Because of the interesting comments on my last article (Why Does the Environment Matter?), I have decided to elaborate on my thoughts on whether true altruistic acts exist. The first step in this investigation is to define altruism.
According to Princeton University’s Wordnet, the definition of altruism is:
The quality of unselfish concern for the welfare of others.
If this definition accurately portrays altruism, it follows that when one commits an altruistic act, he only thinks about how the act will benefits others, and not himself. No self-interest by the altruist is involved.
But what exactly is a benefit that can accrue to one’s self or others? The concept of utility is important in this case. Utility is a measure of satisfaction/fulfillment/enjoyment/happiness/etcetera that one gains from a good, action, or consequence. In a simple example: one gains utility when he finds $10 on the ground. Another example: one gains utility when the weather forecast for tomorrow is pleasant. So if one were to commit an altruistic act, according to the definition above, the act must be made without any consideration of one’s own utility. I believe any act that is made without considering one’s own utility is impossible.
When one commits an act, it is because that act is preferential to any other act for that individual. If a businesswoman gives up her lunch money to buy a hobo a sandwich, she is making a choice. She has chosen to give up her lunch money over all other actions in that situation, expressing her preference for donation in that instance. In other words, giving up the money is what she would rather do than anything else in that situation. The act was certainly kind, noble, and loving. But the act, at the root, was a choice made by the businesswoman to maximize her utility.
Perhaps everyone around the businesswoman at the time thought she was making a bad choice. For them, perhaps giving up the money is not the best choice in that situation, and that is perfectly normal because everyone has different preferences. Perhaps the businesswoman values her conscience and her sense of service to others much more than the other people around her.
I am not saying that a life of service or generous acts are not noble. Those who dedicate their lives or even moments of their lives to others are doing wonderful things. They make huge sacrifices that many others would refuse, often for little or no recognition. These individuals are rare and more of them are needed now than ever.
But I have to believe that everyone has a motivation for everything. If one wants to serve for his entire life, it is because he wants to do it. A “true” altruist would serve without choice. As long as one can make a choice to serve or not to serve, I do not believe an altruistic act is possible.
Semi-humorous conclusion:
Therefore, I believe the only true altruists are robots without artificial intelligence who can only choose to serve (like a Roomba). Any human or animal or creature with a concept of personal utility is incapable of an altruistic act as defined above.
27 Comments for Does Altruism Exist?
JJ | August 8, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Steve | August 9, 2007 at 11:57 am
I disagree. Your argument is “because we have free will, we cannot be selfless.” Let’s look at this from an evolutionary biology perspective. From this perspective anything that decreases one’s overall reproductive fitness can be considered altruistic. I’ve heard a story about a father who was on the water with his son and his son’s friend and somehow they got into a situation where the boys were drowning and the dad could only rescue one of the boys and each boy had the same chance of making it. The dad consciously chose to save his son’s friend. This is obviously not good in terms of reproductive fitness; choosing someone’s life who is not even related to you over your own blood line.
Of course people have the ability to make their own decisions, but this mere fact does not automatically mean that altruism does not exist. You have to look at the motivation for why someone makes a decision: is it to make themselves feel better about themselves? Or maybe it’s because the person cares more about the other person than themselves. This is not an issue that can be settled only with economics; the biological perspective needs to be taken into consideration as well. There are plenty of examples of behaviors in humans that qualify as sacrificing their own reproductive fitness or the fitness of their relatives in order to help out other people.
I have a little bit more to say, but I need to work for a while.
JJ | August 9, 2007 at 1:37 pm
“The dad consciously chose to save his son’s friend. This is obviously not good in terms of reproductive fitness; choosing someone’s life who is not even related to you over your own blood line.”
No, but it is a way of ensuring that he would not have to live with the guilt of knowing that he let someone else’s kid die. Personally, I believe he made the wrong choice. But regardless, one could argue validly that the motivation for saving either boy over the other could contain an element of self-interest. Therefore, neither choice is truly altruistic. Sure, he made a decision that was not good in terms of reproductive fitness, but the off-set could be that maybe he’ll live with less guilt.
JJ | August 9, 2007 at 2:04 pm
But maybe, Steve, a better example would be if the father had placed himself in a position of certain death in order to save both of the boys (sacrificed himself).
What are your thoughts on that, George. What about a person sacrificing his/her own life in order to save the life of another (a person knows that the act of saving someone else’s life will result in their immediate death, and they take that action anyway)? Would that not be altruistic?
