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1 Intentions, actual results and expected resultsThe ultimate way of understanding behavior is from the point ofview of effects. Effects should be measured for pattems of behavior,strategies. These strategies should then be judged according to theirstatistically expected results. For an evolutionary biologist this comesnaturally, but also a philosopher like Adam Smith shares this view,stressing the importance of "design, not events" (See e.g. Binmore1994). When I classify according to effects I mean effects that areexpected in this statistical sense in contrast to the two variants ofintention - what the actor intended and what we as observers think heintended. Such an expected effect is also in contrast to actualoutcome - a credit loss of a bank should not be regarded as postJaetaltruism.Strategies are not necessarily outspoken or even conscious to theactor (Lopreato 1981). In philosophyas in law, claims of goodintentions are given a central importance although there are excellentpossibilities for manipulation. This not only through convincing lies,but also through lies that are improbable but not impossible.Furthermore, our thoughts, prejudices and self-deception might bequite complicated and hard to sort out. A type of behavior might beegoistic in terms of its statistical effects, even if the agent himself isconvinced of a pure altruistic motivation. The intention is by itself oflimited interest. However, psychology is also a proximate mechanismfor the execution of behavior, and the factor of prime interest here isthe behavior and the consequences of that behavior.Natural selection work upon behavior that has negative effects, butthat is a long-tenn process. Behaviors, having evolved because theywere adaptive in one environment, may not be so in a newenvironment. The radical changes of human societies from thehunter-gatherer mode, puts man in radical new environments towhich he hardly can be expected to be perfectly adapted. Ideologyand religion will be strong forces that influence humans to behave inways that are sub optimal from the perspectives of organism andgene. Not least will psychological heuristics - normally helpful forboth cognitive and emotionai choices - be exploited by others toobtain advantages. My position is that humans do perform samealtruistic behavior, i.e. acts where the expected returns do notcompensate for the costs, and that such altruism can be of more orless systematic occurrence in societies. The reasons for altruism -I: 4