Altruism

While benevolence, compassion, and humanity were not major virtues for the ancient philosophers, modern moral philosophers generally agree that altruism is important to morality, although they disagree about what it is, how to explain it, and what its scope should be. The nineteenth-century French theorist Auguste Comte, who first coined the term altruism, claimed that the way to end social conflict is by training people to "live for others," rather than themselves. In a popular sense, altruism means something like noble self-sacrifice. A more minimal understanding, one that many philosophers favor, is an acknowledgment that the interests of others make claims on us and limit what we may do.

Altruism made its way into moral theory when Christian philosophers added the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity to the cardinal virtues of the Greeks. Charity, the greatest of the theological virtues, was thought to be an inner spiritual orientation toward others. Charity is characterized as disinterested, universal, and unconditional. It should be directed to everyone, saint and sinner alike, regardless of merit.

The eighteenth-century Scottish philosopher Francis Hutcheson followed the Christian philosophers, claiming that everyone is capable of Christian love—calm universal benevolence—that aims at the good of all sentient creatures. He also distinguished two other types of benevolence: love directed toward smaller groups or particular persons, such as parental affection and friendship, and particular feelings of pity, sympathy, and gratitude. Christian love is the best form of benevolence; the other two are good so long as they do not counteract it.

Hutcheson's view about how altruistic we should be is even more radical than the Christian view. Reducing virtue to benevolence, he argues that none of the four cardinal virtues of the Greeks—temperance, courage, prudence, justice—are virtues unless their practice is motivated by love. Temperance is not a virtue, unless motivated by a concern to make ourselves fit to serve others. Courage is mere craziness, unless we face dangers in order to defend the innocent or to right wrongs. Prudence is not a virtue if it aims only at promoting our own interests. Justice is not a virtue unless it has a regard for the good of humankind. Hutcheson derives the utility principle—maximizing happiness for the greatest number—from the idea that the morally best motive is calm, universal benevolence.

Later utilitarians made the utility principle central to their account of moral rightness, but detached it from Hutcheson's basis in Christian love. Many utilitarians have argued that our duties of benevolence are extreme, so their view about the scope of benevolence is radical in another way. As long as I have the power to benefit others without hurting myself so much that total utility is reduced, I am obligated to help them. On this view, giving aid to famine relief, for example, is not a matter of charity but a duty.

There are two other ways of understanding altruism. One way, adopted by David Hume in the eighteenth century and by Bernard Williams as well as some feminist thinkers in the twentieth, characterizes altruism in terms of particular benevolent dispositions, desires, or affections. According to this view, you help others because you love them. Hume denied that we have the universal love of humankind to which Hutcheson and the Christian philosophers appealed, but thought that such benevolent dispositions as parental love and friendship were morally important character traits essential for virtue. Hume also thought that we possess the capacity to act from sympathy. When you see someone in distress, sympathy leads you to feel distress, which in turn motivates you to alleviate your distress by alleviating theirs. Sympathy enables us to extend our love for particular individuals and smaller groups to larger groups of people.

Williams's view is similar to Hume's. Some of our particular benevolent desires are directed toward people we care about, for example, a daughter or friend, and are motivated by thoughts like "Mary needs help." Other benevolent desires are more general and impersonal concerns, motivated by thoughts like "someone needs help." Williams claims that the structure of the motivating thought in both cases is the same. Although altruism is not a rational requirement on action, Williams thinks that sympathetic reflection may move us from benevolent desires motivated by our love of particular individuals to more general altruistic dispositions.

Some feminist philosophers have argued that altruistic dispositions such as caring, compassion, and maternal love should be made the focus of morality. These philosophers claim that relationships should be at the heart of morality and that most of our relationships are not only intimate, but also involuntary. They argue that an ethics of care rather than an ethics of justice is appropriate for these types of relationships.

By contrast, philosophers in the Kantian tradition conceive of altruism as a rational requirement on action. They claim there is no need to postulate a benevolent desire to explain altruism. Kant's initial argument appeals to his requirement that we may only act on principles that we can will as universal laws. Willing a world in which everyone has a policy of not helping others, while knowing that you will need help, would be inconsistent, so we must will to help those who are in need. Kant also argues for a duty of beneficence on the basis of the requirement of treating humanity as an end in itself. He argues that you must treat the ends of others as you treat your own ends. You take your own ends to be good and worth pursuing, so consistency requires that you treat the ends of others as good and worth pursuing. This suggests that we have reason to help not only those in need, but anyone we are in a position to help.

Thomas Nagel follows Kant in thinking that the reasons of others directly provide us with reasons. Suppose someone wants you to stop tormenting him. How does that person's desire not to be treated that way give you a reason to stop? At an intuitive level, Nagel's argument appeals to the question: How would you like it if someone did that to you? You realize that if someone were tormenting you, you would not merely dislike what he was doing, you would resent it. Resentment is a response to the idea that someone has ignored a reason he has to not treat you badly. The reason in this case is your own desire not to be tormented. You think your desire not to be tormented is a reason for your tormentor to stop. Since you think that your reasons provide direct reasons for others, you must also think that the reasons of others provide you with reasons. The argument turns on the idea that your reasons and the reasons of your victim are the same: they are the reasons of a person. According to Nagel, the argument works only because you have the capacity to view yourself as just one person among others. Although Humeans and Kantians disagree about whether to explain altruism in terms of particular desires or to view it as a rational requirement on action, they agree that the force of altruism springs from our common humanity.

Egoism and Altruism; Ethical Egoism; Friendship; Human Nature; Love; Sympathy and Empathy; Virtue and Vice.

Hume, David. Enquiry concerning the Principles of Morals (1751), edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1975.

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–1740). 3 vols., edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge and P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1985.

Hutcheson, Francis. An Essay on the Nature and Conduct of Passions and Affections with Illustrations upon the Moral Sense (1728), edited by Aaron Garrett. Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, 2002.

Kant, Immanuel. Grounding for the Metaphysics of Morals. Translated by James W. Ellington. Indianapolis, IN: Hackett, 1993. Originally published as Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten (Riga: J. F. Hartknoch, 1875).

Nagel, Thomas. The Possibility of Altruism. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970.

Williams, Bernard. Problems of the Self. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1973.

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