The word "altruism" seems to be a red flag for many students. The mere
mention of the word immediately calls to mind a basic truth they think is very
important, "Altruism is impossible."
I can understand part of the argument behind this statement on a purely
theoretical level.
It becomes hard to make sense of it when you try to translate this theoretical
truth into some practical point, like "There's no significant difference between
finding satisfaction in helping an old lady across the street and finding
satisfaction in stealing her handbag, because helping her is still a means of
self-satisfaction, so does not count as true altruism."
Confucian teaching does not depend on there being such a thing as "pure
altruism," defined in such a way as to exclude all benefit to oneself, in any
sense of the word "benefit." "Altruism" is of course and English word that has
no direct correspondence in any Chinese term used in Confucian writings. The
closest word is jen (ren), which means something more like "love, kindness,
empathy, benevolence." Confucian teaching does depend on the assumption that
kindness, care and concern for others, is something admirable, so that an
individual can become more admirable by "cultivating" high levels of jen.
What is most distinctive about Confucianism is not so much an emphasis on being
kind to others (every culture values this). Rather, Americans value individual
altruism -- one individual directly helping another individual in need.
Confucians emphasize social-environmental altruism, entering public service to
help provide a better social environment for others (as a waitress provides a
better social environment for customers).
The following is an attempt to come to terms with the common idea that "altruism
is impossible," by focusing on its possible practical relevance to a fictional
story about me and two (fictional) sisters Susan and Ellen.
Susan wants to help aunt Mary because she cares for her, and will keep wanting
to help her even if she has no hope of getting aunt Mary's money, and even if
aunt Mary becomes senile and can't recognize her or thank her. Ellen wants to
help aunt Mary only if she has hope of inheriting some money. When she finds out
she is not in aunt Mary's will, she stops helping her aunt and steals her money
to feed her drug habit.
I myself think that Susan's attitude is more admirable than Ellen's attitude.
For me it seems clearly different from Ellen's attitude -- different in a way
that matters to me if I want to become a better person. As a Confucian, I decide
I want to make myself a better person by becoming more like Susan than like
Ellen in my attitude toward our aunt Mary.
But Jane, fresh from her readings in modern psychology and philosophy, comes
along to show me I must be mistaken, and my efforts will be useless and not make
me more admirable, because "altruism is impossible." Her arguments are as
follows:
1. Research has shown that most people do things for selfish rather than
altruistic reasons. It's not admirable for me to try to be more caring because
research on the general public has shown that this is not what motivates most
people most of the time. Even if I seem to be aware of some altruistic feelings
through personal introspection, researchers tabulating answers to survey
questionnaires have shown that I must be mistaken about my own motivations --
surveys administered to other people give me more reliable knowledge of my inner
self and its motives than my own introspection is able to give me.
2. Jane defines "altruism" in such a way that it excludes all pleasure or
satisfaction from being a caring person. This definition recognizes only two
categories: (1) pure caring for another, and (2) desire for self-satisfaction.
Everything pertaining to (2) belongs in the same category. So if I get
satisfaction from being caring toward aunt Mary, there is no significant
difference between this and the satisfaction Ellen gets from stealing aunt
Mary's money to take drugs. This proves that it's not really more admirable to
be more caring than it is to take drugs. I feel there is a very significant
difference between finding satisfaction in being kind to aunt Mary, but Jane
tells me I can't define things this way -- there is only "pure" altruism and
self-satisfaction. Since all self-satisfaction is non-altruistic, all
self-satisfaction is the same.
3. Jane defines "altruism" in such a way that if I actually benefit in any way
from doing something for aunt Mary, it can't count as altruism. If I thought she
had no money, but actually she did leave me some in her will, then helping her
could not constitute altruism, because I actually did benefit. It's useless to
try to be more caring of others because I can never tell how I might benefit
from helping them.
4. Jane defines "altruism" in such a way that if someone can describe my
motivation as in any way concerned with myself, then it can't be altruism. Since
someone can say I'm trying to become more caring toward aunt Mary in order to
become a better person, this is not altruistic because it's a concern for my own
betterment. It's not admirable to try to be more caring toward aunt Mary because
this could also be described as doing something to make my own character more
admirable.
5. Jane defines "altruism" in such a way that it must be completely pure. If any
part of my motivation for helping aunt Mary is feeling good when she thanks me,
then this is not pure altruism, and if it's not pure altruism it doesn't really
count as altruism at all. It's not admirable to try to become more caring toward
aunt Mary because I can never hope to have a kind of caring that completely
excludes all hope for some kind of reward for myself.
The upshot of all this:
Even if it might seem in practical reality that Susan "becomes a more admirable
person by becoming more altruistic," this can't be true because the very idea of
altruism involves contradictory theoretical propositions. "Being altruistic"
means being concerned for others, but "becoming more admirable" means improving
one's own being.
This calls to mind Zeno's paradox. Zeno, an ancient Greek philosopher, made this
argument:
In practical reality, it looks like people actually do cross streets, but Zeno
"proves" that it is impossible to cross a street because doing so involves
impossibilities in theory.
His argument: To cross the whole road, a person would first have to cross half
of the road, and before this cross one quarter of the road, and before this
cross one eighth of the road, and so on to infinity, since no matter how small a
distance is, you can always divide it in half. Therefore to cross a road one has
to move an infinite number of distances, which would take an infinite amount of
time. This proves that even though it looks like a person crosses a street, it's
not really happening because it's theoretically impossible.