Steve | August 9, 2007 at 2:44 pm
Sure, that would be altruistic. How about someone who sacrificed their life for someone they didn’t even know; or better yet, an enemy of theirs?
I’d also like to comment that if I’m in a situation where I’m going to save my son or my son’s friend I’m not going to be thinking that I’ll save my son’s friend because I’ll feel guilty otherwise. I’m pretty sure that the dad’s focus was not on himself in this decision. Can you honestly say that is how you make decisions all the time, based on how it will make you feel later, and not out of love for another person?
Author comment by George | August 9, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Steve,
We’re both working on a different definition of altruism. If altruism is about not choosing to promote your DNA, then of course a man saving the child who is not his son is being altruistic. But if altruism is more like the definition I set out in my article: completely ignoring your own utility, that’s not an altruistic decision. If the man decided to save the other boy, he made a decision he favored over all others at that time, and thus was utility maximizing. If he had preferred to save his son, he would have.
Steve and JJ,
I don’t think sacrificing yourself is any different than the scenario Steve set out. If the man sacrificed himself, it is because <i>he would rather</i> die than let the two boys die. Maybe he couldn’t live with that on his conscience. When people committ suicide it’s because they decide that’s what is the best choice for them at the time. People always act for a reason…
Long story short: if altruism is about ignoring your own utility, I don’t believe someone with free choice can commit a true altruistic act. Certainly, individuals can commit great, generous, caring acts that help others seemingly at their own expense. But these individuals commit these acts because they choose to over all other choices, which boils down to doing what feels best for the individual.
Author comment by George | August 9, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Can you honestly say that is how you make decisions all the time, based on how it will make you feel later, and not out of love for another person?
But that’s the thing. Love for another person is a choice you make as well. You do something out of love for another because that’s what feels best to you. I don’t mean “feels best” in the way that eating an ice cream cone or winning an award feels. I mean feels best in that based on all of the feelings that make up being human: pleasure, pain, guilt, satisfaction, or whatever. One doesn’t give money to a hobo because they think it’s going to make them rich, or result in congratulations. Maybe giving the money means they’ll go hungry tonight. The “good feeling” might just be the “least bad feeling” for that individual in a given circumstance.
Sometimes it’s all about principle. But that’s a choice one makes as well. A principle could be “love thy neighbor.” Breaking the principle would be bad to a person that really values loving their neighbor, so they will serve others out of love. But that love, and the fact that they value that principle, are choices. And they would feel really bad if they did not follow it…
JJ | August 9, 2007 at 3:25 pm
George, you’re going to be one heck of a lawyer. That’s all I can say.
JJ | August 9, 2007 at 3:40 pm
George, you’re going to make one hell of a lawyer (read: you argue well). That’s all I can say.
Steve | August 9, 2007 at 6:25 pm
I agree that George will make a hell of a lawyer, but I still disagree with him on this topic. I think there’s a flaw in your logic here. You say people have free will to make choices, while at the same time saying that people have no choice but to make choices that will maximize their utility. If there is a simple scenario where there are two possible choices a person can make, one of which will maximize the person’s utility and one that will not, you’re saying that it’s impossible for the person to choose the action that will not maximize his utility. This isn’t free will, this is deterministic. Can’t a person choose not to maximize his utility? I feel like your argument is circular, because no matter what a person chooses, you define that as maximizing their utility. You define what maximizes their utility because they made that choice, not because they actually maximized their utility.
I still think the motivation behind an action is important. In my natural state I am a selfish, prideful person, but as a Christian I believe there is something bigger than me out there that is loving and forgiving. What if my maximizing my utility means doing things because of who God is, which actually is not maximizing my utility so much as His? It’s not to earn God’s favor, because that’s not how grace works, but it’s a form of worship. I can’t see how that is maximizing my utility if my goal is to maximize God’s utility, which most of the time means being selfless towards other people. This is not to earn a reward. The last thing I want to do is make this sound like a “holier than thou” argument, because I realize that a lot of the time I’m not good at living up to this.
The other argument I wanted to point out involved your phrasing. You say that altruism means maximizing your utility even if that means doing something that appears to hurt yourself and benefit someone else. To me this means that you can still receive some utility from an action and it can still be altruistic, since there could be another action you could have taken that could have given you even more utility. Altruism doesn’t mean doing something because it doesn’t benefit you in any way whatsoever; it means doing something that benefits someone else at your cost. Suppose I grab a random kid from the path of a speeding car when I know I will get hit by the car and break my leg. I do receive some utility from saving the kid’s life, but not as much as I lose from breaking my leg. I received utility, but isn’t this still altruistic? I could have let him get hit by the car and saved my leg, which would have maximized my utility. In that way I would not be maximizing my utility.
JJ | August 9, 2007 at 6:54 pm
I feel that the words “altruism” and “utility” have not been used enough in this argument.
Altruism.
Utility.
There. That should do it.
Steve | August 9, 2007 at 10:26 pm
Haha, well played, sir.
Author comment by George | August 10, 2007 at 9:22 am
I’ll respond paragraph by paragraph.
You say people have free will to make choices, while at the same time saying that people have no choice but to make choices that will maximize their utility.
At first glance, I agree that this seems circular, but let me explain.
Because people have free will, they can decide what action they will take in any given situation. In any circumstance, because an individual chooses one decision over many others, he is expressing a preference over all other decisions. As long as the person chooses to act a certain way voluntarily, he is choosing whatever decision he feels best about, and is therefore attempting to maximize his utility.
It’s not that individuals have no choice, and thus are “forced” to maximize their utility. Rather, because people have choice, they choose to maximize their utility. If you make a decision for a reason, it means you have decided that your decision is the one you want to make over all other decisions. That is an attempt at maximizing your utility.
Can’t a person choose not to maximize his utility?
I would say that is a false choice, if utility is defined as everything that encompasses satisfaction, enjoyment, happiness, having a clear conscience, etcetera. Any choice one makes, because he has chosen it, is the choosing of that individual’s perceived first preference in a given situation, meaning it is perceived to be better than any other choice in that situation, meaning that it is the one that gives the individual the most utility.
What if my maximizing my utility means doing things because of who God is, which actually is not maximizing my utility so much as His? It’s not to earn God’s favor, because that’s not how grace works, but it’s a form of worship. I can’t see how that is maximizing my utility if my goal is to maximize God’s utility, which most of the time means being selfless towards other people. This is not to earn a reward.
But maximizing God’s utility is a choice you make over all other choices. If it were not the best decision you perceive at the time, you would do something else, just like many people today that are not serving God. The decision to worship God is the decision you have chosen that you feel is the best decision you can make, otherwise, you would have chosen something else.
Suppose I grab a random kid from the path of a speeding car when I know I will get hit by the car and break my leg. I do receive some utility from saving the kid’s life, but not as much as I lose from breaking my leg. I received utility, but isn’t this still altruistic? I could have let him get hit by the car and saved my leg, which would have maximized my utility. In that way I would not be maximizing my utility.
I would say in this case, you are still attempting to maximize your utility. If you decide to run in front of the car and grab the child, you have decided that you value saving the child’s life more than your own leg. If you knew ahead of time that the value of your leg was greater than the child’s life to you, you would not have saved his life.
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ONE CAVEAT. Making a choice that you feel will maximize your utility at the time does not mean in the end that your utility will be maximized. You could be wrong. For example, you could save a child’s life and break your leg, and look back on the situation and think, “shucks, I should not have saved the child’s life now that I have gangrene.”
Ex #2: You choose to give $20 to a hobo because you think that is the best thing to do at the time, but later that night you find out the hobo used the money to build a bomb and kill 200 people. At the time you gave the hobo the money, based on the information you had, you attempted to maximize your utility. However, later on, you find out it was a bad decision. This is not inconsistent with the idea that you did TRY to maximize your utility by helping another at your monetary expense because you valued helping the other at greater than the money.
Author comment by George | August 10, 2007 at 9:39 am
Maybe this will make things clearer… or maybe it will just fog things up.
If you were told that tomorrow you would no longer be allowed to worship God, and you knew for sure that there would be no way you could secretly worship, serve others, or do any related activities, how would you feel?
I’d personally be pissed. Although the goal of worship is to maximize God’s utility (or something along those lines), choosing to do so is a decision you make that you feel is right/your duty/good/necessary/etcetera, and thus worshipping God is doing what you feel is best.
Steve | August 10, 2007 at 11:52 am
“It’s not that individuals have no choice, and thus are “forced” to maximize their utility. Rather, because people have choice, they choose to maximize their utility. If you make a decision for a reason, it means you have decided that your decision is the one you want to make over all other decisions. That is an attempt at maximizing your utility.”
