The Meaning of Altruism
Altruism is the idea that everybody who is doing better should help anybody who is doing worse.
It teaches that if you fail you can rightfully expect help from those who do not fail, and that if they do not help you, they are bad.
It tempts everyone to be slightly less successful so they can be slightly more morally deserving.
It says to turn a blind eye to anything other than a person's degree of failure, and to hold, as most deserving, those who have failed most completely.
Altruism is frequently confused with compassion for those who have had bad luck.
Bad luck is an unusual occurrence that creates difficulty, as when a tornado destroys your home. It's a circumstance you don't control, due to the inherent risk of being alive. It's sad, but it's not your fault.
It's perfectly reasonable to offer charity, if you can afford it, to those who've had bad luck. Decent people sometimes have bad luck, and to offer them charity is to try to smooth out the bumps that nature sometimes serves us.
But altruism goes beyond moral charity. It implicitly holds that all failure is just bad luck ("There but for the grace of God go I.")—that no difficulty in life is ever deserved—that almost everybody is decent and every hardship should be mitigated by someone not experiencing one.
Ultimately, then, according to altruism, there is only one class of person who is not decent: the successful person who does not admit a moral duty to mitigate another person's failure qua failure.
Altruism is a moral assault on any person who sees their life—their pursuit of value—as an end in itself.
According to altruism, ambitiously controlling and guiding one's own life toward success is an affront.
"Why not just pitch in and then when bad luck comes, you can collect what is due you, like the rest of us? Just who do you think you are?"
"I'm my own person. I'm not yours, and you are not mine. I can't spend my time living for other people. I can live, and I choose to do so."
Excellent statement on the nature of altruism.
ReplyDeleteAltruism is a race to the bottom. The more pathetic someone can make himself the higher his moral worth. If he dares to succeed his moral worth is lost.
Observe the love affair with the drug-addicted homeless. Also the movement to empty our prisons. Regardless of the depth someone falls to altruism is there to be his champion such as the immediate global support for Hamas after they demonstrated their barbarism on October 7th.
My only bone to pick with the piece is the very last sentence. Since you own your own life you don’t need anyone’s permission to live it.
Interesting point about the last sentence. Adding "Let me" effectively mentions politics at the end of an essay about morality.
DeleteI frequently summarize my political view as "Just let me choose whom I help," but this essay is not about politics. So, at your suggestion, I'm striking the final sentence as it doesn't fit.