Biological metaphysical scientism in addressing the issue of altruism and egoism

The aim of this research is philosophical analysis of the most influential approach to the explanation of altruism and egoism as phenomena of natural and cultural human existence, which are represented by biology. Nowadays biology is the leader of the scientific avantgarde. The research focuses on the most debatable parts of biology (sociobiology, evolutionary ethics and psychology, human etiology), and offers a solution to the problem of altruism and egoism, their functional characteristics in nature and culture. The methodology of the analysis has been determined by a look at the ongoing scientism of culture and philosophy from the standpoint of the dialectical method. The problem solved in the given article is connected with the contrariety and ambiguity of the understanding of altruism and egoism in humanitarian knowledge and with the specific apology of naturalism caused by confident claims to explain these phenomena by the rapidly developing complex of biological sciences. This problem can be formulated in the following questions: What does the “Bio Big Bang” observed in the Humanities mean? How can we explain the apparent lack of alternatives to naturalism in solving the problem of altruism and egoism? It is proved that the conceptualization and absolutization of models of altruism and egoism that have been developed in these areas of knowledge are, in fact, a methodological and worldview expansion of biology which can be qualified as a biological form of metaphysic scientism and denoted by the term “biocracy”. The authors have revealed two types of such scientism: traditional, where nature is a subject which exceeds a human in its power and wisdom, and innovative, where nature is an object which can be technically modernized up to a biotechnological modernization of morality (“ethic eugenics”). The authors have shown that sociobiology is a kind of a reverse toward traditional biological scientism and has the meaning of a preventive measure. It implicitly expresses concern for the modern scale of innovative transformations of human nature and articulates the request for “naturalization”. It contributes to the formation of a different, “biophilic” attitude to nature, which increases our chances for survival as a minimum, for salvation as a maximum. Sociobiology reminds that the mind and the altruistic-moral principle had a common genesis. If altruism performs the function of species protection in the animal world, it performs the functions of protection of humans and culture in human society. But the tension of the long “leash”, by which nature constrains culture, becomes critical. If it breaks, this aromorphosis in the history of our species will be the last on the way to a posthuman future in which, obviously, there will be no problem of altruism and egoism.

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