or future population, with relationship to actor", "why_it_matters": "Makes the proposed other-directed benefit concrete and exposes uncertainty about who is meant to benefit." }, { "name": "Welfare-directed motivation", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "unassessed | supported | contested | insufficient evidence", "why_it_matters": "Represents the strength of an interpretation without claiming direct access to private motives." }, { "name": "Expected personal return", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "Repayment, reputation, affiliation, emotional satisfaction, strategic advantage, none identified or unknown; multiple values allowed", "why_it_matters": "Supports assessment of mixed motives and distinguishes incidental rewards from benefits on which the action depends." }, { "name": "Actor burden", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Time, money, foregone opportunities and risk estimates, recorded separately with context and uncertainty", "why_it_matters": "Shows what the actor bears without assuming unlike burdens share a universal scale." }, { "name": "Discretion and pressure", "kind": "category", "unit_or_values": "freely chosen | duty-bound with discretion | pressured | compelled | unclear", "why_it_matters": "Clarifies how far the action expresses a choice and what evidence is needed to interpret it." }, { "name": "Beneficiary endorsement", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "requested | accepted | declined | disputed | not sought | unavailable", "why_it_matters": "Separates the actor's idea of helping from the recipient's preferences." }, { "name": "Welfare effect", "kind": "measurement", "unit_or_values": "Beneficiary-relevant indicators with baseline, time horizon, comparison and uncertainty; no mandatory aggregate score", "why_it_matters": "Allows intended and realised benefit to be assessed independently of motivation." }, { "name": "Assessment conclusion", "kind": "state", "unit_or_values": "unassessed | provisionally supported | contested | unsupported under stated interpretation", "why_it_matters": "Makes the judgment conditional on explicit criteria and available evidence." } ], "affordances": [ "Assess a candidate act against an explicitly stated interpretation of altruism.", "Request missing evidence about intended benefit, competing motives and beneficiary preferences.", "Compare ways to pursue the intended benefit while reducing harm and avoidable personal burden.", "Propose continuation, adaptation or withdrawal of help in light of recipient wishes and observed effects.", "Revise an assessment when evidence changes without converting it into a global character judgment." ] }, "sources": [ { "id": "hamilton-1964", "title": "The genetical evolution of social behaviour. I", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Biological definition via fitness costs and benefits; kin altruism and Hamilton's rule (rB > C)." }, { "id": "trivers-1971", "title": "The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Reciprocal altruism as a distinct evolutionary kind, and the conditions under which delayed return can sustain costly help." }, { "id": "batson-1991", "title": "The Altruism Question: Toward a Social-Psychological Answer", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Psychological definition by ultimate goal; empathy-altruism versus egoistic alternatives (aversive-arousal reduction, reward, punishment)." }, { "id": "andreoni-1990", "title": "Impure Altruism and Donations to Public Goods: A Theory of Warm-Glow Giving", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Pure versus impure (warm-glow) altruism in charitable giving and public-goods provision." }, { "id": "fehr-fischbacher-2003", "title": "The nature of human altruism", "url": "https://www.nature.com/articles/nature02043", "what_it_supports": "Strong reciprocity, experimental measures (dictator, public-goods, third-party punishment), and the gap between fitness-based and motive-based senses.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "sep-altruism", "title": "Altruism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)", "url": "https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism/", "what_it_supports": "Philosophical neighbours (psychological egoism, ethics of self-sacrifice) and the need to keep biological and psychological senses apart.", "url_status": "live" }, { "id": "sober-wilson-1998", "title": "Unto Others: The Evolution and Psychology of Unselfish Behavior", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "The evolutionary versus psychological distinction and multilevel-selection arguments about when altruism can spread." }, { "id": "who-gp-2010", "title": "WHO Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation (WHA63.22)", "url": "", "what_it_supports": "Altruistic unpaid donation as a governing principle for organs, cells and tissues in real-world regulation." } ], "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "act-and-beneficiary", "name": "Act and beneficiary", "description": "Identifies the conduct being assessed and the welfare it is meant to serve.", "rationale": "An altruism assessment needs a bounded act and an identifiable other-directed purpose.", "layers": [ { "id": "assessment-boundary", "name": "Assessment boundary", "description": "Separates the candidate action or practice from judgments about the actor as a whole.", "findings": [ { "id": "bounded-candidate", "name": "Bounded candidate", "description": "Record the conduct, actor, occasion and assessment unit without presuming that it qualifies as altruism.", "questions": [ { "text": "Which action, decision or sustained practice is being assessed?", "kind": "definition", "id": "bounded-candidate-q01" }, { "text": "What would be an unjustified extension of this assessment to the actor's other conduct or character?