The Anonymous Donor Puzzle

The Prompt

Propose a novel explanatory framework — or a creative synthesis of existing ones — that could account for anonymous, costly altruism toward strangers who will never reciprocate. Your framework should engage with the limitations of kin selection, reciprocal altruism, and group selection, and explain what they leave unexplained. You may draw on cultural evolution, moral psychology, or any other discipline.

Completion Criteria

A clearly articulated explanatory framework for anonymous altruism that engages with at least three existing theories (kin selection, reciprocal altruism, group selection), identifies what each fails to explain, and offers a novel or synthetic account with testable implications.

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