Altruism

Altruism

-Scott Ayers, section 11

Altruism is the belief that someone’s moral decisions should be motivated by the consideration for the interests and well-being of other rather than merely by self-interest. This belief is in contradiction to egoism, which is the idea that all actions are self-serving, even though a common psychological claim is that all human action is self-serving. This idea of being self-serving goes against what many societies try and get their population to do. People tend to help those they relate to over strangers. Someone is more likely to assist someone they at least have at least some relationship with.  

However, there needs to be some distinction between how people are motivated to help others out. Someone many perform an altruistic action, but they will not always be motivated by altruism. There are many ways for someone can be motivated to perform an action, but the ones relating to altruism include: selfishness, moral, and altruism itself. Someone may do something for someone else thinking that they will receive a reward or some future benefit from it. You return a book to the library because you do not want to pay the fine that comes with late books While someone may perform that same action because it is the right thing to do. You return a book you borrowed from the library because it is the right thing to do. And finally, altruism can motivate someone’s actions itself. Someone could give you a book because they think you will enjoy said book and benefit from it. All of these motives can apply to the same action and have different ratios in which the action was motivated. Like how someone could return that book that is due because they know it’s the right thing to do, but they also do not want to put the librarian through the trouble of dealing with that late book. Someone can perform an altruistic action but not be altruistically motivated at all.  

There is another distinction between altruistic actions that needs to be made as well. There are strong altruistic actions and there are weak altruistic actions even though they are both altruistic in nature. This distinction is based on more of a risk versus reward system. It is easier for someone to perform a simple nice action that they take no risk in doing. When you compare this action to say something like someone running into a burning building to rescue others from the fire you can see there is an obvious difference in the risk the two peoples are taking. This is the difference between weak and strong altruism as someone takes more risk for others their actions become more strongly altruistic.  

Now I think we can all agree that acting altruistically is in the best interests of a society. But if that is the case then why do we as humans not act altruistically by our very nature. This goes back to the psychological claim of egoism, that all actions are in some way self-centered motivated. We as humans are just not programmed, at least by current understanding, to purely think what the best for society is. However, this does not mean that we as humans cannot be altruistic. It's just saying that we will always be at least in some way motivated by self-interest. (And Dr. Oliver I know this a psychological claim, but I think it is important to understanding why we act in certain ways.) 

I believe that we as humans want to strive towards altruism. It is a form of utopia in a way; it can be seen as the perfect society. We all want to be altruistic a lot of the time but are afraid of the consequences that we face. But when we do finally break that barrier that is caused most often by the bystander effect, we make real change happen. A prime example of this is soldiers during war time. It might sound a bit strange, but when soldiers are fighting together, they form bonds with their fellow soldiers that is as close or closer than family. This is called brotherhood, or the idea that the group is more important than themselves. These soldiers destroy the risk versus reward predicament with most altruistic actions completely with their willingness to die for their brothers. Altruism may not be what we as humans are naturally meant to act with it can be something that we can aim to do.  

Discussion

1.  Do you think that humans act in an altruistic nature in contradiction to egoism? If so why do you think we do?

2. Is altruism even truly possible, what do you think?

Comments:

1. https://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2019/12/mackenzie-marsh-final-post-section-12.html?showComment=1575756091628#c5540950992632597427

2. https://cophilosophy.blogspot.com/2019/12/12-report-by-victoria-cowan-william.html?showComment=1575756798618#c2363797175793769213

Sources
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/#pagetopright

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism/