The Oxford English Dictionary defines altruism as "the belief in or practice of disinterested or selfless concern for the well-being of others." An altruistic action is one in which the benefit to another is counterbalanced by a cost to oneself. Without any sort of material or spiritual reward, one selflessly devotes their time or money or energy to the betterment of his or her fellow human (or animal, if one so desires).
In 1971, Robert Trivers developed and published his theory of reciprocal altruism. This makes much more practical sense to me as a model for human behavior. The premise of reciprocal altrusism is that one only performs a supposedly "altruistic" act when there is a perceived - although potentially delayed - benefit to oneself. Feeling a sense of satisfaction after performing a "selfless" act may not seem like a tangible benefit, but this moral elation and sense of accomplishment carries with it a boost to one's psychological - and thusly (arguably) medical - well-being.
Does the capacity for "true" altruism exist? Does it matter if it does not?
Let's briefly consider a few scenarios:
Scenario One: A woman sees a man drop his wallet on the subway. She picks it up and returns it to him.
Scenario Two: Adolf Hitler sends millions of Jews to their execution during the Holocaust.
Scenario Three: A family donates $200 to the Red Cross in the wake of Hurricane Katrina.
Scenario Four: A young criminal steals a man's wallet at knifepoint.
What are the differences between these four scenarios? At first glance, they seem completely unrelated. Scenarios one and two are generous and morally righteous while scenarios three and four are criminal and, in the case of scenario two, genocidal. After establishing these initial (and admittedly important) differences, we must now ask ourselves what these four scenarios have in common.
All four scenarios confer some kind of benefit upon our subject. In the first, the woman feels like she has done the "right thing" and feels morally superior. Perhaps, if she believes in some vague notion of karma, she expects that some good will come back to her eventually. In the second, Hitler achieves his goals of ethnic cleansing and preserves his notion of the "master race." In the third, the family benefits much like the woman in the first scenario. In the fourth, the young criminal is "rewarded" with some easy cash and perhaps a few credit cards to max out before the unhappy victim can get home to cancel them.
Article comments
1 - Victor Plenty
Your arguments fail to convince because they rely on too many unsupported premises, which you attempt to simply declare as true by fiat. Clearly you have convinced yourself there is no such thing as a truly selfless act. But you have given me no particular reason to agree with your conclusion.
Consider this comment, for example. It's quite likely I will derive no satisfaction from it whatsoever. You won't change your point of view, and I won't change mine. Most likely, the world will continue on as if I'd never commented at all. Yet I comment anyway. Why do I do it? Perhaps because commenting is the right action to take at this time, regardless of whether or not I enjoy doing so.
Does that make this comment a selfless act? Perhaps not. But perhaps it does make this comment something other than selfish.
2 - Bryan McKay
I didn't say there was no such thing as a truly selfless act.
"It's hard, when looking entirely at hypotheticals, to arrive at any sort of objective truth."
Show me a truly selfless act and I won't deny that it's selfless. I don't have any particularly committment to this idea, it's just an idea that I have yet to see proved wrong.
That doesn't mean I don't see plenty of acts that are far more compassionate than they are selfish. And perhaps selfish is the wrong word to use in the first place. I do believe, however, that in a vast majority of scenarios (if not all) that humans make an internal cost/benefit analysis. If there isn't going to be some payoff somewhere and the risk is potentially high, I think most people would not be inclined to take those chances.
Think about this: given the low potential for risk, I'm guessing you could find far more evidence for true altruism in small acts such as holding a door for someone than you could in someone such as a war hero. There may be exceptions in both cases - they may all be altruistic or none of them may be - but I think I might be more inclined to find true altruism where the potential risks are low.
3 - shane walsh
I thought i was the first to come up with that phrase --ethical masturbation--fair play to you! just googled the idea.
I do believe I am guilty ..and the whole/ well a sizeable amount anyway... NGO scene thrives on it!
shane