According to this far-fetched hypothesis, whenever we act for our own good, we do so not at all for our own sake, but always entirely for the sake of someone else. The important point here is that the denial that altruism exists should be regarded with as much suspicion as this contrary denial, according to which people never act ultimately for their own good. Both are dubious universal generalizations.
Both have far less plausibility than the common sense assumption that people sometimes act in purely egoistic ways, sometimes in purely altruistic ways, and often in ways that mix, in varying degrees, the good of oneself and the good of others. An assumption that many people make about egoistic and altruistic motives is that it is more difficult to justify the latter than the former, or that the former do not require justification whereas the latter do.
Self-interest, it might be said, can be given no justification and needs none. By contrast, since other people are other , it seems as though some reason needs to be given for building a bridge from oneself to those others. In other words, we apparently have to find something in others that justifies our taking an interest in their well-being, whereas one need not seek something in oneself that would justify self-regard.
Perhaps what we find in others that justifies altruism is that they are just like oneself in important respects. It is worth asking whether this apparent asymmetry between justifying self-interest and justifying altruism is real or only apparent.
One response to this question is that the asymmetry is illusory because the very distinction between oneself and others is artificial and an obstacle to clear thinking. The mind of a newborn, a child, an adolescent, a young adult, a middle aged person, and an old person approaching death—these can have at least as many differences as do those who are conventionally counted as two distinct individuals.
If a young man of twenty years sets aside money to provide for his retirement in old age, he is saving for someone who will be quite different from himself. Why should that not be called altruism rather than self-interest? Why does it matter whether it is called acting for his own good or for the good of another? See Parfit Introspection can tell us something about sensations, feelings, and thoughts—but we do not have any experience of some entity that is the one who has these sensations, feelings, and thoughts.
That point might be regarded as a reason to reject the common sense view that when you refer to yourself, and distinguish yourself from someone else, there is something real that you are talking about, or some valid distinction between yourself and others.
It might be thought, in other words, that the ordinary distinction between altruistic and egoistic motives is misguided because there are no such things as selves. A third metaphysical possibility is this: human beings cannot be understood one by one, as though each were a self-sufficient and fully real individual. That way of thinking about ourselves fails to recognize the profound way in which we are by our nature social beings. You and I and others are by our nature mere parts of some larger social unit.
As an analogy, one might think of the human body and such parts of the body as fingers, hands, arms, legs, toes, torso, and so on. They cannot exist, much less function properly, in isolation. Similarly, it might be said that individual human beings are mere fragments of a larger social whole.
The remainder of this essay will set aside these unorthodox alternatives to the common sense metaphysical framework that we normally presuppose when we think about self-interested and altruistic motives. It would take us too far afield to examine them. We will continue to make these assumptions: First, a single individual human being persists over time from birth to death, even when the mental life of that individual undergoes many changes.
And the fact that we do not encounter such an object by introspection is no reason to doubt the validity of the distinction made between oneself and others. Third, although certain things arms, legs, noses, etc. Accordingly, it is one thing for a reason to be self-interested, and another for it to be altruistic although of course one and the same act can be supported by both kinds of reasons.
Assuming, then, that the distinction between these motives is real, the questions we asked at the beginning of this section remain: Why ought one to be altruistic? Does one need a justification for being motivated in this way?
Is egoistic motivation on a sounder footing than altruistic motivation, in that it stands in no need of justification? Radically different ways of answering these questions can be found in moral philosophy. The first makes self-interested motivation fundamental; it holds that we should be altruistic because it is in our interest to be so moved.
That strategy is often attributed to the Greek and Roman philosophers of antiquity—Plato, Aristotle, the Stoics, and the Epicureans see Annas In the modern era, a second approach has come to the fore, built on the notion that moral thinking is not self-centered but impartial and impersonal.
A third approach, championed by David Hume , Adam Smith , and Arthur Schopenhauer , gives sympathy, compassion, and personal affection—rather than impartial reason—a central role to play in the moral life. In favorable conditions, we naturally and emotionally respond to the weal and woe of others; we do not and should not look for reasons to do so. The term is sometimes applied to a family of meta-ethical views that ground the meaning or justification of moral propositions in attitudes rather than response-independent facts Blackburn Here, by contrast, sentimentalism is a ground-level thesis about what is most valuable in human relationships.
