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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
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7 comments:
But could a person not have a multi-faceted relationship with the society? In one he/she could have a sense of self worth when working or ascertaining his/her value at work while on the other hand sacrifice themselves in a manner as quoted below?
"The 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"
Or would this still be a sacrifice for love and therefore have some kind of affirmation shackled to it?
good written but so far from reality i think...
@ Jognoseini....A self sacrificial act of love is destructive when a sense of identity is lost and one is consumed in the other. There is no affirmation of the 'self' in love, but just love, not the kind that could by definition be 'respected'. It can be idealised in literature but not in moral philosophy. Anyhow, self worth is important. Every person must be able to respect herself/himself first EVEN in order to respect another person. Only if one respects can a person really have the capability to sacrifice in the first place.
Neera Bhadwar differs from Monroe et al that the basic actor in society in the case of altruistic rescue was not the individual but some larger entity. She quite correctly maintains in her article that the rescuers had to have great confidence in their OWN judgment, intelligence, courage and endurance, in themselves as independent actors. They had to be AWARE that they were different from the vast majority who refused to help. For both these reasons they had to be aware of their separativeness and distinctiveness.
That's Neera Bhadwar's argument - self worth is essential in order to have worth for the other. A self sacrificial person poses as a counter example. In all possibility, that could be explained. Losing oneself while still having the skills to serve the other cannot last for long, most probably.
After a point in time, it would require that the NEED to help the other, (which sustains this person who does not wish to live for herself but the other) will be so strong that the self sacrificial person would WANT there to be reasons that the other resorts her help, making this person an evil person. The NEED to help would give rise to a DESIRE which is designated by ill will and not GOOD WILL. (Altruism, even without the moral worth is just a desire to expand ego. )It would not be an act of love anymore. The kind of affirmation shackled to it would be 'evil'. It would boil the love to the Master Slave analogy where the Master becomes dependent on the Slave. That is NOT Love but a power struggle. That may be how many philosophers clasify a woman in love, but there is not a shred of truth in it, that is NOT how a woman in love feels. She would not hesitate to help her love in need (if and when required) but would not wish that the NEED is required all the time, that a need provides an evidence of her love and that a NEED sustains it. There is nothing GREAT about that kind of LOVE.
Abhishek. thanks for appreciating. However, RESEARCHES confirm that it is NOT far from reality. You could look up Oliner and Oliners' Altruistic Personality: Rescues of Jews in Nazi Europe and Monroe et al's Altruism and the Theory of Rational Action and Monroe's the Heart of ALtruism among others.
'But could a person not have a multi-faceted relationship with the society?' the Answer is: YES. But the answer is NO to the kind of compartmentalisation of self worth, you seem to be suggesting. As I have already indicated in the above reply, according to her confidence in their OWN judgment was needed by the rescuers to act as independent actors. Infact many acted independentally in secrecy. Neera Bhadwar does maintain that a person has multi faceted relationship with the society. To quote: 'An individual's identity is multifaceted, admitting of multiple descriptions - as a person among others, a mother, a brother, a lover, a writer, a thinker and so on. At different situations the different aspects of one's personality become relevant and assume primary importance, and while sometimes the different aspects may conflict, at other times they may be mutually supportive. This is best seen by the examples of rescuers themselves. ....Most rescuers isolated themselves even from friends and family to protect them from danger, as a result depriving themselves of practically every source of encouragement and emotional sustenance. So rescue activities must have tested to the utmost THEIR confidence in the value of THEIR mission, and in THEIR own capacity to carry it out.
your views on a suicide bomber...?
I don't know much about suicide bombers, but I classify altruism as altruism type 1 and altruism type 2 and think that a suicide bomber is likely to adhere to altruism type 2. Altruism type 1 is concern for others(for the sake of others) + concern for self(for the sake of self) or simply concern for other + concern for self. Altruism type 2 is concern for others - concern for self. I shall classify suicide bombers to be adherents of altruism type 2, that is selfless altruism. Currrently my research indicates that an altruistic act is not always a moral act. Altruism type 1 may or may not be moral, but altruism type 2, the kind which might be associated with a suicide bomber is never moral.
If a suicide bomber adheres to a metaphysical/religious doctrine of Jihad, then by the very precepts of Islam, his sacrifice is no sacrifice at all. This is because in Islam, dead souls come together and meet in the Garden of Heaven. So, self sacrifice of a Jihadi is not really a sacrifice, it is just a short cut to heaven and meet his loved ones. However, I could be wrong in interpreting Jihad.
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