On Human Altruism
INTRODUCTION
Most people believe that
self-interest is antithetical to altruism. Actually, self-interest is one of
three necessary motivations that, working together, evoke altruistic behavior.
My posts “On Altruism” explain the role of “altruistic self-interest.”
PART 1: WHEN IS A HORSE NOT A
HORSE?
Most of us think we know
a horse when we see one. Most of us recognize a gift when we receive one. Most
of us cherish altruism when we see it displayed. As the Trojans would warn us,
we would be wise to examine the entirety of the horse before accepting it for
what it appears to be. The same is true for altruism. Although we aren’t likely
to be burned and pillaged by a seeming act of altruism, if we don’t examine the
motives for altruistic behaviors, we still may find ourselves fooled. We are even
prone to fool ourselves.
So what is altruism, and
what are its motivations? As those ancient Greeks knew and their Trojan
adversaries learned, motivations are essential in determining the essence of a
thing, for instance, the apparently altruistic gift of a wooden horse. When
they accepted the peace offering of their Greek foes, the trusting Trojans may
have had in mind these common definitions of “altruism”:
·
“Unselfish concern for the welfare of others;
selflessness” (Webster’s New World
Dictionary, Second College Edition)
·
“Concern for the welfare of others as opposed to
egoism; selflessness” (The American
Heritage Dictionary, Second College Edition)
·
These definitions point to three essential traits of altruism:
unselfishness, concern for others, and selflessness. The second definition also
includes a disqualifying trait: egoism.
My definition of altruism also comprises three traits:
concern for others, unselfishness, and self-interest. “But wait,” you say.
“Aren’t unselfishness and self-interest mutually exclusive, contradictory?”
Sometimes, they certainly are, but not when they are employed in the service of
altruism. In fact, altruism is always motivated by self-interest, as well as
concern and unselfishness. None can be lacking.
Before moving on to the
next section, I need to emphasize that I am speaking of human altruism, that is, motivations and behaviors that apply to Homo sapiens. I leave to natural science
the question of whether or not similar motivations might apply to other organisms.
PART 2: I HAVE A FORMULA FOR THAT
The conventional
definition of altruism can be displayed in a simple formula: A = c + u + s,
where A stands for altruism,
c stands for concern, u stands for unselfishness, and s stands for selflessness. In this definition, concern for others refers to a personal desire to help another
person (or an animal). Here, concern stems from empathy. By unselfishness, this definition refers to
a willingness to make some degree of emotional or material sacrifice for
another. The American Heritage Dictionary,
Second College Edition, defines selfless
as “Without concern for oneself”; The
Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary defines selfless similarly: “Concerned about
others rather than oneself.”
However, I think that
the combination of selflessness and human altruism is, with rare exceptions, a
mutually exclusive pairing in a healthy, sane person. Except in some cases of
suicide or transcendent love, a will to self-destruction is pathologically
nihilistic. It’s possible and even common, though, in heroic behaviors for
self-annihilation to result as an unintended consequence of an altruistic
action.
So I don’t include selflessness in my formulation of human
altruism, substituting self-interest
in its place to yield A = c + si + u, where the new term si stands for perceived self-interest. In my view, human altruism results from the
interaction of these three motivations
working in harmony to move a person to act altruistically. Without feeling some
concern for or empathy with another being, what would prompt a person toward
altruism? Without a felt recognition of perceived self-interest, a person lacks
a strong enough motivation to risk an emotional or material sacrifice. A
willingness to take that risk establishes the third motivation, unselfishness.
When, and only when, these three motivations unite harmoniously and powerfully
enough can they produce altruistic behavior.
PART
3: Some ‘Splaining To Do
“But
hold on there, Quicksdraw!” you say. “You’re just using the trick-term
‘self-interest’ instead of “egoism,” which one of your dictionaries says is the
opposite of altruism. As Ricky would
say to Lucy, “You’ve got some ‘splaining to do.”
Yes, I suppose I do,
especially since some contemporary philosophers and social psychologists would
raise similar objections. So bear with me as I deal at some length with
scholarly work that also seems to question my claims about the role of
self-interest as a motivation for human altruism.