It could be combined with meta-ethical sentimentalism, but need not be. These three approaches are hardly an exhaustive survey of all that has been said in the Western philosophical tradition about altruism. A fuller treatment would examine the Christian conception of love, as developed by thinkers of the medieval period. To a large extent, such figures as Augustine and Aquinas work within a eudaimonistic framework, although they are also influenced by the Neoplatonic picture of the visible world as an outpouring of the bountifulness of divine goodness.
To the extent that rewards of heaven and the sufferings of hell play a role in a theocentric framework, there are instrumental reasons, for those who need them, to care for others.
But there are other reasons as well. Other-regarding virtues like charity and justice are perfections of the human soul and are therefore components of our earthly well-being. God is a person who loves his creation, human beings above all. When we love others for themselves, we imitate God and express our love for him Lewis As Aristotle observes at the beginning of the Nicomachean Ethics , whenever we act, we aim at some good—but goods are not all at the same level.
Lower goods are undertaken for the sake of more valuable goals, which are in turn pursued in order to achieve still better goods. This hierarchy of value cannot continue endlessly—a life must have some ultimate goal, something that is valuable in itself and not for the sake of anything still better. On the contrary, he holds that the common good the good of the whole political community is superior to the good of a single individual. Is this an implausible assumption?
That is the accusation of many systems of modern moral philosophy, but one must be careful not to attribute to Greek and Roman ethics an extreme endorsement of selfishness.
One way to see that this would be unfair is to recognize how important it is to Aristotle that we love others for their sake. It is clear, then, that he explicitly condemns those who treat others as mere means to their own ends.
It is crucial, at this point, that we keep in mind the distinction, drawn above in section 1. We should recall a point made in section 1. For Aristotle, altruism should always be accompanied by self-interested motives. His system of practical thought could be dismissed out of hand if one begins with the assumption that moral motivation must be purely altruistic, free from all taint of self-regard. Otherwise, it would not count as moral.
That idea has some currency, and it is often attributed rightly or wrongly to Kant. But on reflection, it is open to question. In section 1. Such a person seems insufficiently altruistic, insufficiently willing to make compromises for the good of others.
He is to use the term introduced earlier never altruistic in the strong sense. To be fair to him, he does not deny this; on the other hand, he does say that treating others well never makes one worse off. The idea underlying this objection is that we should be directly concerned with others: the fact that an act one performs benefits someone else can already provide a reason for undertaking it, without having to be accompanied by a self -interested reason.
There is no argument to be found in ancient ethics —none is offered—that purports to show that the only way to justify having other-regarding motives is by appealing to the good it does oneself to have them. At the same time, that gives us no reason to dismiss out of hand the efforts made by these authors to show that in fact one does benefit by having altruistic motives. As noted earlier section 1.
The examples used there were excellence in the arts, the sciences, and sport. But excelling at ethical life is also a plausible example, since it consists in developing and exercising cognitive, emotional, and social skills that we are pleased and proud to have.
We turn now to the idea, central to one modern approach to ethics, that when we think morally, we reason from an impartial or impersonal perspective. Moral thinking is not self-centered.
Of course we all have an emotional bias that attaches special weight to self-interest, and we are often partial to our particular circle of friends or our community. But when we look at the world from a moral point of view, we try to set aside this self-centered framework. It is as though we forget about locating ourselves as this particular person; we abstract away from our normal self-centered perspective and seek the solution to a practical problem that anyone similarly impartial would also arrive at.
It is not clear how these ideas can be made to fit within a eudaimonistic framework. One way of looking at the history of ethics would be to say that modern ethics salvages the impartialism that occasionally appears in ancient ethics, and rightly abandons its attempt to derive a justification of altruism from a prior commitment to self-interest. Contemporary eudaimonists, of course, would tell a different story see, for example Annas ; LeBar ; Russell The notion of impartiality has thus far been described in highly general terms, and it is important to see that there are different ways of making it more concrete.
One way of doing so is adopted by utilitarians, and more generally, by consequentialists. The utilitarianism of Bentham , Mill , and Sidgwick holds that one is to maximize the greatest balance of pleasure over pain—treating pleasure and the absence of pain as the sole constituents of well-being.
Consequentialism abstracts away from this hedonistic component of utilitarianism; it requires one to maximize the greatest balance of good over bad. See Driver But the same point applies equally and with equal force to the well-being of anyone else. But that is not the only way of taking the general notion of impartiality and making it more specific. The general idea, as stated earlier, is that moral thinking, unlike prudential thinking, is not self-centered.
He makes no special exceptions for himself or his friends. Suppose, for example, that you are a lifeguard and one afternoon you must choose between swimming north to rescue one group and swimming south to rescue another. The northern group includes your friend, but the southern group, full of strangers, is much larger.
