Philosophical Notes
Altruism
THERE’S AN ARGUMENT OUT THERE that purports to show that truly altruistic behavior–performing an act for the sake of someone else–doesn’t actually exist. If sound, that argument would seem to have some major ethical reverberations. So let’s have a look at it to learn whether its proponents are on to something…. Or maybe nothing.
The argument begins with the premise that no one does anything freely unless they want to.
It’s a pretty unobjectionable premise. It does seem that for any freely chosen act you can name, a person chooses to perform that act only if they desire (want) to do so. But how about the guy who chooses to go to work when he’d love to stay home and play catch with his son? Isn’t he freely choosing to do something he doesn’t want to do? Yes. But he’s also choosing to do something he does want to do–keep his job so he can pay for some groceries. And that desire trumps his desire to stay home. The guy is performing the act he most wants to do.
So let’s grant the premise.
But then the argument continues by claiming that the fact that no one does anything freely unless they want to includes people who perform so-called altruistic acts. No one freely chooses to perform an altruistic act unless they want to. Either it makes them feel good or they perform the act to avoid feeling guilty for not doing it. They wouldn’t do it otherwise. Not of their own free choice.
And now the shocking conclusion (Ta Da):
All so-called “altruistic” acts are actually selfish at heart. We don’t do them for the sake of others, but for our own sake.
Therefore, true altruism does not exist.
Whoa! Apparently, we have been bamboozled all these years, thinking there were people who do things for the sake of other people, while in reality they were only doing what made them feel good. Those who pretend to be focused on the well-being of others are no less self-centered than anyone else.
Now you know what it means to say a little philosophy is a dangerous thing. Because this argument, which purports to unveil the truth about altruism, is a poster child for bad reasoning.
Basically, the argument is claiming that if you want to help someone out, then the fact that you want to do so taints your action, makes it selfish.
But that’s all wrong:
Imagine that Mother Martha and her three children are sitting down to a chicken dinner with hot biscuits and gravy. Ummm, sounds tasty. Problem is, the dog jumped up on a chair when no one was looking and snatched himself a biscuit, so there are only three biscuits left. Now Martha would like a hot biscuit as much as anyone else at the table, but what she wants more is for all her kids to have one, so she insists that they each have a biscuit, while she will have a slice of bread. With this decided, Brother Hank grabs for the biscuits first so he can get the biggest one. With his other hand, he quickly reaches for the gravy ladle to make sure he gets plenty of gravy to pour over his biscuit. That way he’s able to spoon out a third of the gravy for himself, leaving his two siblings and his mother to share what remains.
Now what can we say about this scenario? Does Martha feel good about sacrificing some of her eating pleasure by insisting that the others get the three biscuits? Sure she does. It gives her a warm feeling to know that due to her sacrifice, each of the others will get a biscuit.
But does that mean her act was selfish? Not unless we want to butcher the English language. The word “selfish” has a clear, accepted definition that the great majority of us understand, and Martha’s action certainly does not fall within that definition. On the other hand, we do have an excellent example of someone who is selfish–Brother Hank–who takes what he wants with little if any consideration for anyone else. He has a warm feeling in his belly too–caused by a big biscuit and a nice helping of gravy. But his pleasure is the result of selfish actions, whereas Martha’s is the result of an altruistic one.
Here’s where some people get confused. Still thinking about the initial argument, they may say, “But because Martha wouldn’t have given up a biscuit unless doing so caused her to feel good, then it was a selfish act, wasn’t it? Maybe not in the same sense that Hank’s actions were selfish, but in some sense selfish.”
OK, suppose we say that Martha’s action was selfish in one sense. Call her action selfish-1. And let’s say Hank’s actions were selfish in another sense. Call his actions selfish-2. So now we have two words describing two kinds of actions. Selfish-1 actions are actions that a person feels good about doing because they do them for the sake of someone else. Selfish-2 actions are actions that a person feels good about because they are done for one’s own self with little or no regard for anyone else.
But wait a minute. Why muck up the language by insisting that we define these two new words, selfish-1 and selfish-2? We already have two perfectly good words that refer to those two kinds of actions–the two words are” “altruistic” actions and “selfish” actions.
The linguistic and conceptual bottom line here is this: Those who insist that all altruistic actions are selfish actions are actually proposing that we conflate two completely distinct concepts into one, thereby losing the distinction. It’s a terrible idea, a step backwards not only linguistically, but in our understanding and appreciation of ethical action.
The ethical bottom line is that we should be thankful that we humans feel good about actions we freely perform for the sake of others. Because wanting to help others, getting pleasure out of lending a hand, is the very essence of altruism.
One other ethical point we might make is this: It would be good to teach the dog not to steal biscuits!
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