One of the most notable
social psychologists is C. Daniel Batson, who has written (or co-written)
several books and academic (peer-reviewed) articles on altruism, empathy, and
religion. Very likely, he also would question, but not dismiss out of hand, my
formula. His book Altruism in Humans
(2011) presents a conventional definition of altruism as “a desire to benefit someone else for his or her sake
rather than one’s own” (3). He further refines his definition by contrasting
altruism with “egoism.” He writes, “Altruism can be juxtaposed to egoism, which is a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own
welfare” (italics in the original, 20).
Before I explain
precisely how my use of “self-interest” is different from Batson’s and the
general reader’s understanding of both “egoism” and “self-interest,” I’ll again
call upon the help of those ancient Greeks, along with a few more recent
Western philosophers. Lest I be accused of what those ancient Greeks called hybris, I admit that my position is
neither wholly new nor entirely original. In Western culture, positions similar
to mine have been considered (and rejected) more than once within the past two
millennia. Perhaps the earliest hint that ethical action—and I presume we all
agree that altruism is one kind of ethical action—presupposes self-interest
comes from Socrates: “Knowing what is good will necessarily cause one to act on
that basis, for no man deliberately chooses that which he knows would harm
himself” (Richard Tarnas, The Passion of
the Western Mind, New York: Harmony Books, 1991, 34). That is, for an
action to be “good,” it must not cause self-harm by violating one’s
self-interest to be free from harm.
Let’s quickly skip ahead through the decline
of Greek civilization and the fall of the Roman Empire, through the rise of
Christianity and the subsequent thousand or so years when intellectual
curiosity ebbed, and on through the rebirth of inquiry in the Middle Ages, and
then pause at the Age of Enlightenment. In the mid-seventeenth century, Thomas
Hobbes also appeals to the “good” and invokes the avoidance of harm yet again,
but in a rationally narrower, more personal way: “[N]o man giveth but with
intention of good to himself, because gift is voluntary; and of all voluntary
acts, the object is to every man his own good . . .” (Leviathan, qtd. in
Joshua May, “Psychological Egoism” in The
Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ISSN 2161-0002, http://www.iep.utm.edu/psychego/.
Accessed 21 Oct. 2015). That is, as a voluntary act of giving, altruism is
motivated by the giver’s desire to serve his or her own “good.”
A quarter century later, in Les Maximes, François de La
Rochefoucauld asserts the role of self-love as a perhaps unconscious motivation
for altruistic behavior: “[E]ven when humans believe they act from altruism or
nobility, they do so out of love of self” (Maarten Maartensz, “La Rochefoucauld,”
eNotes. http://www.enotes.com/topics/la-rochefoucauld.
Accessed 23 Oct. 2015). Rochefoucauld also believes that conventional “self-interest” lies at the heart of a flawed human
nature. However, Rochefoucauld’s egoistic self-interest is not the same as
altruistic self-interest. When “love of self” inspires nobility, then such
self-interest can overcome egoistic flaws of human nature. Avoiding self-harm,
acting for the good of oneself, unconsciously or consciously acting out of
“love of self”—all point to the essential role of self-interest in altruism.
This then is the foundation for my use of
“self-interest” as it applies to human altruism. I need still need to
distinguish it, though, from other terms thought to be closely synonymous with
it.
PART
4: More ‘Splaining To Do
Let’s start
with that mischievous word egoism.
Human altruistic self-interest is not egoism,
which too strongly connotes a self-importance that values the superiority of
oneself above all other persons, at all times. Neither is altruistic
self-interest the same as psychological
egoism. While my use of the term “altruistic self-interest” bears some
similarity to psychological egoism, it differs in its emphasis on who receives
the benefits of self-interested behaviors. In “Psychological Egoism,” Joshua
May states, “The psychological egoist claims that we ultimately only care about
(what we consider to be) our own welfare. . . . One’s desire is egoistic if (and only if) it concerns
(what one perceives to be) the benefit of oneself and not anyone else” (italics in the original; bold emphasis
added). It should be obvious that this type of egoism stands in opposition to both
altruism and altruistic self-interest.
Altruistic
self-interest is not selfishness,
which has similar connotations to “egoism,” in that the selfish person places
others in a third-person “them” (third-person
plural object) category of outsiders
who are less worthy than the selfish individual. Typically there is little
recognition of a “we” (first person
plural subject) or an “us” (first-person plural object) unless the
selfish individual is dissembling in order to exploit a third-person object (her, him, it, them). Both egoism and
selfishness motivate behavior solely for “the benefit of oneself and not anyone
else.”