Not necessarily true. If you really have a choice, you have the ability to not maximize your utility. There can be a decision that I would much prefer over the others in a situation, but I have the ability to choose another decision; it is possible. Why is it not possible to choose something that is not best for yourself, taking into consideration both utility and personal profit? I understand what you’re saying just fine, but it’s still circular.
One problem I have with the argument is that no matter what decision a person makes it is defined as the decision that would maximize his utility. The only reason it is defined that way is because he made that decision. If he had made another decision, that would have been defined as maximizing his utility. The decision that will maximize his utility has to be made before he makes a decision in order for it to have any meaning (sorry for saying “maximize” and “utility” so often…). If what will maximize his utility is defined before the decision is made then a person has the ability to look at that and choose another decision. There’s nothing, except his own urges, from doing this.
Steve | August 10, 2007 at 11:55 am
In that last line I meant to say: “There’s nothing, except his own urges, to keep him from doing this.”
Author comment by George | August 10, 2007 at 12:19 pm
There can be a decision that I would much prefer over the others in a situation, but I have the ability to choose another decision; it is possible.
Why would you choose to do something if you don’t want to act a particular way? If you want to volunteer to help people, you will volunteer. If you don’t, you won’t. If you want to save someone’s life at the expense of your leg, you’ll do it. If you don’t, you won’t.
Why is it not possible to choose something that is not best for yourself, taking into consideration both utility and personal profit?.
Just to clarify: utility is not only about personal profit. If you care about others, then their well-being is part of your utility. Someone could decide that suicide is best for themselves, and committing suicide in that case would be an attempt at utility maximization. They could also decide that giving up their life to live alone on a mountain is best for them, and even though it will be very cold and brutal and they will have to give away all of their possessions, they’ll do it because they might feel they are a poison to the world and don’t want to hurt anyone by living in society.
Author comment by George | August 10, 2007 at 12:21 pm
If what will maximize his utility is defined before the decision is made then a person has the ability to look at that and choose another decision.
One other thing. People don’t know exactly what will maximize their utility. Who knows if donating $20 to a hobo will result in the hobo eating a sandwich or the hobo buying liquor? Who knows if you might really need that $20 later. People make decisions that are attempts at maximizing utility… no one knows for sure if the result will be utility maximizing.
Author comment by George | August 10, 2007 at 12:22 pm
One last comment/question on the choice of utility maximizing.
Why would anyone choose to not maximize his own utility?
Steve | August 10, 2007 at 3:42 pm
The question isn’t why someone would choose not to maximize their utility, the question is if they are able to.
Steve | August 10, 2007 at 3:56 pm
But I do see what you’re saying and think it is a good argument. I think motivation is still the determining factor here. I still think that it’s possible to do something for someone else’s sake and not for your own. I can see what you’re saying in your argument, but it comes with the connotation that people ultimately have a selfish motivation for everything they do, which I can say from my own experience is not true. It makes it sound as if people, even when doing something nice for other people, are only trying to dominate other people with their ideals. Now I don’t think we’re going to agree on this topic, but it’s been a good discussion.
Steve | August 10, 2007 at 5:39 pm
Hey, one more thought. Is utility the same thing as welfare? I feel like they might have different meanings.
Author comment by George | August 11, 2007 at 11:25 am
No, utility, I believe, is much different from welfare, and I’m starting to come to the conclusion that we disagree on the root definition of utility.
I’ll write more later.
Author comment by George | August 13, 2007 at 2:31 pm
Let me try one last time to clarify what I’m saying.
One way to think of it is as follows. A human operates on sets of principles, some higher than others, and their order depends on the person in question. We act in certain ways because we want to hold to these principles in the order we value them.
Example
A father believes that working hard and earning money to become wealthy is a very worthy cause. He is the CEO of a major corporation and is in a career he loves. However, one day is son becomes very sick. The father decides to quit his job to stay home with his son, and resort to taking a job he hates.
In that case, he has chosen to uphold a higher principle (being a good father) over another (accumulating wealth and working at a job he loves). He chose to uphold the higher principle of being a good father because he values that more than money.
Another person in this situation might act differently. If another person were in this situation, yet valued money more than being a good father, he or she might continue acting as a CEO and ignore the son’s illness.
Either way, the individual acts consistently with what he or she values most.
End of example
Given the information the father had in his situation, he decided to stay home with his son even though it would cost him his job.
The only plausible reason he would do this is because he prefers being a good father over making a lot of money and having a job he enjoys. And if he prefers a particular choice, it means it will give him more utility than any other option.