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "bounded-candidate-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "intended-welfare", "name": "Intended welfare", "description": "Locates the proposed benefit in the circumstances of its intended recipients.", "findings": [ { "id": "recipient-and-benefit", "name": "Recipient and benefit", "description": "Record who is meant to benefit, what improvement is sought and whose account establishes that need.", "questions": [ { "text": "Whose welfare is the actor trying to improve, and in what specific respect?", "kind": "definition", "id": "recipient-and-benefit-q01" }, { "text": "Does the account of the need come from recipients, the actor or another source?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "recipient-and-benefit-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "motives-and-personal-returns", "name": "Motives and personal returns", "description": "Examines concern for others alongside rewards, expectations and competing purposes.", "rationale": "Helpful conduct can arise from different motives, and evidence rarely warrants treating motivation as wholly selfless or wholly self-serving.", "layers": [ { "id": "concern-for-others", "name": "Concern for others", "description": "Assesses evidence that recipient welfare matters to the actor in its own right.", "findings": [ { "id": "welfare-as-an-end", "name": "Welfare as an end", "description": "Record evidence supporting or challenging the interpretation that helping others is a purpose rather than only an instrument.", "questions": [ { "text": "What statements or choices support the interpretation that the beneficiary's welfare matters independently of the actor's gain?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "welfare-as-an-end-q01" }, { "text": "Which alternative explanations remain consistent with the observed conduct?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "welfare-as-an-end-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "reward-dependence", "name": "Reward dependence", "description": "Distinguishes accompanying rewards from returns that appear necessary to the actor's choice.", "findings": [ { "id": "mixed-motives-and-reciprocity", "name": "Mixed motives and reciprocity", "description": "Record anticipated repayment, recognition, satisfaction and advantage without treating their presence as a conclusive classification.", "questions": [ { "text": "What personal returns did the actor anticipate, and was any repayment explicitly or implicitly expected?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "mixed-motives-and-reciprocity-q01" }, { "text": "What evidence, if any, indicates whether the actor would still help without recognition or repayment?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "mixed-motives-and-reciprocity-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "burden-and-freedom", "name": "Burden and freedom", "description": "Examines what the actor gives up and how freely the contribution is chosen.", "rationale": "Sacrifice, obligation and pressure affect interpretation and sustainability but cannot substitute for evidence of concern for others.", "layers": [ { "id": "personal-stakes", "name": "Personal stakes", "description": "Places the contribution in the actor's actual resources and alternatives.", "findings": [ { "id": "cost-risk-and-opportunity", "name": "Cost, risk and opportunity", "description": "Record expected and actual burdens separately, including opportunities forgone and burdens transferred to others.", "questions": [ { "text": "What time, resources, opportunities or safety did the actor expect to give up, and what did the act actually cost?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "cost-risk-and-opportunity-q01" }, { "text": "Which burdens fall on dependants or other parties rather than on the actor?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "cost-risk-and-opportunity-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "choice-and-obligation", "name": "Choice and obligation", "description": "Examines the available freedom to help, refuse or choose a different form of assistance.", "findings": [ { "id": "discretion-under-pressure", "name": "Discretion under pressure", "description": "Record duties, sanctions, social expectations and meaningful alternatives relevant to the act.", "questions": [ { "text": "What obligations or pressures applied, and what choices remained available to the actor?", "kind": "boundary", "id": "discretion-under-pressure-q01" }, { "text": "What changes would preserve useful help while allowing the actor a meaningful choice to reduce or stop the contribution?", "kind": "action", "id": "discretion-under-pressure-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "recipient-agency-and-effects", "name": "Recipient agency and effects", "description": "Examines whether help is wanted and whether it improves welfare in practice.", "rationale": "Assessing altruistic intent must remain distinct from deciding whether an intervention should continue.", "layers": [ { "id": "recipient-voice", "name": "Recipient voice", "description": "Records recipient preferences and the authority to act when direct consultation is unavailable.", "findings": [ { "id": "wanted-and-authorised-help", "name": "Wanted and authorised help", "description": "Record requests, acceptance, refusal and uncertainty about representing recipient interests.", "questions": [ { "text": "Have recipients requested, accepted or refused this help, and how was that established?