Nor
is altruistic self-interest the enlightened
self-interest advocated by Ayn Rand’s Objectivism, for at least two
reasons. First, Rand’s enlightened self-interest has as its ethical principle
the dynamic of reciprocity, which includes the imperative of fairness. More
often than not, Rand’s self-interest must involve a reciprocal interaction or
exchange between two or more persons. Like a business loan, this reciprocity of
fairness is founded on the expectation that one’s current act of generosity or
aid will be reciprocated in the future, perhaps even with interest. This
self-serving notion of self-interest shares no motives with those of a
voluntary “gift,” freely given. Second, and more important, Rand sees altruism
as irrational and potentially evil because it brings harm to the altruist and
to others. In fact, Rand goes as far as to posit that altruism, as it is
commonly conceived and defined, does not exist.
However,
a century earlier, Alexis de Tocqueville (noted French “thinker” on culture,
history, politics, and social economics) offered a characterization of
self-interest strikingly different from Rand’s and very similar to my
definition of “altruistic self-interest.” In the 1835 edition of Democracy in America, he writes, “The
principle of self-interest rightly understood produces no great acts of
self-sacrifice, but it suggests daily small acts of self-denial” (“Alexis de
Tocqueville Democracy in America 1835,”
Hanover College. http://history.hanover.edu/courses/excerpts/111tocqueville.html.
Accessed 1 April 2016). From my perspective, while altruistic self-interest
does prompt “small acts of self-denial,” those acts advance the cause of one’s
perceived self-interest as they also contribute to another’s welfare. Such
behaviors are not limited only to “small acts of self-denial,” but can, and
often, include major or heroic acts of self-denial. With some qualification, I
also agree with de Tocqueville that acts of altruistic self-interest produce no
intentional acts of self-sacrifice.
As I said earlier, human altruism does not include the motivation of
self-annihilation, but self-annihilation may result as an unintended
consequence of acting in accordance with one’s perceived self-interest.
PART
5: What I ‘Splained
To
summarize, in contrast to conventional uses of “self-interest,” altruistic self-interest is
distinctively different. To repeat, instead of the conventional formula “Altruism
= unselfish concern for another + selflessness,” I substitute “self-interest”
for “selflessness” to yield “Altruism = concern for another + self-interest +
unselfishness.” Here, self-interest is at least as much emotion driven as it is
reason driven, unlike Rand’s coldly calculated self-interest. Relief from or
avoidance of anxiety, shame, guilt, or physical pain; empathy for others; and
the positive emotions of happiness (for oneself or for another), of pleasure,
of self-respect, and of compassion—all these are among the gratifying emotions
that fulfill a person’s self-interested desires and that can motivate
altruistic action. Altruism can exist only when the altruist’s self-interest
can be satisfied. Put in more formal terms, self-interest is a necessary condition for any occurrence
of altruism.
For
the Greeks to have offered that ancient Wooden Horse as a legitimate peace
offering to the Trojans (as a symbolic pledge of war’s end) instead of as a
trap, the motivation for the “gift” would not have been egoism (a ploy to enter
and raze the city) but self-interest (saving their own as well as their
enemies’ lives and honoring the heroism of both). Self-interest alone, however,
would not have made such a gift an altruistic act. To be an act of altruism,
the motivation would have had to include also a concern for the welfare of the
Trojans and an unselfish willingness to sacrifice their own labor, materials,
and overweening pride to build and present a gift horse.
Now
that I’ve done my ‘splaining, in the next section I’ll offer some examples to
prove my formula.
PART
6: Going to the Dogs
Let’s start with a couple
of examples illustrating human altruism in behalf of man’s and woman’s best
friend. Let’s go to the dogs.
While walking to his own car in a
shopping center parking lot on a hot summer afternoon in Athens, Georgia, a
Desert Storm veteran happened upon a Yorkshire terrier locked in a car, a small
group of bystanders looking around for the dog’s caretaker. The dog’s distress
was increasing in the heat, so with little hesitation, the veteran used a metal
piece from his wife’s wheelchair and smashed a window to rescue the dog, damn
the consequences. And consequences there were. The owner of the car charged him
with criminal trespassing, and the rescuer was arrested (Rachelle Blidner,
“Georgia Army Veteran Arrested for Smashing Window to Save Dog from Hot Car,” Daily News. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ga-man-charged-smashing-window-save-dog-hot-car-article-1.2219041.
