Egoism/Altruism

this is a short partial review of a book called: Altruism and Altruistic Love: Religion, Philosophy and Science in Dialogue. This information is taken from chapter 6, Addressing the Altruism Question Experimentally by C. DANIEL B AT SON

to start things off here is a quote:

definitions: Altruism
is a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s welfare.
Egoism is a motivational state with the ultimate goal of increasing one’s own welfare

egoism's claim that greed is the only morally correct behaviour gains its strength because it's very difficult to disprove.


an egoist can still do 'selfless' actions, because they benifit the egoist.
basically it claims that even selfless acts are self serving, so people who try and serve others are, in effect, still egotistic, they are being other-serving, whether conscious of it or not, for their own gain (mental, emotional etc.)

egoism claims our motivations for helping others are actually self serving.

The most common answer in Western thought is that we benefit others to
benefit ourselves. Everything we do, no matter how noble and seemingly self-sacrificial,
is really directed toward the ultimate goal of self-benefit. We gain gratitude,
admiration, and a good feeling about ourselves; we avoid guilt; we put ourselves
in line for help should we need it. The list of self-benefits is long. This view
is called universal egoism.

and

Even if it were possible for a person to be motivated
to increase another’s welfare, such a person would be pleased by attaining
this desired goal, so even this apparent altruism would actually be a product of
egoism.

there are emerging arguments though, that are gaining support:

the pleasure obtained can be a consequence of reaching the goal without
being the goal itself.

it is suggested that the ultimate goal of the action should be what defines it as altruistic or egotistic.

Altruism and egoism, thus defined, have much in common. Each refers to
goal-directed motivation; each is concerned with the ultimate goal of this motivation;
and for each, the ultimate goal is to increase someone’s welfare. These common
features provide the context for highlighting the crucial difference: Whose
welfare is the ultimate goal—another person’s or one’s own? These definitions are,
I believe, true to the egoism-altruism debate in Western thought.

the difficulty comes in proving the motives of a person, but research into this is being conducted:

Experimental research has tested the claim that empathic emotion evokes
altruistic motivation—motivation with the ultimate goal of increasing another’s
welfare. Results of the more than 25 experiments designed to test this empathy-altruism
hypothesis against various egoistic alternatives have proved remarkably
supportive of it, leading to the tentative conclusion that feeling empathy for a person
in need does indeed evoke altruistic motivation to help that person.

and

With remarkable consistency, results of these experiments have shown patterns as predicted by the empathy-altruism hypothesis. Results have failed to support any of the egoistic alternatives.