The Search For Altruism

Altruism is a concept in which the individual sacrifices regard for themselves in the interest of another. The ethics of altruism state that a person should act in a matter where their self-sacrifice yields the greater well being on the whole. To put that statement in the form of a fundamental principle of rightness, an action is right if and only if (and because) the action brings a net-gain of well being to anyone except the individual performing the action. The altruistic mentality of an individual according to this moral theory means that any action that they undertake should be in the interest of others rather than themselves. The ethics of this concept also state that relationships of greater value to the individual carrying out an action should come second in priority to those they have with strangers since the close relationship has a much more meaningful connection to a person’s life. In these situations, the only morally correct way of acting is in the way that defeats the well being of the agent of an action for the sake of others.

Another example of how altruism can be viewed in today’s society can be seen in the works of Mother Teresa and her plethora of altruistic acts throughout the globe. Although her focus was in India where she persued her novitiate (training), her organization has opened over 500 centers around the world helping the dying and the destitute (Moore 2002, pg. x). She took in the “untouchables” of society and gave them care and made sure that they were comfortable. Mother Teresa is often used as the benchmark when determining whether a selfless act is truly altruistic.

Many acts of war occur under desperate circumstances, leading people to act out against their conscience and do immoral things. On August 6 and 9, 1945, the United States dropped atomic bombs onto the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, destroying about 90 percent of each city. Ironically, the nuclear weaponry was originally built in self-defense against Germany, where an attempt at creating an atomic bomb was made, but ultimately failed, leaving the United States as the first and only country with nuclear weaponry. Upon the dropping of the bomb in Nagasaki, eighty thousand people died instantly, and tens of thousands died later on from the radioactive fallout. A Japanese newspaper, called The Nippon Times, questions why the bomb was

Altruism is the selflessness acts of an individual in which they involve themselves into the lives of other individuals in the hopes of positively affecting their feelings and/or well-beings. “Altruism and empathy permit the assessment of the extent to which volunteers perform voluntary service for selfless reasons” (Veludo-de-Oliveira, Pallister, & Foxall, 2015, p. 375). Veludo-de-Oliveira, Pallister, and Foxall believe in order for an interaction to be an altruistic one, “Firstly, the act must have the intention of benefit-ing others; secondly, the act must be initiated voluntarily by the helper; and thirdly, there should be no expectation of any reward from external sources.” (2015, p. 378).

Altruism and profit are often at different ends of the spectrum when it comes to medicine and health care as a whole. Altruism is the belief and practice of self-less concern for others over a person’s own self. One of the biggest problems in our health care system today and possibly even during Henrietta’s time is that medicine and health care as a whole are so commercialized and are only concerned with earning a profit. Henrietta’s cells were stolen without any notice and her family was not compensated for this crime. Eventually Henrietta’s cells became so important and eventually earned researchers millions of dollars. The theft of her cells had nothing to do with Henrietta as a person, but rather the doctors and researchers wanting to make a dollar off of a dead woman’s cells.

The novel Good to a Fault by Marina Endicott, primarily revolves around the theme of altruism. The novel begins with Clara who gets into a car accident with another family who happens to already be dealing with many other conflicts. After the accident occurred, the mother of the victim's household was admitted to the hospital and found out that she had cancer. It appears that the family were financially unstable and that they were living in their vehicle moving from town to town, which met with an accident. As a result of guilt and pure kindness, Clara takes in the kids and their grandmother to their home. On the outside this seems like a kind, selfless act, but in her thoughts the readers understand that she sometimes does not believe that being so generous to others that she barely knows is good. The text so far and the overall theme of altruism made me question points in relation to my inquiry topic: To what extent does literature have the ability to oversimplify reality? The author writes primarily in third person, but also writes from each person’s perspective through dialogue. The fact that the author chose to include Clara’s thoughts in addition to her actions, really enhanced my understanding of Clara’s personality. At first, Clara seemed like a kind individual helping others from the goodness of her heart, but as I progressed into the novel I realized that she feels that being kind is only solution and is pressured by it.

In one example study: Two subjects; one of them is an accomplice, were supposed to rate some paintings. There were two different conditions here. For fifty percent of the subjects, the accomplice lives and comes back with two bottles of coke, one of which he offers to the subject. For the other half, the accomplice does not go out to get any coke. After this, the accomplice tries to sell raffle tickets to the subjects. Unsurprisingly, the subjects who received the coke bought twice as many tickets as the subjects who did not. The subjects were also asked how much they like the accomplice. Those who had accepted the coke, bought as many tickets whether or not they liked the accomplice.

