Altruism within the Family Reconsidered: Do Nice Guys Finish Last?

We criticize the view that altruism either increases the benefits of group interactions or improves the allocation of resources within families. Altruism can alter the social utility possibility frontier in surprising and sometimes unfortunate ways. Altruism also often entails exploitability and therefore causes family members to behave in ways that leave all parties worse off. In addition, altruists have difficulty enforcing agreements since they may be extremely reluctant to punish betrayals.