File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 645


Date: Wed, 12 Nov 1997 10:52:44 +0100
From: Ludvig Hertzberg <ludvig-AT-mail.film.su.se>
Subject: Re: PLC: Arguing for Altruism


Chris Jenyns wrote:
> 
> I recently got into an argument with a colleague of mine about
> whether or not it was possible to perform a genuinely altruistic act.
> His position was one of a psychological egoist's perspective, though
> I suspect that confusion with self-interest may have made things
> complicated. In the end I was unable to convince him of my main
> point: even though it is inevitable that we will have an emotional
> reaction to anything we do, we are not always motivated by
> what we expect that reaction will be.
(snip)
> Unfortunately, the argument remains unresolved with neither side
> prepared to accept the other's position on argument alone. While I
> believe I have put forward a strong case, my friend still holds that
> we only ever do what's best for us according to our own criterion
> and that that criterion is never chosen for anything other than our
> own emotional benefit. I hope that by sending this to the list I will
> hear of some firmer arguments to use in my favour or, equally so,
> some which will convince me of my mistake.
> 

Chris,

I, like many, also used to think along the lines of 'every act is
motivated by egoistic concerns', when I first began to think critically
and cynically about things. Nowadays, I have a hard time taking that
statement seriously. Whenever I meet somebody confessing to that view, I
ask them if 

1) they can even conceive of an act as altruistic according to their
definition. If they maintain that they cannot, that every act by
definition, as it were, is egoistic, I ask them what use they think we
have for the concept of altruism. I remind them that we do speak of
coldness and warmth, even though one could argue that the temperature is
always warm by some standards - there's always atomic activity, which by
a certain definition is what we understand by warmth (although when it's
minus 100 degrees, the warmth there is is rather minor, to put it that
way.) 

And 2), I ask them if they if they do not perceive egoism and altruism
in some way value-laden concepts. Surely, it loses its force (its sense
even) to accuse somebody of being egoistic if all acts are so by
definition. Ask them to think of instances when we in fact describe acts
in those terms, and I'm sure they'll see that we don't mean by altruism
that we think such an act is totally devoid of self-interest, but rather
something quite other - along the lines that there is something
admirable about the action, given the conditions under which it was
'acted', the motives being how we perceive them.

Hope this can be of some help for your thoughts.

Ludvig Hertzberg
		- Dept of Cinema Studies, U of Stockholm, Sweden


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