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "wanted-and-authorised-help-q01" }, { "text": "If recipients cannot express a preference, what grounds support acting on their behalf?", "kind": "action", "id": "wanted-and-authorised-help-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "benefit-and-harm", "name": "Benefit and harm", "description": "Compares intended improvement with observed effects and plausible alternatives.", "findings": [ { "id": "welfare-consequences", "name": "Welfare consequences", "description": "Record benefit, harm, distribution and uncertainty without inferring motive from success or failure.", "questions": [ { "text": "Compared with what likely would have happened otherwise, what benefits or harms are supported by evidence?", "kind": "measurement", "id": "welfare-consequences-q01" }, { "text": "What recipient feedback or harmful effects would justify adapting or stopping the help?", "kind": "action", "id": "welfare-consequences-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "judgment-and-responsible-support", "name": "Judgment and responsible support", "description": "Turns incomplete evidence into a qualified assessment and bounded recommendations.", "rationale": "An agent needs to decide what the evidence permits it to say and how it can support helping without exploiting the actor or overriding recipients.", "layers": [ { "id": "qualified-classification", "name": "Qualified classification", "description": "Makes the interpretation of altruism and the limits of the resulting judgment explicit.", "findings": [ { "id": "criteria-and-confidence", "name": "Criteria and confidence", "description": "Record the operative criteria, evidence gaps and disagreements underlying a provisional classification.", "questions": [ { "text": "Under the interpretation being used, what evidence supports or fails to support calling this act altruistic?", "kind": "definition", "id": "criteria-and-confidence-q01" }, { "text": "Which missing or conflicting evidence could materially change that assessment?", "kind": "provenance", "id": "criteria-and-confidence-q02" } ] } ] }, { "id": "support-and-reassessment", "name": "Support and reassessment", "description": "Identifies feasible next actions and conditions for revisiting them.", "findings": [ { "id": "sustainable-welfare-directed-action", "name": "Sustainable welfare-directed action", "description": "Record ways to pursue recipient welfare within the actor's resources, consent and responsibilities.", "questions": [ { "text": "What feasible alternative could preserve or improve the intended benefit with less harm or avoidable burden?", "kind": "action", "id": "sustainable-welfare-directed-action-q01" }, { "text": "What changes in recipient wishes, actor capacity or expected benefit should trigger reassessment?", "kind": "action", "id": "sustainable-welfare-directed-action-q02" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "evidence-and-external-alignment", "name": "Evidence and external alignment", "description": "What the world already says about this thing, gathered so the model can be checked against it.", "rationale": "A model that cannot be lined up against existing standards, identifiers and practice cannot be adopted by anyone who already uses them.", "layers": [ { "id": "reported-evidence", "name": "Reported evidence", "description": "Findings from the breadth pass, kept separate from the structural claims.", "findings": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds", "name": "Kinds and varieties", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Kin altruism (costly help biased toward genetic relatives, as in Hamilton's rule)", "Reciprocal altruism (costly help contingent on return help from the same partner)", "Indirect reciprocity (help given because reputation draws later help from third parties)", "Psychological or empathic altruism (the ultimate goal is the other's welfare)", "Pure altruism (in economics: preference over the recipient's outcome, not the act of giving)", "Impure or warm-glow altruism (utility from giving itself)", "Parochial altruism (in-group help that can impose costs on out-groups)", "Strong reciprocity or altruistic punishment (costly enforcement of norms with no material return)" ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-kinds-q01", "text": "Which of these kinds and varieties hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-identifiers", "name": "Identifiers and schemes", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "scheme": "Wikidata", "value_or_pattern": "Q170075", "note": "Item for altruism as a concept." }, { "scheme": "MeSH", "value_or_pattern": "D000530", "note": "National Library of Medicine descriptor Altruism." }, { "scheme": "LCSH", "value_or_pattern": "Altruism", "note": "Library of Congress Subject Heading; used in library and archival cataloguing." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-identifiers-q01", "text": "Which of these identifiers and schemes hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation", "name": "Standards and regulation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "WHO Guiding Principles on Human Cell, Tissue and Organ Transplantation (World Health Organization, WHA63.22, 2010): donation is to be voluntary and unpaid.", "National Organ Transplant Act 1984 (United States Congress): criminalises transfer of human organs for valuable consideration.", "Directive 2002/98/EC (European Union): blood and blood components to be obtained from voluntary unpaid donations so far as possible.", "Convention on Human Rights and Biomedicine (Oviedo Convention, Council of Europe, 1997): prohibition of financial gain from the human body and its parts.", "Internal Revenue Code §170 (United States): tax treatment of charitable contributions, the main legal record of monetary giving framed as altruistic." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-standards-and-regulation-q01", "text": "Which of these standards and regulation hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-real-world-use", "name": "Real-world use", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Unpaid whole-blood donation and deceased- or living-organ donation, legally framed as gifts rather than sales.", "Household charitable giving and formal volunteering to nonprofits, congregations and disaster funds.", "Laboratory and field games used to measure other-regarding choice: dictator, ultimatum, public-goods and third-party punishment games.", "Emergency helping (first aid, bystander intervention) and everyday favours, childcare and food sharing.", "Humanitarian aid, caregiving and some military or rescue acts of high-cost help to non-kin.", "Effective-altruism practice: donors routing money to evaluated interventions (for example global health charities) rather than local or expressive gifts." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-real-world-use-q01", "text": "Which of these real-world use hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-measurements", "name": "Typical measurements", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "quantity": "Coefficient of relatedness (r) between actor and recipient", "typical_range": "0-1; full siblings or parent-offspring ~0.5, half-siblings or grandparents ~0.25, first cousins ~0.125", "unit": "dimensionless" }, { "quantity": "Share of endowment transferred in the dictator game", "typical_range": "0-50 for most subjects; mean often about 20-30 in meta-analyses; a minority give 0 or 50+", "unit": "percent of endowment" }, { "quantity": "Household charitable giving as a share of income", "typical_range": "commonly 0 for non-givers; among givers often about 1-3 of income in several high-income countries (higher in some religious tithing populations)", "unit": "percent of income" }, { "quantity": "Self-Report Altruism Scale (Rushton): summed Likert ratings of helping acts", "typical_range": "20-100 total score on the 20-item 1-5 form", "unit": "scale points" }, { "quantity": "Whole-blood donation rate", "typical_range": "from well under 10 in many low-income settings to about 30 or more in several high-income systems", "unit": "donations per 1,000 population per year" } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-measurements-q01", "text": "Which of these typical measurements hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards", "name": "Failure modes and hazards", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Pathological or indiscriminate helping that harms the intended beneficiary, the helper, or third parties (for example enabling dependency, unsafe rescue, or medically futile sacrifice).", "Exploitation and free-riding: altruists absorb costs while non-contributors take the benefit.", "Parochial altruism that funds in-group welfare while escalating out-group conflict.", "Crowding-out: payment, publicity or mandates that displace intrinsic or reputational motives and can reduce net helping.", "Caregiver burnout and compassion fatigue in high-demand helping roles.", "Ineffective or counterproductive charity (high overhead relative to impact, harmful aid, or gifts that satisfy the donor more than the recipient).", "Signalling and prestige substitution, in which visible giving is mistaken for welfare improvement.", "Organ- and blood-system failure when 'altruistic gift' rules are breached by trafficking, coercion or covert payment." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-failure-modes-and-hazards-q01", "text": "Which of these failure modes and hazards hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-regional-variation", "name": "Regional variation", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ "Blood and plasma: WHO and EU policy privilege voluntary unpaid donation; paid plasma collection is routine in the United States and some other systems.", "Organ donation default: opt-in explicit consent versus opt-out or presumed-consent systems (for example Spain's high deceased-donation model).", "Religious giving forms and obligations differ: Islamic zakat as a required transfer, Jewish tzedakah, Christian tithe and alms, Buddhist and Hindu dāna; these are not interchangeable with secular 'charity'.", "Helping targets: many studies find stronger in-group or family priority in more collectivist settings, versus more stranger-directed or abstract giving in some Western samples; the contrast is a tendency, not a rule.", "Effective altruism as an organised donor culture is concentrated in Anglophone academia, tech philanthropy and related networks, not as a global folk category.", "What counts as commendable self-sacrifice versus foolishness or kin neglect varies with kinship norms, honour cultures and welfare-state coverage." ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-regional-variation-q01", "text": "Which of these regional variation hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] }, { "id": "evidence-neighbours", "name": "Neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart", "description": "Reported by the breadth pass; each item needs checking against its source before it becomes normative.", "evidence": [ { "name": "Mutualism or mutually beneficial cooperation", "difference": "Both parties gain in direct fitness or payoff; altruism requires a net cost to the actor in the currency being used (fitness or utility)." }, { "name": "Reciprocity as exchange", "difference": "A return is expected from the same partner; psychological altruism does not require that expectation, though evolutionary reciprocal altruism is defined by the return contingency." }, { "name": "Prosocial behaviour", "difference": "Broader class that includes fairness, cooperation, conformity and helping; altruism is the costly, other-benefiting subset (or the other-regarding motive, in psychology)." }, { "name": "Psychological egoism", "difference": "The ultimate goal is the actor's own welfare (relief of distress, warm glow, reputation); altruism in Batson's sense is present only if the other's welfare is the ultimate goal." }, { "name": "Charity as an institution", "difference": "Organised transfer via nonprofits, churches or the state can be altruistic, strategic, tax-driven or obligatory; the institution is not evidence of the motive." }, { "name": "Heroism", "difference": "High-risk, often public, helping under acute threat; most altruism is low-risk everyday cost, and not all heroism is other-regarding in motive." }, { "name": "Effective altruism (the social movement)", "difference": "A doctrine about how to allocate helping resources for impartial impact; it is a use of altruism, not a biological or psychological kind of it." }, { "name": "Spite", "difference": "The actor pays a cost that reduces the recipient's payoff; altruism requires a benefit to the recipient." } ], "questions": [ { "id": "evidence-neighbours-q01", "text": "Which of these neighbouring kinds and how to tell them apart hold for the sense of altruism this model covers, and on what evidence?", "kind": "provenance" } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "openQuestions": [ "Should this registry entry require a motivational interpretation of altruism, or also support behavioural interpretations that do not claim to establish motives?", "Is personal cost necessary for classification, and how should low-cost helping or mutually beneficial conduct be treated?", "What evidentiary standard can support judgments about mixed motives without presenting self-reports or behavioural counterfactuals as decisive?", "How should duty, family attachment, group loyalty and expected reciprocity affect classification across different social contexts?", "Does this entry extend to organisational or AI actors, and what evidence could support attributing welfare-directed motivation to them?" ], "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 11, "findings": 18, "questions": 28 } }, "draft": { "generator": "vr.draft.v3", "status": "draft-generated", "researched": false, "archetype": "abstract concept", "method": "Written from the archetype playbook - what this kind of thing needs beyond identity and provenance - and from the structure that recurred across 6,333 models already researched by two engines. Applied to this entry by rule. No source was read for this thing and no claim here is researched. This entry carries no facets of its own, so they were inferred from its domain - a guess about a whole domain applied to one thing.", "facetsInferred": true, "nextPass": "A researcher replaces this draft with a sourced specification. Treat every sentence below as a proposal to argue with.", "purpose": "Give an agent a durable, checkable way to recognise a altruism, record what state it is in, and decide what may be done with it.", "whatItIs": "Enable an AI agent to recognise and assess candidate instances of altruism and identify supportable actions without treating helpful outcomes as proof of selfless motivation.", "characteristics": { "substance": "activity", "origin": "conceptual", "agency": "inert" }, "whatYouCanDoWithIt": [ "observed and measured" ], "distinguishingFeatures": [ "Names folded into this entry, which a task may need to split apart again: self-sacrifice, biocentric altruism, ministration, Altruism in Islam.", "4 finer distinctions are held as aliases rather than separate entries, because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it.", "Described in 97 Wikipedia languages, which is a measure of how widely the thing is known, not of how important it is." ], "openQuestionsForResearch": [ "Which of the bundles below does a real task actually need, and which are ceremony?", "What does this thing have that the facets do not capture at all?", "Which neighbouring kind is most often confused with a altruism, and on what evidence are they told apart?" ], "whatItIsMadeOf": "something that happens over time", "physicalCharacter": [ "Does nothing on its own; everything it does, something else did to it.", "These come from the domain this entry sits in rather than from the entry itself, so treat them as a first guess about the whole domain applied to one thing." ], "whatCanBeDoneWithIt": [ "observe it, measure it, record its state" ], "howItIsRecognised": [ "Nothing to see. What is recognised is an instance of it, and which instances count is exactly what is argued about." ], "relatedModels": [ { "relation": "covers", "note": "Finer kinds folded into this entry because telling them apart needs a task that asks for it. Each is a model waiting to be split out when one does.", "targets": [ "self-sacrifice", "biocentric altruism", "ministration", "Altruism in Islam" ] } ], "standing": "Described in 97 Wikipedia languages, which measures how widely it is written about rather than how important or how common it is. 4 finer distinctions are held inside this entry as names rather than as separate models.", "structure": { "bundles": [ { "id": "identity-and-classification", "name": "Identity, naming and classification", "description": "How an agent tells one altruism from another, and