Accessed 3 March 2017). As he later told an Atlanta TV reporter, “‘I knew
there’d be consequences, but it didn’t matter.
. . . Glass, they make new glass every day, but they could never replace
that dog’” (Hudson Hongo, “Georgia Man Arrested for Trespassing after Saving
Dog from Hot Car,” Gawker. gawker.com/georgia-man-arrested-for-trespassing-after-saving-dog-f-1704124581.
Accessed 12 Oct. 2015).
One state to the west, in western
Nashville, Tennessee, a dog owner risked his life to save his pet dog from a
flame-engulfed apartment (“Man Arrested for Saving His Dog from a Burning
Building,” BarkPost, http://barkpost.com/man-arrested-saving-dog/.
Accessed 12 Oct. 2015; see also “Man Arrested for Saving His Dog from Burning
Building,” People Pets, http://people.com/pets/man-arrested-for-saving-his-dog-from-burning-building/.
Accessed 20 July 2016). Returning to his apartment complex to see his apartment
ablaze and his family’s young dog trapped inside frantically barking and trying
to escape, the dog owner ran toward his burning apartment, but firefighters and
a police officer intercepted and restrained him. Warning of the possible danger
to himself and to firefighters who may have to rescue him, they threatened
arrest if he attempted a rescue; they also assured him that his pup would be
rescued. He walked away only to circumvent the officer and firefighters to
scale his apartment wall, break through a terrace door, and rescue his dog.
Cited for “disorderly conduct and reckless endangerment,” he was arrested at
the scene. Like the veteran in the previous example, this man knew he
would likely face criminal charges (and,
worse, may even lose his life in a fiery rescue attempt). As he told a reporter, he could not stand by
and watch his dog burn to death.
Although
both of these acts may appear to be for the benefit of a dog, the three
necessary motivations of human altruism were at work: (1) concern for the
welfare of a sentient being, (2) an unselfish willingness to suffer unpleasant
consequences, and (3) a desire to serve one’s own self-interest by upholding
ethical principles and avoiding the suffering of conscience and loss of
self-respect. All three motivations were necessary for these altruistic
actions.
PART
7: The Pope and the Mother
Inspired
by Pope Francis’s 2015 visit to the United States, a woman pledged to donate
one of her kidneys to a needy recipient. By coincidence, the recipient turned
out to be a member of her own parish, whom she didn’t know. After the surgery,
both the donor and the recipient were in good health—a life saved.
The
kidney donor exemplifies a contemporary model of the altruistic Good Samaritan.
She had to weigh the harm to herself (the possibility of major harm or death
during the surgical procedure, the pain following surgery, the possibility of
suffering disease to her remaining kidney later in life, among others) against
the benefits (saving another’s life). The fact that the kidney recipient is not
a family member or other loved one but a stranger underscores the apparent
unselfishness of her action. CBS reporter Chip Reed alluded to a possible
motivation for her altruism when he asked if her action contained a lesson for
her children. “Absolutely,” she answered. “Because there's a million reasons
not to do it. And the one reason to do it is to help someone else” (“Pope's
Visit Inspires Pledges of Kindness in U.S.” CBS
News. 21 Sept. 2015. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/popes-visit-sparks-pledge-of-kindness-in-u-s/.
Accessed 21 Sept. 2015). Rather than choose one of the “million reasons” to act
otherwise and thereby avoid risk and pain, she was so moved by the Pope’s
example and his call for kindness that she chose altruistic kindness.
Let’s
examine whether self-interest could be the root cause for her altruism. We
might point to her self-interested desire to be a good mother who exemplifies
altruism to her children. As she told the reporter, “I felt so good, I knew it
had to be the right thing to do.” Had, perhaps, prior experiences involving
helping and sacrificing for others instilled in her an awareness that such
actions are pleasurable and heighten her self-esteem? Had those experiences
become a treasured part of her personality, her character, her sense of Self?
All are reasonable possibilities, even likely probabilities.
If
these probabilities are not convincingly sufficient explanations, then what
else might have prompted this personal insight: “In life there are times you
are going to give and times you're going to receive, and those times that you
risk the greatest are when your life will change the most,” she says in the
interview (“Pope's Visit”). I assume the change she refers to is one for the
better. Her statement implies that taking risks for the sake of altruistic self-interest
both reinforces an image of her best self and also rewards her with a pleasure
greater than her fear. The concluding statement in the news story proves the
point: “There's no greater gift to oneself, she added, than giving hope to
someone else.” “[N]o greater gift to
oneself,” she says.