The ideal of impartiality described in the previous paragraph does not by itself determine what one should do in this situation; what it requires is simply that it should make no difference that the lifeguard faced with this dilemma is you and the northern group includes your friend.
What you should do, if you are the lifeguard, is what any lifeguard ought to do in that situation. If it is right to take friendship into consideration, when making this decision, then it would be right for anyone to do so. What would be right, in that case, would be for each individual to choose the good of his or her friend over the good of strangers.
The consequentialist has a more radical interpretation of what impartiality means and requires. His ideal of impartiality does not allow the lifeguard to take into consideration the fact that by swimming north he will be able to save his friend. After all, the well-being of his friend is not made more valuable simply because that person is his friend. Just as my good is not made more valuable than the good of others simply because it is my good, so too the well-being of my friend deserves no extra weight because he is a friend of mine.
So, the lifeguard, according to the consequentialist, must choose to save one group rather than the other solely on the basis of the greater balance of good over bad. As a rule, I have more knowledge about what is good for me than I have about what is good for strangers. It often requires fewer resources for me to benefit myself than to benefit others. I know immediately when I am hungry without having to ask, and I know what kind of food I like.
But additional steps are needed to find out when others are hungry and which food they like. Even so, there is only one individual who is me; and the number of other individuals whom I can benefit, if I make the effort, is very large.
When all of these factors are taken into consideration, it will often be the case that self-interested reasons ought to give way to altruistic motives. Consequentialism evidently does not recognize certain ways in which each human being has a special relation to her own well-being—a relation different from the one she has to the well-being of others. When each of us becomes an adult, we are normally charged with the special responsibility of having to look after our own welfare.
Young children are not expected to be in command of their own lives; they are not yet competent to occupy this role. But the point of their education is to train them so that as adults they can be responsible for themselves.
A fully mature person is rightly expected by others to care for someone in particular—namely herself. She is given room to make decisions about her own life but is not given the same kind and degree of authority over the lives of others. If she would like to devote herself to others, she cannot simply do so without receiving their permission, or without taking other steps that make her entry into their lives permissible.
Consequentialism, by contrast, regards all adult human beings as equally responsible for the well-being of all. According to the weaker interpretation of impartiality described above, moral rules reflect this division of labor. Consider, for example, the duty we normally have to help others, even when they are strangers. If someone is in need, and asks for your assistance, that gives you a reason to help him, and you should do so, provided that compliance with such appeals is not overly burdensome.
Notice the escape clause: it builds into the duty to aid others a recognition of the importance of each person having a significant degree of control over his own life. Common sense morality assumes that what we owe to others might call for some sacrifice of our own good, but also that in the ordinary business of life the degree of sacrifice should fall within certain limits, so that we can make good use of the responsibility we have been given as adults to seek our own good.
The balance struck by moral rules between the claims of self-interest and the claims of others is what makes it possible for those rules to be recognized and accepted as appropriate.
These rules leave us free to volunteer to make greater sacrifices; but such greater sacrifices are not required of us except in extraordinary circumstances wars, disasters, emergencies. Eudaimonism replies that those who act for the sake of others are benefited by having an altruistic disposition. There is, in other words, no reason why a benefit should go to you rather than someone else just because you are the one who would be receiving it.
If we adopt a weaker interpretation of impartiality, we see the justification of altruism simply by seeing that we have a duty to aid other people in certain circumstances. The moral rule that requires us to help others is a rule that calls upon us to help them not as a means to our own good, but simply in virtue of their need.
And we see the rule as justified by recognizing that it strikes a proper balance between our self-concern and the appropriate claims of others. The weak impartialist attempts to occupy a middle ground.
Yet another conception of impartiality—and a novel argument for the rationality of altruism—can be found in the work of Thomas Nagel. In The Possibility of Altruism , he seeks to undermine both psychological egoism, in its strong form, as defined in section 2. But absent these contingent relations to others, one has, according to the ethical egoist, no reason to care about their well-being.
Nagel doubts that anyone actually is a psychological egoist 84—85 , but his major concern is to refute ethical egoism, by showing that altruism is a rational requirement on action. His idea is not simply that we ought in certain circumstances to help others for their sake; it is also that we are acting irrationally if we do not. As he puts it,.
