"Altruism, n. - the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others."
Helping Gregory Mchopa isn't altruistic because the helper has an interest in seeing him succeed. The helper is enriched by Mchopa's artwork and admires him, and he feels proud to have helped bring Mchopa's and his work to a larger audience.
A truly altruistic action would require the helper to perform an action that had no such benefit for himself whatsoever; only then would it have no trace of selfishness. However, performing an action that has no benefit ultimately comes at the expense of the altruist because his life is finite in length and is contigent upon a limited course of action. Although they vary widely in magnitude, all actions either advance a person's life or are harmful in their effect.
Such truly altruistic actions are immoral, and cannot be applied consistently to all people. If altruism is the ultimate rule for being good, then Mchopa's helper should dedicate himself fully to giving himself up to others. But the recipients must then also give themselves up completely to others, leaving an endless chain with no one to recieve the benefit.
The alternative is rational egoism: do what is best for yourself over the long-term, which is the entire course of your life. To do this requires you to be as selfish as is possible: to use reason to guide your actions, and trade value for value with everyone that is valuable^. I think that for many people, helping someone like Gregory Mchopa is exactly such a trade.
^A specific value presupposes a valuer, so it only makes sense to speak of something being of valuable for a specific person. What is valuable to you is not necessarily valuable to me, but what we have in common is that we can employ the same method (reason) to determine what is valuable to each of us.
[This is beside the point, but it is worth noting that as long as a person is capable of reasoning, they are capable of producing value for some group of people. The number of people without any ability to reason at a level required to support themselves in a totally free society is vanishingly small. For those people truly unable to support themselves, selfish charity is more than enough to sustain them - rational egoists find more value in helping these few (in a manner that they choose) than in watching them die in the streets.]
Selfishness would be not sharing knowledge of this with others, since keeping silent would make people less altruistic (humans being strong pack animals who tend to avoid doing things others are not also doing.)
maxharris|15 years ago
Helping Gregory Mchopa isn't altruistic because the helper has an interest in seeing him succeed. The helper is enriched by Mchopa's artwork and admires him, and he feels proud to have helped bring Mchopa's and his work to a larger audience.
A truly altruistic action would require the helper to perform an action that had no such benefit for himself whatsoever; only then would it have no trace of selfishness. However, performing an action that has no benefit ultimately comes at the expense of the altruist because his life is finite in length and is contigent upon a limited course of action. Although they vary widely in magnitude, all actions either advance a person's life or are harmful in their effect.
Such truly altruistic actions are immoral, and cannot be applied consistently to all people. If altruism is the ultimate rule for being good, then Mchopa's helper should dedicate himself fully to giving himself up to others. But the recipients must then also give themselves up completely to others, leaving an endless chain with no one to recieve the benefit.
The alternative is rational egoism: do what is best for yourself over the long-term, which is the entire course of your life. To do this requires you to be as selfish as is possible: to use reason to guide your actions, and trade value for value with everyone that is valuable^. I think that for many people, helping someone like Gregory Mchopa is exactly such a trade.
^A specific value presupposes a valuer, so it only makes sense to speak of something being of valuable for a specific person. What is valuable to you is not necessarily valuable to me, but what we have in common is that we can employ the same method (reason) to determine what is valuable to each of us.
[This is beside the point, but it is worth noting that as long as a person is capable of reasoning, they are capable of producing value for some group of people. The number of people without any ability to reason at a level required to support themselves in a totally free society is vanishingly small. For those people truly unable to support themselves, selfish charity is more than enough to sustain them - rational egoists find more value in helping these few (in a manner that they choose) than in watching them die in the streets.]
lukeqsee|15 years ago
Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others. (wikipedia)
Selflessness doesn't post to a blog about itself. :)
sprout|15 years ago