There is yet another, complementary
possibility for her conviction that “those times that you risk the greatest are
when your life will change the most.” That possibility is her religious
training and faith. While faith might be formulated independently, on one’s
own, religion is a socially constructed set of beliefs, founded on specific
socially agreed upon tenets and principles. (Saying that religious teachings
are socially agreed upon should not imply that they may not also be based on
divinely inspired revelations, only that more persons than the divinely
inspired messenger must agree to believe the messenger and the message.) For
the kidney donor, Catholicism teaches its adherents to practice compassion and
love of one’s neighbor. Its archetypal figure is Jesus Christ, who sacrificed
himself for the salvation of his followers. Further, Jesus’s parable of the
Good Samaritan in the book of Luke illustrates the rewards of altruism and, in
St. Augustine’s interpretation, the ultimate reward of Christian faith, eternal
salvation. As a Catholic newly re-inspired by the Pope’s visit, the donor may
well have seen her ultimate self-interest, i.e., salvation and eternal life,
invested in her altruistic act. It isn’t necessary for that train of thought to
be conscious in her decision-making process (à La Rochefoucauld), for the
awareness is part of her unconscious drives and motivations.
Another
way of saying this is to point to what is commonly called a conscience.
Experientially and socially cultivated, the conscience, at a certain point of
development, reminds and warns us of the consequences of our actions and
inactions. One consequence is guilt. With the reminder that guilt brings shame
and suffering, the conscience directs us to make choices that are in our
self-interest. Those choices are in our self-interest because they fulfill our
ultimate desires even as they also effect instrumental desires. In this case,
the ultimate desire of the donor is self-interest (following the principles of
her conscience and her faith), and the instrumental desire is helping another
by donating a kidney, the latter being a consequence of the former.
PART
8: Follow the Yellow Footprints
A Marine corporal under
attack in Afghanistan throws himself between an exploding grenade and his
subordinate. Both miraculously survive, with the officer suffering
life-threatening injuries, as well as the loss of an eye, permanent damage to
mobility of his right arm, and plastic surgery to replace most of the lower
right section of his face. He is awarded the Medal of Honor for his life-saving
heroism.
The heroism displayed by the Marine
corporal Kyle Carpenter typifies what many have in mind when they think of
altruistic heroism in the face of “the ultimate sacrifice.” Without hesitation
and without considering his own welfare, Corporal Carpenter used his body as a
shield to protect his fellow Marine. Surely, such an act can lead us to
question the necessity of self-interest as a motivation for altruism. Not every
person would act as Carpenter did. For most people, the risk would not be in
their perceived self-interest, and they would not have acted altruistically in
that situation. Doing so would have seemed self-destructive, insane. But Lance
Corporal Carpenter perceived his self-interest differently.
Carpenter
was awarded the Medal of Honor in 2014 for his valorous action in Afghanistan
in 2010. In a CBS News broadcast on June 19, 2014, Carpenter told interviewer
David Martin that his decision to jeopardize his welfare to protect a fellow
Marine was no different from the decision another Marine would make. “I’ll say
that I’m not surprised [by my act],” Carpenter told Martin, “because I know
that if you put a thousand Marines in that situation, they would all do the
exact same thing for me” (Jake Miller, “Obama Awards Medal of Honor to Marine
Kyle Carpenter,” CBS News. 19 June
2014. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/obama-awards-medal-of-honor-to-marine-kyle-carpenter/.
Accessed 16 Nov. 2015). It appears, then, that Carpenter’s willingness to
sacrifice his life for his fellow Marines (and even other persons) upholds a
code of valor that is honored by an unselfish “band of brothers” (Carpenter
qtd. in Miller).
