Altruism, gender and hominization

This paper studies the way the notions of altruism and empathy have been variously used to account for the origins and evolution of human societies, particularly in relation with the question of gender differences.
From the 1970s onwards, hominization models produced in English-speaking countries by archaeologists and feminist anthropologists put up, thus challenging the dominant model of Man the Hunter, women’s ability to gather, associated with their particular inclination to empathy and altruism. Alternative models developed by sociobiology and evolutionary psychology view “the selfish gene” (the innate urge to reproduce one’s genes) as the entry point into any approach to individual and social behaviour. In this context, altruism is considered as a result of interest calculations, or as the effect of neurobiological and hormonal determinism at the roots of maternal behaviour, and, consequently, of altruistic characteristics in human societies.
These different notions of altruism will be appraised in a critical perspective, with regard to a philosophical reflection on the ethical foundations of human relationships.