The passage claims that altruism is a type of behavior which benefits another, yet provides little reward to the one performing the act. It provides examples with human donating blood and organs; sentinel meercat who look for the predators while the others hunt for food or eat food they obtained. However, the professor refutes each of reasons from the passage.

In the text, "Random Acts Of Kindness Defines Who We Really Are," the author is writing to not only inform the reader about what the around a person who might judge you or say something about you that you don't like. The author makes many diverse quotes that has the same effect as the one above throughout the entire text, these types of quotes gives examples for the quote that was stated early. One example from the text states, "Small acts of kindness like leaving a meal for a homeless person or paying off a stranger's layaway balance at Kmart, start trends with more people getting in on the act because they are such feel-good stories." The author uses this effects of being kind are, but also to persuade the reader to be kind and do good deeds

For the purpose of this discussion, I will discuss situations like the prisoner dilemma, in which rational self-interested people all do worse by independently pursuing self-interest. The prisoner’s dilemma refers to a conflict in doing what is best for one’s own interest over what is in the best interest of the group; therefore, doing what is needed to receive the least amount of jail time for oneself. In the end, each of the prisoners does better by failing to cooperate, but not as good if they had just cooperated with their agreement between each other and stayed silent. This type of dilemma happens throughout all of society between individuals, groups, companies, and countries.

He argued that every human being has unique preferences which greatly influence them when making choices (Breen and Rottman 1995). People are mostly motivated by money and are likely to carry out a cost-benefit analysis before settling on a decision. It is based on the following premises: human behavior is based on rational calculations, human beings act with rationality when making choices and these choices are aimed at maximizing gains or pleasure. In a similar manner, Interactionist Theory (IT) is used to study social interactions among people. It does not study the entire population at once, but rather studies smaller social groups. It focuses on how individuals act and how they make behavioral choices depending on the way they interpret situations (Hindess, 1998, p.42). From another perspective, it states that human beings only react to social stimuli. As such, they are social actors, and must adjust their behaviors in consideration to the behaviors of other human

Many have defined altruism in a similar context, a special form of helping behaviour that is “an act that is motivated by the desire to benefit another individual rather than oneself” (Hogg &Vaughan, 2008). An altruistic act does not necessarily have a negative or zero value to the actor (Margolis, 1982) but a true altruistic act is detrimental to the actor's fitness and enhances another individual’s fitness, in other words, a selfless act (Batson, 1991). Throughout the evolution of altruism, there have been many controversies about the existence of true altruism. Most theories have argued that it stems from ulterior motives, but does that prove

Altruism: defined as, “the belief in selfless concern for the well being of others.” This is one of the main things that the main characters in The Hard Problem focus on. In actuality, many scientists believe that total altruism is unattainable and that anything appearing to be altruistic is really done with some sort of intent of self benefit. For example, if you offer to collect the mail of your neighbors when they are on vacation, then they are more than likely repay this good deed by doing the same for you. This act of kindness appears to be altruistic, however has a long run pay off in the end. This idea along with pondering “The Hard Problem” and character interactions are some of the main takeaways from the performance.

Game theory is a popular resource for modelling economic, sociological, philosophical and many other situations. The Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy defines it as “the study of the ways in which interacting choices of economic agents produce outcomes with respect to the preferences (or utilities) of those agents, where the outcomes in question might have been intended by none of the agents.” Game theory has many uses, including describing and predicting ideal behaviour as discussed later on. It can be used to model and predict for example. There are, however, criticisms to game theory in regards to its ability to apply to human rationality and emotion. Due to the widespread use of game theory, this has become a popular area of research in economic, philosophic and even psychological theory.

How do humans actually behave when faced with the decision to help others? The innate desire that compels humans to help is called altruism by psychologists. Through this feeling, humans transform from a selfish jerk to a more compassionate and caring person. Some psychologists believe that this feeling stems from nature itself. Despite the fact that some altruistic acts originate from the pressures of society, altruism predominantly comes from the survival of the fittest, the feeling of empathy, and the selfish desire to benefit your own kin.