On June 26, 2014, David Letterman
interviewed Carpenter on the Late Show
with David Letterman. After Carpenter narrated what had happened during and
in the aftermath of the attack, Letterman asked, “Is this [heroism] because of
Kyle Carpenter, or is this because of Kyle Carpenter the Marine?” Carpenter’s
answer is simple, humble, and enlightening:
Well, you know, from the second we step on the yellow
footprints at boot camp it’s instilled to us that there’s a bigger purpose,
that the uniform we wear has a rich history and legacy of Marines that have
been heroic before us, to take care of our junior Marines, and that when we get
in those bad parts of the world that nobody wants to go to, the Marines to our
right and left is all we have. So I would like to say it was me, I would like
to think it was a little bit me, but absolutely the Marine corps and our
history and just everything we stand for makes us want to be courageous and do
those things. (“David Letterman—Medal of Honor Recipient, Cpl. Kyle Carpenter:
Under Attack,” You Tube, 7 Feb. 2015. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV9FBc2izQM&sns=em.
Accessed 6 Nov. 2015)
The
last sentence is particularly revealing: “[E]verything we stand for makes us
want to be courageous and do those things.” The yellow footprints, a bigger
purpose, the rich history and legacy symbolized by the uniform—all of that
creates a powerful, valor-driven construct of Self. That Self is in large part
a willingly adopted social construct: the U.S. Marine. So when Carpenter humbly
says that he would like to think that the Medal of Honor recipient is “a little
bit me,” he credits the Marine corps and its legacy with the greater
motivation. While his heroic, self-sacrificing action may appear to be
motivated by selflessness (“without
concern for oneself”), the root motivation actually is an ultimate desire to
act in his perceived self-interest of
his best Self, the honorable Marine. A = c + si + u.
PART
9: Perceived Self-Interest
Self-interest and perceived self-interest may seem
redundant or hair splitting. It’s helpful, however, to distinguish the terms in
order to understand the emotional power and fluidity of our constructed selves,
of our vision of who we are. Who are we—or whom do we want to be—when we act in
certain situations? This personal identity is a question of being and reality.
One assumption in postmodern philosophy holds that
reality is circumscribed by the capabilities of the human brain and by the
possibilities of mind. Most empiricists and some phenomenologists claim that
those mental capabilities are determined not just by chemical properties and
processes in the human brain, but also by individual experiences and the
brain’s (and mind’s) interpretation of them. Others with a scientifically metaphysical
bent point to a realm beyond the material brain (which physicist David Bohm
refers to as the “implicate order” in Wholeness and the Implicate Order,
London: Routledge, 1980), a non-material realm that extends to mind, which may
access information not available to the physical senses and nervous system.
These phenomena shape each individual’s psychology—mentally, emotionally,
spiritually, behaviorally—and construction of Self. This construction of
reality and Self is a perception, a kind of “fiction” that can be neither objectively
proven nor disproven. The mind constructs such fictions in order to synthesize
data into a coherently stable or situationally expedient representation of
reality and of Self. In his chapter “The Postmodern Mind,” Richard Tarnas
encapsulates this assumption: “Since there are no indubitable foundations for
human knowledge, the highest value for any perspective is its capacity to be
temporarily useful or edifying, emancipatory or creative—though it is
recognized that in the end these valuations are themselves not justifiable by
anything beyond personal and cultural taste” (The Passion of the Western Mind, 399-400). “Personal taste,” I
suggest, can inform an individual’s construction of Self.
One’s personal
perspective on what is or isn’t self-interested behavior may be rooted in
either a stable or a momentarily expedient sense of Self, depending on the
circumstance. For each circumstance, an individual makes a kind of
cost-to-benefit assessment in deciding how or whether to act.
That assessment may be unconsciously
routinized (similarly to an instinctive or learned stimulus-response) or put to
a consciously deliberated choice (a cost-benefit analysis). In either case, a
person’s perceived self-interest drives the primary motivation (fear/safety,
guilt/moral satisfaction, hero/goat, self-doubt/self-respect). It’s the perception of the self-interest that
makes the difference. The veteran who broke the car window and rescued the dog
knew he would pay a future price, but his self-interest was more powerful than
his fear of consequences. The same is true of the renter who rescued his own
dog from a fiery death. The kidney donor could have died during or have
suffered the failure of her remaining kidney later. Corporal Carpenter acted
instinctively because he had accepted his training and moral duty; he suffered
unthinkable pain, yet he served his deepest self-interest, without regret. In
each situation, concern for others, unselfish sacrifice, and perceived self-interest motivated
altruistic behaviors.