Similarly, he holds, one has reason not to be indifferent to other people, because the fact that some individual is me is not more reason-giving simply because he is me. A time that is later eventually becomes a time that is now; that is why it is arbitrary and irrational to discount the future simply because it is future. From this perspective, one need not be a utilitarian or consequentialist—one need not maximize the good, but can abide by the constraints of principles of the right.
But certain principles are ruled out from the impersonal standpoint: egoism is, as well as any other principle that gives one individual or group a reason not shared by all others.
So, it cannot be the case that although I have a reason to avoid pain, others are permitted to be indifferent to my plight, as if that pain were not an objectively bad thing, something that gives only the person who feels it a reason to oppose it.
The critique of egoism in The Possibility of Altruism rests on the thesis that all genuine reasons are agent neutral. Our common sense point of view, moving from our inner life looking outward, lulls us into a massive kind of insularity—a tendency to downplay or ignore the fact that we are just one individual of no greater importance than any other. We put ourselves at the center of our world, and this can only be corrected by stepping back, leaving out of our picture the particular individual one is, and making general judgments about how human beings should behave towards each other.
Nagel is faced with the problem of how to explain why self-interest is not regularly swamped by agent-neutral reasons. It would be consistent with this picture to add that the weight of reasons that derive from the situation of other people is extremely small and becomes increasingly so, as they are added together. Therefore, it might be said, they do not often outweigh reasons of self-interest. The first demands no altruism of us, the second too much.
Some philosophers would say that the approaches to altruism discussed thus far are missing an important—perhaps the most important—ingredient in moral motivation.
These approaches, one might say, make altruism a matter of the head, but it is much more a matter of the heart. The eudaimonist can say that we should have a certain amount of fellow feeling, but justifies that emotional response by giving a self-interested reason for being so motivated.
The consequentialist seems to leave no legitimate room in our moral thinking for the friendly feelings and love we have for particular individuals, for these sentiments are often at odds with the project of increasing the total amount of good in the world. The weak impartialist says that in certain situations we are to be moved by the good of others, but that is only because there is a moral rule, striking a reasonable balance between oneself and others, that requires one to do so.
All three approaches—so the objection goes—are too cold and calculating. They call upon us to treat others in accordance with a formula or rule or general policy. What is most important in human relationships cannot be captured by an approach that begins with a general rule about how to treat others, and justifies a certain way of treating each particular individual simply by applying that general rule.
It would miss the point of this critique if one said, in response, that having an emotional response to the good of others is an effective means of getting oneself to give them the aid they need. Cognitive complexity, and cognitive categories width Pettigrew, facilitate openness to others, reduce prejudice, and promote positive attitudes. Jarymowicz argues that cognitive complexity becomes the determinant of a truly moral behavior if it leads to the so-called axiological complexity that is the understanding of the sense of such abstract concepts as human rights or social justice.
The understanding of values expressed in abstract language requires the involvement of the intellect in reflective thinking. Once that is achieved, the standards of ideal states become the point of reference for the states of others, triggering altruistic motivation, and others are perceived as autonomous individuals having a value in and of themselves Reykowski, ; Rutkowska and Szuster, It increases the accessibility of various criteria of evaluating the situation of others, including what is generally understood as goodness.
This, in turn, can cause the subject to get engaged more involved in further altruistic deeds. The article presents three group altruism-building mechanisms and focuses on the role of their biological, social and personal conceptive, reflective factors. They engage the body, as well as various parts of the human mind. Each type of mechanism generates reactions of a different nature. The first basic mechanisms yield reactive and automatic reactions. These are universal, bodily mechanisms, which are the very basis of every type of reaction.
Individual differentiation among them is slight. The second type of mechanism is the result of the process of learning the patterns of behaviors and understanding norms. The last type of mechanism represents the outcome of intellectual involvement and reflective thinking.
They lead to forming abstract evaluative concepts, which give rise to the emergence of entirely new standards of world evaluation. In the course of evolution, human beings have been equipped with automatic, affective mechanisms allowing them to approach others. This is the basis of altruism. However, the specificity of human altruism depends on the development of concepts enabling one to transcend the face-to-face context, to understand the perspective of others and to accept their values.
Also, through intellect, anticipation of the interests of future generation is feasible. The differentiation between ought and ideal evaluative standards creates a chance to become involved in the development of another person, and not only to be content with charitable acts.
The knowledge about the sources of altruism mentioned above falls within the domain of biology and psychology alike.
