Altruism to be 'moral', shouldn't lack 'self worth'

Neera Karpur Bhadwar’s “Altruism Versus Self Interest: Sometimes a False Dichotomy” is an article which in the process of the immediate aim, (i.e. to challenge the view: That self interest cannot be a motive of altruistic act) highlights the importance of self affirmation. Self affirmation and the way in which it is connected to self interest on one side and altruism on the other can help determine if an act is altruistic or not. Self worth, an important factor of self affirmation can help to determine if an act is moral or not.

A self affirming act is, by definition, one with some focus on the self. If a self affirming act was necessarily focused entirely on the self then there is a possibility of equating that particular self affirming act with selfishness. Such self affirming act which is also a selfish act will obviously have no moral worth. If this was the only way in which self affirmation works then one could say in all sincerity that a particular act is either self interested act of self affirmation or altruistic but not both. 'However, whether and to what extent a self affirming act is self focused depends on what it affirms.'(1) Here three examples of self affirming acts are given.

1. The act of poetry itself
2. The act of a poem or story telling as an expression of love (with an other directed purpose)
3. The act of rescue of Jews during the holocaust

The first merely indicates an individual’s need to create, a need whose existence and expression is independent of the world’s need for more poems, whose satisfaction may be largely independent of the world’s enjoyment of the product. It is a poem of a solipsist. According to Neera Bhadwar, ‘such an act is highly self focused, for it is motivated by an interest that, by its very nature, is wholly or largely independent of the interests of others: if the individual had not written a particular poem, he would have had little or no interest in its existence, for almost its entire value to him lies in the fact that it is his creation.’(2)
Then there is another example of a mother who writes a story for her son not because he needs that particular story, or that there are no other stories available to tell but that story. She writes the story because in that act she wants to affirm an expression of her love for her son. It matters to her though, that he enjoys the story. So the degree of self focus is less than in the first example.
Then comes the third example of rescuers who helped save the lives of many Jews during the Holocast. When questioned by researchers such as Monroe et al, whether the important thing was that the Jews be saved or if they were the ones to rescue them, most of them responded rather similarly as researches indicate. Neera Bhadwar maintains that ‘Rescuers’ altruistic dispositions made the plight f Jews salient to them, focusing them on their needs rather than their own. They helped insofar as doing so was the best way to save to bring about the desired end: had their attempts created more dangers for the particular person in need, they would have not attempted to help. Again had a rescuer thought that someone else was in a better position to help a particular individual, she would have let that person do it.'(3) The rescuers were not looking for a psychological reward for themselves. Saving the Jews was more important than being the ones to help, but to the extent the latter was compatible with the former, it too was important. In most cases though there was no choice in the sense that most of the rescuers responded to requests for help instead of initiating help. The response of such rescuers was that “Because they came to them and no one else, we helped them.

What makes Neera Bhadwar to reconcile what she calls rational self interest (in the form of self affirmation) as a moral attitude with a moral attitude is the belief that such a self interest is at the core of self respect. The latter has a moral connotation. As Butler also maintains “self love in its due degree is as just and morally good as any affection whatever,” because the goodness of an act depends on whether it is in accordance with our nature and the nature of the case, rather than on whether it is altruistic” . (4)This helps to understand that why some self sacrificial acts, no matter how pure in intent and effect are morally deficient as they lack that element of rational self interest that is needed for self affirmation. Such a person is one who lacks self worth and is no different in a way from the non rescuers during the holocaust who have a lack of self identity and self worth which prevents them from helping others in need.

Neera Bhadwar ends the essay with a description of such a self sacrificial person who though altruistic has lacked moral worth as a necessary element of rational self interest is missing for the kind of moral excellence that provides the main argument for the challenge taken up in this article.

“A person who leads such a self sacrificial life has abdicated or never developed her own independent judgment and ends. If the OTHERS did not wish to use her for their own ends, she would have nothing to live for. Others she sees as ends in themselves; herself, as only a means to their ends. Lacking a sense of self worth she has discounted the importance of her own interests, the interests that a person naturally acquires with her encounters with the world. It is this radical failure of interest in herself for her own sake this radical lack of self, that explains why, in her, even altruism fails to be a virtue.” (5)
I pray to God not to turn or grow into such a woman……

(1) “Altruism Versus Self Interest: Sometimes A False Dicotomy” from Altruism (eds.) E F Paul, Fred D Miller, & Jr , & Jeffery Paul, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 112.
(2)“Altruism Versus Self Interest: Sometimes A False Dicotomy” from Altruism (eds.) E F Paul, Fred D Miller, & Jr , & Jeffery Paul, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 113.
(3)“Altruism Versus Self Interest: Sometimes A False Dicotomy” from Altruism (eds.) E F Paul, Fred D Miller, & Jr , & Jeffery Paul, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 113
(4)Joseph Butler, Five Sermons, eds S. Darwall (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing, 1983), preface, para 3.
(5)“Altruism Versus Self Interest: Sometimes A False Dicotomy” from Altruism (eds.) E F Paul, Fred D Miller, & Jr , & Jeffery Paul, Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 117

Meet my Bhaiya and Bhabhi(Payal) or perhaps I should say, Mrs and Mr Goswamy (Junior) now. I cherish them both and have little to say or rather write about them, (which is good considering most of my written work so far is critical in nature or sceptical and questioning). But with them, there is no place for scepticism, doubt, or criticism. And it is good to know that there are no questions or questioning there. I think the picture says it all. God bless them.