Are people innately altruistic?" is the wrong kind of question to ask. People are people, and they respond to incentives. They can nearly always be manipulated--for good or ill--if only you find the right levers.

Steven D. Levitt
About This Quote

This quote is often misused. The question of whether people are innately altruistic (i.e., whether people are innately good) is fundamentally different than the question of whether people respond to incentives (i.e., whether people can be manipulated). A fundamental question of morality is whether people are inherently good. If they are, then efforts to manipulate their behavior for good purposes will succeed.

If they are not, then attempts to manipulate them will fail. This quote intends to get at the latter question.

Source: Superfreakonomics: Global Cooling, Patriotic Prostitutes And Why Suicide Bombers Should Buy Life Insurance

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