However, the emerging theories should not be treated as competitive. Described in terms of various scientific disciplines, the sources of altruism should be regarded as complementary theories aimed as explaining diverse forms of engagement in helping others. From the psychological point of view such an approach to altruism could be viewed as consistent with the dual mind theories developed by many researchers Deutsch and Strack, ; Jarymowicz and Imbir, My role in creating the manuscript included: 1 Substantial contributions to the conception or design of the work; and 2 Drafting the work or revising it critically for important intellectual content; and 3 Final approval of the version to be published; and 4 Agreement to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest. Cyberbullying among adolescent bystanders: role of the communication medium, form of violence and empathy.
Community Appl. Baron-Cohen, S. Zero Degrees of Empathy. London: Penguin Group. Google Scholar. Batson, C. Self-other merging and empathy-altruism hypothesis: replay to Neurberg et al. Batson, D.
Perspective taking: imagining how another feels vs. Baumeister, R. The need to belong: desire for interpersonal attachments as a fundamental human motivation.
Berkowitz, L. Social norms, feelings, and other factors affecting helping and altruism. Responsibility and dependency. Burnstein, E. Campel, R. Altruism in auguste comte and ayn rand. Ayn Rand Stud. Cialdini, R. Insights from sadness: a three-step model of the development of altruism as hedonism. Deutsch, R. Duality models in social psychology: from dual processes to interacting systems.
Dimberg, U. Unconscious facial reactions to emotional facial expression. Drozda-Senkowska, E. Eisenberg, N. The origin and social significance of empathy- related responding. Justice 14, 94— Greenwald, A. Implicit social cognition: attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes. Hamilton, W. The genetical evolution of social behavior. Higgins, E. Self-discrepancy: a theory relating self and affect. Hoffman, M. Developmental synthesis of affect and cognition and its implications for the altruistic motivation.
Empathy and Moral Development. Implication for Caring and Justice. Cambridge: University Press. Iacoboni, M. Hurley and N. Jarymowicz, M. Halperin and K. Sharvit Berlin: Springer. Towards a human emotions taxonomy based on their automatic vs. Batson, C. Four forms of prosocial motivation: Egoism, altruism, collectivism, and principalism.
Dunning Ed. Moral hypocrisy: Appearing moral to oneself without being so. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77 3 , — Borgida, E.
Understanding living kidney donation: A behavioral decision-making perspective. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Brown, S. Providing social support may be more beneficial than receiving it: Results from a prospective study of mortality. Psychological Science, 14 4 , — Bryan, J.
Models and helping: Naturalistic studies in aiding behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6 4, Pt. German criminal code. Bohlander, Trans. Burnstein, E. Some neo-Darwinian decision rules for altruism: Weighing cues for inclusive fitness as a function of the biological importance of the decision.
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 67 5 , — Cialdini, R. Reinterpreting the empathy-altruism relationship: When one into one equals oneness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 73 3 , — Darley, J. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 27 1 , — Dovidio, J.
Extending the benefits of recategorization: Evaluations, self-disclosure, and helping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 33 4 , — The social psychology of prosocial behavior. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Eisenberg, N. Prosocial development. Farrelly, D. Altruists attract. Evolutionary Psychology, 5 2 , — Hardy, C. Nice guys finish first: The competitive altruism hypothesis.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32 10 , — Hearold, S. Meta-analysis of the effects of television on social behavior. Dissertation Abstracts International, 40 8-B , — Krupp, D. A cue of kinship promotes cooperation for the public good. Evolution and Human Behavior, 29 1 , 49— Lieberman, M. Social cognitive neuroscience. Fiske, D. Lindzey Eds. Madsen, E. Kinship and altruism: A cross-cultural experimental study. British Journal of Psychology, 98 2 , — McAndrew, F.
New evolutionary perspectives on altruism: Multilevel-selection and costly-signaling theories. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 11 2 , 79— Neyer, F. Blood is thicker than water: Kinship orientation across adulthood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84 2 , — Park, J. Does attitude similarity serve as a heuristic cue for kinship?
Evidence of an implicit cognitive association. Evolution and Human Behavior, 26 2 , — Penner, L. Prosocial behavior: Multilevel perspectives. Annual Review of Psychology, 56 , — Smith, S. Altruism on American television: Examining the amount of, and context surrounding, acts of helping and sharing. Journal of Communication, 56 4 , — Stewart-Williams, S. Altruism among kin vs. Evolution and Human Behavior, 28 3 , — Sturmer, S. Empathy-motivated helping: The moderating role of group membership.
Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 32 7 , — Tisak, M. Journal of Early Adolescence, 16 3 , —
0コメント