PART 10: MALADAPTIVE AND PATHOLOGICAL
ALTRUISM
At
other times, seeming acts of altruism result in consequences contrary to a
person’s perceived self-interest. In these situations, future distress follows
from an impulsive or expedient response to a situation where emotion overwhelms
foresight, where perceived self-interest plays a shadowy role. The altruist’s
response is to over-empathize with
another person who has suffered emotional distress. A momentary perception of
self-interest can fool us into mistaking expedient self-interest (relieving our
own debilitating anxiety or guilt or satisfying a compulsion for gratification)
for legitimate self-interest. For some overly empathetic altruists, the shadow
of self-interest forms patterns of repeated behaviors that persistently
undermine self-interest. In these cases, motivations for altruistic behavior
border on pathology.
The
subject of pathological altruism covers behaviors, motivations, and mental
states far too numerous for the circumscribed aim of these posts, which is to
demonstrate the role of perceived self-interest as a necessary motivation for
human altruism. For a wide-ranging discussion of pathological altruism, I
recommend Pathological Altruism,
edited by Oakley, Knafo, Madhaven, and Wilson (Oxford UP, New York, 2012). A
brief overview of the topic, though, will be helpful.
One
overarching characterization of pathological altruism includes “any behavior or
personal tendency in which either the stated aim or the implied motivation is
to promote the welfare of another. But, instead of overall beneficial outcomes,
the ‘altruism’ instead has irrational (from the point of view of an outside
observer) and substantial negative consequences to the other or even to the
self” (Barbara Oakley, Ariel Knafo, and Michael McGrath, “Pathological
Altruism—An Introduction,” Psychological
Altruism, 3). A simpler description from the same article depicts
pathological altruism as “an unhealthy focus on others to the detriment of
one’s own needs . . .” (6). A third characterization describes a maladaptive
altruist as “excessively selfless and sacrificial; is often exploited, abused or
victimized due to a failure to consider or be concerned with his or her own
needs or rights” (Widiger et al., in Personality
Disorders and the Five-factor Model of Personality, Washington, D.C,
American Psychological Association, 2002, 441; qtd. in Robert J. Hormant and
Daniel B. Kennedy, “Does No Good Deed Go Unpunished? The Victimology of
Altruism,” in Pathology and Altruism,
196).
Studies
have associated pathological altruism with crime victimization, codependency,
relationship abuse, and various types of manipulation. Often low or fluctuating
levels of self-esteem, neurosis, and a weak ability to distinguish one’s own
emotions from the empathically imagined emotions of another contribute to
pathological altruism, especially in codependency. McGrath and Oakley
characterize codependence as “a dysfunctional empathic response, a displaced
mutual aid endeavor in which the main defect is an inability to tolerate
negative affect in the important other” (“Codependency and Pathological
Altruism,” in Pathological Altruism, 57).
I would slightly modify this description to “a dysfunctional empathic response
in which the main defect is an inability to tolerate negative affect in oneself
or in another” to characterize the root cause of self-harmful altruism.
PART 11: SELF-NEGATION,
SELFLESSNESS, AND PATHOLOGY
One
consequence of self-harmful altruism is a propensity to repudiate the Existential
responsibility of the individual self. This self-negation is the primary
property of selflessness as I define
it and the primary reason that I exclude it from my characterization of human
altruism. Rather than digress too far from my primary focus, I’ll give only one
realistic example of how self-negation contributes to an altruism that
sabotages a person’s self-interest and that borders on pathology. The example
is an amalgamation of two real-life examples with which I’m familiar.
Regina
and Bethany were casual acquaintances at work. Regina retired, and a couple of
weeks later, Bethany was unjustly fired in Regina’s opinion. A sensitive and
compassionate person, Regina was a long-time volunteer at the local Human
Society and for decades had worked in various ways to call attention to
environmental concerns and to institute recycling programs in her previous jobs
and communities. She displayed all three altruistic traits in her daily life.
(She also cried easily when her empathy and concern overwhelmed her.)
When
Regina heard about Bethany’s job loss, she commiserated. A couple of weeks
after the firing, Beth and her family of two sons, two dogs, and a cat found
out that they would soon be evicted. During a phone conversation, Regina
offered to let Beth and her family live with her for a while, even though her
own house was not equipped to handle more than one or two adult guests. Regina
had two dogs of her own, who spent much of their time inside when they weren’t
in a large fenced-in backyard. She also was allergic to cat hair and dandruff.
