[Image found at the Volunteering England site]
Yesterday’s New York Times (online edition) carried a new entry [JES: link now fixed!] in their “Opinionator” series of weighty questions: “Is Pure Altruism Possible?”
At a certain level, this is the stuff of unresolvable university-level dorm/roommate bull-session debate. The arguments against “pure altruism” seem cold-bloodedly obvious — even if taken to the extreme. Someone who knowingly and apparently willingly sacrifices his/her own life to save someone else’s, well, aren’t they just acting out of a desire to feel good about themselves, to show off as it were, to be noble and be sure we know it? The author of the column (Judith Lichtenberg, a Georgetown University professor of philosophy) isn’t so sure, though. She concludes:
Altruism is possible and altruism is real, although in healthy people it intertwines subtly with the well-being of the agent who does good. And this is crucial for seeing how to increase the amount of altruism in the world. Aristotle had it right in his “Nicomachean Ethics” [link added]: we have to raise people from their “very youth” and educate them “so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought.”
But yes: that right there, that troublesome “ought.” How much does altruism just (or “just,” in quotes) fulfill a sense of obligation — of mere duty, per society’s “rules” — as opposed to a genuine sense of self-sacrifice?
And if you’re not ready for philosophy today, or at the moment, can a purely altruistic character ever work in fiction? Must they all have dark and selfish sides in order to be believable? Can dark and selfish characters sacrifice themselves without sacrificing credibility?
______________
Update: Querulous Squirrel, who comments at RAMH often, has come up with a fictional diarist — one Serena Passion — whose most recent entry brooded about those who like to think of themselves as (but never quite are, in SP’s eyes) good people.
Update #2: Duh! For reasons I can’t explain, I used a link not to the Times Opinionator column, but to a post on Froog’s blog. Corrected. Apologies to those who might have been confused, and also to Froog (who perhaps wondered why his stats had mysteriously nudged upward for 24 hours).
The Querulous Squirrel says
There is compassion, an emotion, which might lead to altruism. But as the quote above points out, altruism is never pure. There is always the exchange of positive feelings for the giver who then feels “I’m a good person” and this can unfortunately lead to less altruistic behavior elsewhere, so of like “I gave at the office.” or “I gave to Greenpeace.” We humans ALWAYS expect something in exchange for our gifts. All gifts create obligation. But with true altruism, the altruism itself gives back. Thanks for citing Serena’s Diaries. Her obnoxious boyfriend Friebish is a perfect example of someone who gives to Greenpeace and so thinks of himself as a good person and feels entitled to be selfish and obnoxious and a moocher in other ways.
Eileen says
This feels like a chicken and egg debate. If you believe that acts of altruism benefit the world then there can be no altruism because by benefiting the world the agent of altruism benefits … in a vague general sort of way that has no immediate effect on anyone’s life. Oh, for crying out loud, just do something nice for someone today.
The other day I put change in a parking meter that had run down to just two minutes. This was not the meter my car was parked next to, but I had extra change in my hands and no pockets to put it in. I guess if I’d had pockets to put the change in it might have been altruistic of me. But I didn’t have pockets, so I was benefiting from not having to carry the annoying dime/nickel combination. Chicken. Egg.
marta says
We can’t really know the mind and heart of anyone. I can know their actions. I’ve certainly known people who seem to think that because they “gave at the office” they are off the hook with the rest of humanity. And people who give to charities and to strangers but can’t give love to their own families.
But how are we human beings supposed to feel good about ourselves anyway? Why is it wrong to feel good about one’s self? That’s what the question suggests, doesn’t it? It isn’t altruism if you benefit, if you think you’re a better person. And in some cases I can see the selfishness of that. At the same time, how am I to feel? Am I to feel bad about myself? Will this make me a better person?
So, if I decided to do something altruistic while my son is looking because I want him to be altruistic and I want him to think well of me, am I wrong? Should I be altruistic in secret? Then my son will never know this about me and maybe he will grow up thinking I’m not altruistic. How will that shape him?
I don’t really see how you can have one without the other. Maybe if the world sees me acting decently, more of the world will act decently to. All this benefits me.
Sometimes I think there’s enough guilt in the world over being happy. Like, I can’t be happy because other people are going through hell.
One altruistic act doesn’t make a person altruistic. Feeling good about helping others doesn’t make one basically selfish. And, now that I’m thinking more and more about this, what about a woman who sacrifices everything for her children and husband. Is she altruistic or a doormat?
I try to teach my son that altruism isn’t a special act. It is life. It is something we do to make sharing this planet a bit better for everyone.
My mother would sometimes pretend to be the one to make the unpleasant, unpopular choice, to be seen as a bad, mean mother, just so someone would not know it was actually my decision. That was a type of sacrifice for me, but who else was ever going to know? She did that a few times to keep grandmother from being mad at me. I don’t know if my mother felt better about herself afterwards.
Great topic. But I’m going to stop nattering on now.
John says
Squirrel: Years ago, my then-employer brought in a consultant to teach us his approach to time and paperwork management. (It involved using a sort of DayTimer planner, customized in various ways, and so I’m pretty sure 90% of us didn’t continue to use it for more than a couple weeks.) Whatever else I could say about the guy, I thought he was a hugely entertaining speaker and group leader.
One of his examples led him to draw an analogy to dieting. He asked us for examples of excuses people use to cheat on their diets. I volunteered, “I’ve been so good!”
He laughed and said, “Right — like if I open my mouth and insert that giant piece of cake, the calories won’t actually count because I’ve been good!”
I think this happens in the case of people like Serena’s Friebish, in contexts other than dieting I mean. They construct a sort of psychological balance scale — good things go in the pan on the right, and ass-hattery goes in the pan on the left, and once they amass a certain volume of the one they feel compelled to balance it out with more of the other.
John says
Eileen: Chicken-and-egg — I hate that sort of dilemma.
One of the commenters on the column said (gratuitous sarcasm snipped):
I thought that was a very interesting perspective — almost a Schrodinger’s-cat sort of explanation. It says that if you’d just dropped that change in the meter while actually distracted by something else (a seeming impossibility), then it would have been a truly altruistic act. But as soon as you notice what you’re doing, and consider that it’s a good thing, then your altruism vanishes. (Note that this also seems to put the lie to the “golden rule.”)
Few things make me angrier than someone who asks, reflexively, What’s in it for ME? before doing something good.
John says
marta: I didn’t think you were nattering at all. (And I’m not just saying that to make you feel good, ha. Or to make myself feel good, haha.) Thanks for thinking so hard about it!
In a way, it doesn’t matter to me what someone’s intentions are — what moves them to behave one way or the other. (“I didn’t mean to hurt anybody!” isn’t much of an excuse, no matter what sort of hurt it’s talking about.) All that really matters is, what’s the net effect? If Person A is better off because s/he’s received encouragement from Person B, what difference does it make if B meant to help A, or wanted to feel good about him/herself, or was forced into it by Person C — some authority figure? Both A and B are better off because it happened. And more: even if I never know either A or B, I think my own life is incrementally better because of it.
So in all those little lessons you’re giving your son, I’m getting some benefit from it, too. A world in which people do good things for one another seems to be a world preferable to one in which they sit around waiting for good things to happen to them, y’know?