Egoistic Altruism

There might be an excellent reason why helping others actually helps yourself. Not spiritually or morally. Altruism might save your life.

Part One: Egoism versus Altruism

The definition of altruism is to act with the intent to make others happy, as opposed to egoism, which is when you act primarily out of self interest. But, already, we run into problems. There are philosophers who sincerely doubt that the intent to make others happy actually exists—and rather think that it is just a nice story we tell ourselves.

The theory of psychological egoism states that everything humans do is egocentric at heart. A common way to back this theory is to take a sharp look at what really motivates you to buy your mother such a nice houseplant for her birthday. People who believe in psychological egoism would argue that even if you give her an entire greenhouse of flowers and plants, it does not make you a good and caring child. The gift is just another way to increase your own happiness. You are not buying and wrapping that houseplant to see your mum smile, but because her smile will make you feel good, in turn. You get to go home, lie on your couch, and reminisce about what a great person you are. Egoism all the way.

Luckily, there are arguments against psychological egoism of the best variety: the empirical kind. Daniel Batson (as well as other scientists) have compiled comprehensive evidence that there is something built into us humans that reliably tricks us into being altruistic: empathy. Batson conducted a series of scientific experiments over a labourious 35 years of his life, and from that pile of evidence he concluded a single thing: humans do, on occasion, behave truly altruistically—because empathy moves them to do so.

In one experiment, Batson had participants watch an actor pretend to be in pain because of moderate electric shocks. The participants were then offered to trade places with the actor for a second round, and to have the shocks administered to themselves instead of the actor. Participants who did not experience empathy towards the actor only traded places with the actor if there was no easy option to walk away. That suggests an egoistic motivation to not have to watch someone in pain. Because if, instead of having to watch the second round, they also had the option to walk away, they overwhelmingly favoured the easy way out and left the actor behind, screaming. Not very altruistic.

If, however, participants did report to feel empathy towards the actor (for whatever reason), almost all traded places with them willingly. If they had the option to walk away instead of watching a second round, it actually increased their willingness to help the actor and take the shocks themselves. This suggests truly altruistic concern for the actor, as long as they felt empathy towards them.

In another experiment Batson showed, maybe unsurprisingly, that most participants felt more empathy towards an injured child or even dog than for an injured person who was very much like the participants themselves. This serves as evidence that empathy can arise for any other person (or animal), not just for those you can identify with easily. As long as we feel empathy, we are an altruistic species.

But maybe you are not swayed by boring scientific evidence that empathy makes us genuinely altruistic. Maybe you would argue that empathy really does not change much about the assumptions of psychological egoism. Some mechanism in our brains make us feel the pain of others. And we do not like pain. So, the easiest way to get rid of your own pain is to help others. Even empathy-driven altruism, you might say, is still egoism at heart.

So, Batson and his evidence will not convince you. What you want are flashy philosophical arguments to swat advocates of psychological egoism right out of the sky. Worry not. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy has you covered.

If psychological egoism argues that, “all acts of altruism are ultimately fuelled by egoism,” then you can just as well turn that argument back on itself. Stand boldly and retort that, in fact, “there is no egoism. All acts of supposed egoism have altruism at their core.”

If we spend all our money on a spa holiday and indulge ourselves in milk baths and massages the entire time, who is to say we are being selfish? All we are doing is making ourselves relaxed and happy, so, in turn, we can bring our good vibes to others. If we make ourselves happy, everyone around us will profit as well by proxy. Voilà. There is no egoism, only altruism.

Now that we have both scientific and philosophical arguments for humans as a breathtakingly altruistic species, it is probably time to come back down to the surface of reality. Even with our superior argumentative power, we have to admit it is unlikely we do all we do out of altruism. A much more likely scenario is, simply, that both egoism and altruism exist. It just makes little sense to search for a generalisation that applies to all human beings who have every lived on planet Earth—it almost never does, really.

Most likely, there are sadistic people who will never do a single thing for others. And there are those who give themselves up for others fourteen times a day on average. The only reasonable thing is to accept that all humans are capable of both truly selfish and selfless acts, and keep ourselves and others under continued close scrutiny through the lense of that knowledge.

Part Two: Radical Metaphysics

Alright, both altruism and egoism exist. But what about a more radical question: Do I exist? Do others?

Our minds go through such vast changes from childhood through adolescence to old age that it might not even make sense to regard them as the same person all the way.

While still in school or university, you might have really been into basketball, red wine, late-night snacks, and not at all too keen about responsibility. As an adult, you might be really into early-morning naps, sushi, and caring for your family and the people you are in charge of at work. Those sound like two entirely different people. Maybe they are.

If we morph so radically in such a short period of time, then is it really adequate to say we do something out of selfishness? The person that will get to enjoy the fruit of years of study, or a well-stocked pension is hardly the one that works for it. With a bit of imagination, this can almost be seen as altruism towards our future selves.

An even more radical idea would be to say that there is no I, because the self is only an illusion. Or that we are all one. Both would radically alter the ideas of what constitutes egoism and altruism.