On reflection, she regretted her invitation while simultaneously suffering
guilt and anxiety when she thought about rescinding the offer. She also
recalled similar situations when she had promised more help than she could
actually deliver: help to animal shelters, to political groups, to ecology
efforts, and of course to other friends. Her anxiety and her self-image spiked
and plummeted, respectively. What was she to do?
After
some days, she came up with an expedient comprise of sorts. She would help
Bethany set up an Internet crowdfunding site and help promote it. To supplement
any donations, Regina would contribute a hefty monthly allowance (as a loan).
Retired and living on Social Security and a modest but comfortable-enough
annuity from her personal IRA, Regina knew that she could not continue the
“loans” indefinitely. Still, the dwindling of her retirement savings was less
stressful than sharing her living space and disrupting her own daily routine.
Surely, things would improve for her friend before long. The older son got a
temporary part-time job, but that ended after less than three months.
Eight
months along in this compromise, the loans continue. Maintenance repairs to her
house and property have been postponed indefinitely, she sleeps fitfully and
irregularly, she has begun taking sedatives and anti-depressants, and she no
longer goes out with friends because she can’t pay her own way. She cries
daily.
We
can both admire and wonder at Regina’s compassion and generosity. At what point
does altruistic unselfishness become selflessness?
At what point is a person’s own well-being sacrificed for another’s well-being?
At what point does altruistic self-interest turn to self-negation, an Existential
renunciation of Self? From my perspective, Regina has crossed the border from
altruism to an altruistic compulsion that gradually erodes and ultimately
annihilates the Self.
As
tangled as Regina’s situation is, it is mild compared to the dangers of
pathological altruism cited above. Relationship abuse damages lives far more
deeply and far longer, often forever, despite therapy. Fear of the abuser may
be the most visible trap preventing the victim’s eventual escape, especially in
codependent relationships, which usually begin with at least one person
believing that her or his moral responsibility is to relieve the pain of
another person in the relationship. That person’s perceived self-interest finds
fulfillment in apparent altruism. In fact, a pathological and irrational
misperception of self-interest and empathy initiates and maintains a cycle of
abuse and masochism. What begins as
an altruistic, unselfish concern metastasizes into a pathological selflessness. The pattern often leaves
its legacy on younger members of a family. Like an inherited mutation, the
pathology continues into another generation.
PART
12: KNOWING HORSE FROM ARSE
The inclusion of perceived
self-interest among the necessary motivations of human altruism values the human in the display of altruism. It
also removes the motivation of selflessness
while honoring the roles of will, choice, self-determination and concurrently demystifying
the implications of spirt and supra-human determinants of “goodness.” In the
conventional meaning of altruism, the mandate to be “selfless” is not only a
contradiction to “being”; it is a paradox that few can comprehend or carry out.
For most, the metaphysics of an Emersonian Over-Soul or a Kantian spirit that
postulates a merging of the individual self with an abstract, non-material
creator and prime-mover is merely abstruse philosophizing or is otherwise
untenable. Even religious figures like Christ and Buddha exemplify revered but
ultimately unattainable supra-human character and qualities, among them
selflessness. They are models to guide and strive to emulate, but their mythos
and transcendence place them above the place of humans on the Great Chain of
Being, which locates all created entities on a ladder of escalating degrees of
complexity of form and consciousness, from stones to amoebae to horses to
primates to humans to archangels to God. I don’t deny that some human beings
act selflessly, as Lance Corporal Carpenter appeared to do. Yet I continue to
hold that those kinds of sacrificial actions result from motivations fixed in
the highest levels of self-interest.
These are special and heroic beings; and
they are imperfect and human, free to act and free to choose behaviors that
serve, for ignoble or noble ends, their individual self-interests.
A common exhortation among those
ancient Greeks was “Know thyself.” Although the admonition sounds simple
enough, carrying it out remains one of the most challenging and slippery
endeavors. As challenging as it is to know oneself, it’s even more challenging
to know other people and to know which of our personal gifts are appropriate to
their and our mutual self-interest. If we don’t know others’ or our own
perceived self-interest well enough, we can fall prey to a big, wooden one-trick
pony. We can also build our own Trojan Horse to satisfy our own egoistic
self-interest. Although we can’t reliably know or choose another’s
self-interested motives, we can vigilantly examine our own. The difference
between respecting our individual self-interest and not doing so is the
difference in knowing a horse from its arse.