Let’s go back to the idea of someone named Dave serving God. Assume Dave wants to serve God. Why would Dave decide to make a material/earthly sacrifice to serve God through volunteering/etcetera?
1. Out of love for God?
- Certainly. But why would Dave do things for someone he loves? Some people love other people and don’t want to do things for them (maybe that isn’t true love). And people in love don’t do everything and anything for one another. The crux of the issue is that if Dave does something out of love for God, it is because Dave prefers to do that something over not doing it. If he prefers to do something over not, and he does the thing he prefers, he is utility maximizing.
2. Out of obligation?
- But why fulfill an obligation? Because a principle Dave holds is so important to him that he will not break his obligation to God. Although he could go skating with his friends, he decides to paint a church because he considers it to be his obligation to God. He does not have to fulfill his obligation, but prefers to honor it, because he values the principle of fulfilling obligations.
- This same idea is present in the system of laws we have in the United States. There are many times in people’s lives where one could break the law and get away with it. However, many individuals choose not to because of a higher principle. They would have less utility breaking the law because they would break a higher principle they hold than the value of gaining material possessions or whatever breaking the law might yield for them.
————-
My conclusion here is that people make choices for a reason. No one would ever make a choice he did not prefer. If one really and truly values serving God over all else in a given situation, his utility maximizing choice is to serve God. One one truly values bowling over all else in a given situation, his utility maximizing choice is to bowl.
It is impossible for someone to willfully choose something they do not perceive as utility maximizing.
- Why help a lady across the street even if it means you’ll miss your bus? Because you value helping her more than making the bus.
- Why give your last five dollars away to a hobo? Because you value helping the hobo more than the $5.
- Why give up your legs to serve your country in the military? Because you value protecting your country more than your legs.
This of course does not mean that every choice will be utility maximizing. It just means that every choice an individual makes will be an attempt at maximizing utility. Someone could be wrong. Maybe they don’t realize that going to war will mean they’ll lose their legs, or their last five dollars could have been very useful in their hands.
The point is that there is no reason for an individual to choose contrary to their highest principles and the things they value most. Therefore, altruism, as described in the article, as a wholly selfless act, does not exist.
Steve | August 13, 2007 at 9:22 pm
I agree with everything you’re saying, but come to a different conclusion. There are many cases in which maximizing one’s utility means contributing to other peoples’ welfare over, or in place of, their own welfare. You have pointed out several of these and so have I during our discussion. You can say that the only reason a person is doing something that appears to be selfless is because they hold a certain principle and therefore it is the choice that they prefer over doing something that would increase their own welfare. But just because something maximizes one’s utility, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they are doing it for themselves at all. That’s where we disagree. Someone’s utility can be directly linked to the welfare of others. Maximizing my utility can be maximizing your welfare. This is because this person holds a certain set of beliefs that he/she thinks is more important than his/her own well being. But you have to look at why they hold this belief and why helping others, with no interest in his/her own well being, maximizes their utility. The reason why this maximizes their utility can be a completely selfless one: maybe they love the other person and care about them, or maybe they view the person as one of God’s creations. Again, it comes down to an issue of motivation. The motivation for holding that principle can be 100% selfless an concerned for anything other than oneself.
My conclusion from this is that maximizing one’s utility may mean upholding some higher moral principle, but this does not mean the act is any less selfless. The motivation for holding that principle can be completely selfless.
sxsmith44 | November 23, 2007 at 8:30 pm
I agree with everything you’ve explained so far. That, “everthing you do, you do for your own sake. But what’s the utility in the proverbial “soldier jumping on the grenade to save his buddies”, it happens so fast. Almost like it’s instinctive. I’d like to read more on this subject if anyone knows of anything.
THE HIPPY MAFIA » Blog Archive » One Second,..beggers belief,..castro’s trip, and the healthy tramp… | May 11, 2009 at 10:47 am
[...] George at gimme 5.com sugests not: “When one commits an act, it is because that act is preferential to any other act for that individual. If a businesswoman gives up her lunch money to buy a homeless person a sandwich, she is making a choice. She has chosen to give up her lunch money over all other actions in that situation, expressing her preference for donation in that instance. In other words, giving up the money is what she would rather do than anything else in that situation. The act was certainly kind, noble, and loving. But the act, at the root, was a choice made by the businesswoman to maximize her utility. [...]
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I agree, George, 100%. That’s why I have a hard time accepting the concept of protecting the environment for the sake of… the environment. It just doesn’t make sense to me.