Tainted love
I’ve gone a bit esoteric today (just today?) but it’s a question I heard recently whilst listening to some podcast about spirituality and the human condition. I forget which one it was now.
The question then - can altruism and self-interest be present within a singular action, or are they truly antagonistic agents?
I was wondering at first whether altruism even exists at all. Are not all human actions driven by some aspect of self-interest, even if in an infinitesimal amount? Maybe that perspective comes from my being jaded and cynical. I wanted to test it. I wanted to see whether people can act in a completely altruistic way. That innocent, glimmering part of me that peers through the cracks in the 6-inch steel plate of emotional armour I’ve wrapped myself in wanted to believe it to be true in a way that was deep and unyielding.
What follows is a monstrous dump of my thought processes behind it. Like the morning after a heavy night and a bad kebab. It is deeply personal and biased by my own experiences, but then I can only perceive the world from within the sphere of my own experiences. Take from it what you will.
I used to work for a charity once, which shall remain unnamed. Going into that job, fresh faced and rosy cheeked with a bounce in my step, I felt great. I was doing something for the benefit of others. I felt genuinely good about it.
There’s self-interest flare up number one. I felt good because I was doing something that was of benefit to others. I chose to do it because it made me feel good. Was I whitewashing over this fact? Yes. Both wholeheartedly and in blissful ignorance. Was an outcome of me engaging in the job to the benefit of others? Also, yes.
The conundrum is what came first. Was I doing it because I wanted to help others, or because the idea of helping others made me feel better about myself? Maybe it just gave me some sort of meaning at a point in my life where I was striving to find some. In that case, surely it’s just self-interest dressed as altruism?
As I dug deeper down into it, I began to consider the broader social aspect of altruistic behaviour. I came across the ideas of egoism and social contract theory, the starting points of both being that we are self-interested and rational beings. That we act for the benefit of the group in order to avoid such things as social exclusion and, as Kant puts it in his ideas of moral theory, each person is “an end in itself,” an intrinsically valuable moral status, and demands each person act in accord with personal maxims as a member of the community.
I can help others in the group, and the outcome will be of benefit to the group, but it will also on some level be of benefit to my ego. I can base my choices on my principles and virtues, but I’ll still feel a sense of reward at having maintained those virtues.
What we cannot ignore, however, is the importance of altruism in maintaining a social fabric. It protects us. Sustains us. Gives life a sense of meaning. I help you, which in turn creates a space for reciprocal kindness. Those who act with kindness tend to be happier, and those who are happier tend to act with more kindness, reaching outwards in a positive feedback loop that benefits society as a whole.
Ultimately, the I is absolute. It’s all we truly know and the locus from which we function. So even if we feel that we are acting in an altruistic way, the I is always at the centre of the choices that we make whether we consciously realise it or not.
My conclusion, much to the lament of my innocent, glimmering self, is that there can be no truly altruistic act that does not in some way serve to bolster the ego. Be that, even to the smallest degree, through pride, validation, or some sense of pleasing satisfaction.
Yet at the same time we can’t blindly label all altruistic acts as selfish simply because there’s an aspect of self-interest buried within them. Human beings are never straightforward. More often than not, and myself more than most, we’re a bundle of contradictions striving to make do in a confusing world.
So please don’t let my ramblings prevent you from acting with altruistic intent. God knows the world needs some kindness in it right now.
Much love
David