a altruism from things that resemble it.", "rationale": "Recognition comes before every other claim. Without stable identity nothing else in the model can be trusted to be about the same thing twice.", "layers": [ { "id": "naming-and-identifiers", "name": "Names and identifiers", "description": "The names this thing goes by and the identifiers that survive translation and time.", "findings": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases", "name": "Preferred name, aliases and local names", "description": "Which name to use, which names mean the same thing, and which merely sound similar.", "questions": [ { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the name of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the name of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "preferred-name-and-aliases-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the name of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers", "name": "Stable identifiers and external keys", "description": "Identifiers that keep pointing at this kind of thing across systems and languages.", "questions": [ { "id": "stable-identifiers-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an identifier for a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an identifier for a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stable-identifiers-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an identifier for a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "classification-and-granularity", "name": "Classification and granularity", "description": "Where a altruism sits among kinds, and how finely a task needs to cut it.", "findings": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents", "name": "Kind, parents and neighbouring kinds", "description": "The classes this thing belongs to and the ones it is next to.", "questions": [ { "id": "kind-and-parents-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the kind of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the kind of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "kind-and-parents-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the kind of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features", "name": "Distinguishing features", "description": "What separates a altruism from the things most often confused with it.", "questions": [ { "id": "distinguishing-features-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes what distinguishes a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about what distinguishes a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "distinguishing-features-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once what distinguishes a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "state-and-lifecycle", "name": "State and lifecycle", "description": "The states a altruism passes through and the events that move it between them.", "rationale": "Most decisions about a thing depend on what state it is in now, which is a claim with a time on it, not a property.", "layers": [ { "id": "lifecycle-stages", "name": "Lifecycle stages", "description": "From coming into existence to ceasing to be one of these.", "findings": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions", "name": "Stages and transitions", "description": "The stages worth naming and what moves a altruism between them.", "questions": [ { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the lifecycle of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the lifecycle of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "stages-and-transitions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the lifecycle of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "observations-and-status", "name": "Observations and current status", "description": "What is observed about a altruism, how often and by whom.", "findings": [ { "id": "observation-record", "name": "Observation record", "description": "How an observation of a altruism is recorded so that it can be superseded rather than overwritten.", "questions": [ { "id": "observation-record-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes an observation of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about an observation of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "observation-record-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once an observation of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "process-and-outcome", "name": "Process, inputs and outcome", "description": "How a altruism proceeds, what it needs and what it leaves behind.", "rationale": "An activity is known by its steps and its results, and both have to be recordable while it is still running.", "layers": [ { "id": "steps-and-sequence", "name": "Steps and sequence", "description": "The steps of a altruism, their order and what may run in parallel.", "findings": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions", "name": "Steps, preconditions and completion", "description": "What has to be true before each step of a altruism and what marks it done.", "questions": [ { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a step of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a step of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "steps-and-preconditions-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a step of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-results", "name": "Inputs, resources and results", "description": "What a altruism consumes and what it produces.", "findings": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs", "name": "Inputs, outputs and side effects", "description": "The resources a altruism takes and the results it