But, while interesting, these ideas are far distant from the everyday experience of most people. So, let us stay with the notion that there is an I and others, and that I can choose to be altruistic or egoistic towards them at any given point of my day.

Part Three: Should We Be Altruistic?

A philosophical idea that makes sense to most people instinctively is that of consequentialism. We need not get all linguisty here and explore why someone chose such a complicated word for it, because the idea is simple: maximise good, and minimise bad.

Following this line of thinking, it may not be initially obvious why we should act selflessly. If I want to create the most human happiness with the least amount of time and effort, obviously, I should make myself happy. After all, only I really know myself. Only I can decide what is good for myself. Others would have to invest much more of their time and effort to figure out what makes me happy, which seems like a grand waste of resources.

So, I should be selfish and focus on making myself happy, instead. If everyone does, we can collectively maximise good and happiness in the most efficient way.

Two things can be said against that.

One, we learn through helping others, also how to care for ourselves. If we help a desperate friend, whose partner has just left them, we gain a different view of our own life as well. We might see that our own relationship shares similarities with that of our friend, and that we might be headed towards much the same heartbreak. Through being there for our friend, we might learn how to improve our own relationship, as well.

Second, it may not always hold true that only we know what is best for ourselves. It is entirely possible that other people know better how to make us happy than we do ourselves. A wise, elderly person may have years and decades of experience with finding a job they actually like. Their advice may well shave years off our own search. And we can do the same for others with our own experience.

Stepping away from philosophy, we can find an even easier, biological reason for being selfless.

For most of us, our brains seem to have altruism biologically hard-wired into them. We have a deep, human reaction to the joy and suffering of others—if we see others being happy, we feel happy, too. If others suffer, we feel the urge to help them.

So, we should do just that. Follow our inner voice and help others when they need us.

But not so fast. We are also hard-wired to do many other things that are by far not as beneficial to us and the world in the long run. We might also feel strongly inclined to eat an entire apple pie for breakfast. Or to go back to sleep after the alarm woke us with barely enough time to catch our train to work.

Neither of these impulses is helpful, which teaches us that we cannot blindly trust our instincts. Maybe trusting our hard-wired instinct to be altruistic is a trap as well?

This is where the idea of egoistic altruism comes into play.

Part Four: Egoistic Altruism

You probably have problems. You may even have problems you cannot possibly solve yourself. Maybe you have cancer. Or climate change causes your house to be flooded twice a year. No matter how hard you try, if you face that kind of problem, you really are at the mercy of others. Specifically, at the mercy of those who do have the power to solve your problems for you—the engineers and politicians who can make our world carbon-neutral, and the scientists and doctors who can cure your cancer.

But this is no plea for others to be selfless towards you. It is a reason for you to be selfless towards them before you run into trouble that needs their fixing.

See, reflexively, you might have thought of doctors or engineers who live around you, and how their work can save your life. But what if all those smart people who live near you are still not up to the job?

There may be a brilliant scientist out there, somewhere on this planet, who will at some day develop a treatment for the specific kind of cancer you will develop in twenty years. But what if this scientist happens to live in the worst neighbourhood of a low-income country? Instead of saving you from your future cancer, all their potential as a scientist is wasted, because they have to work their butts off in a factory to keep food on their table. Or—even worse—they do not even get to do that because they die of malaria or hunger as a child.

Well done, you. This person could have saved your life. And now they are dead.

It is, of course, impossible to know who on Earth might one day be your saviour. So your only chance is to make the world a better place for everyone, so that as many people as possible get the chance to improve it even more (and maybe cure your cancer in the process).

Kurzgesagt, who have both illustrated and explained this subject most beautifully (and inspired both this nub, and the accompanying story), put it elegantly: It is in your interest for people around the world to become better off.

Effective altruism has a lot in common with egoistic altruism in that regard. If you want to make the world a better place for everyone (no matter whether out of selfish or selfless reasons), and you happen to live and work in a comparably rich nation, there are staggeringly effective ways to do so. Campaigns to make vaccinations, condoms, and education available to everyone in low-income countries can change thousands of lives at a very affordable price for you. You might be able to pay for up to dozens of children to be vaccinated against polio, measles, and tetanus with a single day’s wage. And it may just be that one of those children survives because of you and goes on to discover a treatment for your future cancer. Or maybe they develop an app that lets you watch more cat videos in less time for free, which is almost as good. Happy them, happy you.

Sources and Further Exploring:

Kraut, Richard, Altruism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2020/entries/altruism/

Batson, C. D. (2011), Altruism in humans, Oxford University Press, https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2011-04533-000

Batson, C. D. (1981), Is Empathetic Emotion a Source of Altruistic Motivation?, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/images/uploads/Baston-EmpathySourceAltruism.pdf

Centre for Effective Altruism, https://effectivealtruism.org

Kurzgesagt – In a Nutshell, A Selfish Argument for Making the World a Better Place – Egoistic Altruism, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rvskMHn0sqQ