leaves, wanted or not.", "questions": [ { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the inputs and results of a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the inputs and results of a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "inputs-and-outputs-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the inputs and results of a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "definitions-in-contest", "name": "Definitions and who holds them", "description": "What altruism is taken to mean, and by whom.", "rationale": "When a field disagrees about a concept, the disagreement is the content. A model that picks one definition silently destroys the information.", "layers": [ { "id": "competing-definitions", "name": "Competing definitions", "description": "The main readings and the traditions behind them.", "findings": [ { "id": "definition-map", "name": "Definitions and their holders", "description": "Each definition with the school or body that holds it.", "questions": [ { "id": "definition-map-q01", "text": "Which definitions of altruism are in use, and which tradition or body holds each?", "kind": "definition" }, { "id": "definition-map-q02", "text": "What turns on the difference between them in practice?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] }, { "id": "operationalisation", "name": "Operationalisation", "description": "How it is measured or applied when it has to be.", "findings": [ { "id": "operational-record", "name": "Measures and proxies", "description": "Instruments and indicators used to stand in for it.", "questions": [ { "id": "operational-record-q01", "text": "How is altruism operationalised or measured in practice, and by what instrument?", "kind": "measurement" }, { "id": "operational-record-q02", "text": "What does that operationalisation leave out, and when does that matter?", "kind": "boundary" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "instances-and-use", "name": "Instances, use and consequence", "description": "What counts as an instance of altruism and what follows from calling something that.", "rationale": "Applying a concept is an act with consequences, so a model must say what the label licenses and what it does not.", "layers": [ { "id": "instances", "name": "What counts as an instance", "description": "Clear cases, borderline cases and non-cases.", "findings": [ { "id": "instance-tests", "name": "Tests for an instance", "description": "What would settle whether something falls under it.", "questions": [ { "id": "instance-tests-q01", "text": "What would settle whether something is an instance of altruism?", "kind": "boundary" }, { "id": "instance-tests-q02", "text": "Which borderline cases are argued about, and on what grounds?", "kind": "definition" } ] } ] }, { "id": "consequence", "name": "Consequence of application", "description": "Rights, duties or decisions that follow from the label.", "findings": [ { "id": "consequence-record", "name": "What the label licenses", "description": "What an agent may do once something is classified this way.", "questions": [ { "id": "consequence-record-q01", "text": "What follows practically once something is treated as altruism?", "kind": "action" }, { "id": "consequence-record-q02", "text": "What must an agent not infer from the label alone?", "kind": "action" } ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "provenance-and-evidence", "name": "Provenance, evidence and time", "description": "Where every claim about a altruism came from and when it held.", "rationale": "A claim without a source and a time cannot be superseded, only overwritten, and an agent that overwrites loses the ability to explain itself.", "layers": [ { "id": "source-and-authority", "name": "Source and authority", "description": "Who said it, on what evidence, and how strongly.", "findings": [ { "id": "claim-provenance", "name": "Claim provenance and confidence", "description": "The authority behind each claim about a altruism and how confident it is.", "questions": [ { "id": "claim-provenance-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes a claim about a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about a claim about a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "claim-provenance-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once a claim about a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] }, { "id": "time-and-versions", "name": "Time, versions and supersession", "description": "When a claim was true, when it was learnt, and what replaced it.", "findings": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession", "name": "Validity period and supersession", "description": "How an old claim about a altruism is retired without being erased.", "questions": [ { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q01", "text": "What identifies and describes the validity of a claim about a altruism, and in what units or vocabulary?", "kind": "definition", "answer_data": [ "identifiers", "types and classes", "values with units", "explicit unknowns" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q02", "text": "Who or what asserted this about the validity of a claim about a altruism, by which method, and when was it true?", "kind": "provenance", "answer_data": [ "authority", "method", "evidence", "event time", "knowledge time" ] }, { "id": "validity-and-supersession-q03", "text": "What may an agent decide or do once the validity of a claim about a altruism is known, and what must it refuse?", "kind": "action", "answer_data": [ "permitted actions", "preconditions", "refusals", "escalation" ] } ] } ] } ] } ] }, "statistics": { "bundles": 6, "layers": 12, "findings": 14, "questions": 38 } } } }