more arguments for altruism

Altruism, even without the emotionally intense features that are associated with
love, concerns the role of the other in moral experience. By the strictest definition,
the altruist is someone who does something for the other and for the other’s sake,
rather than as a means to self-promotion or internal well-being—for example, the
feeling of inner satisfaction. A more balanced definition would indicate that a
sense of internal well-being as an indirect side effect of altruistic behavior does not
imply that the agent’s psychological motive is somehow impure and egoistic.


Many philosophers
have argued for the reality of altruism, even if mixed with some subordinated
egoistic desires to get what the self wants or needs, so long as the controlling
aim is to give to the other what he or she may want or need (Hazo, 1967). Psychological
altruism exists when the agent seeks to promote the well-being of the other 54
“at least primarily for the other person’s sake” (Hazo, 1967, p. 18).

I also had this interesting idea, that instead of trying to fight egoism, we could just on board, and say that all actions are self serving, but just redefine the self

In the broadest terms, the altruist no longer sees the self as the only center of
value but discovers the other


egoism, the accepted philosophy that is the DRIVING RATIONALE behind our current economy effectively argues against the existence of 'moral' behaviour.

Apart from the “other” and the claims which she or he can make upon me, “Morality”—
if one can call it that—is but the shrewd management of life’s exigencies in light
of my more or less arbitrary personal preferences. Whether it be refined and subtle and
sophisticated, or careless and thoughtless and unreflected, such morality finally boils
down to egoism, the assessment and utilization of all aspects of the world in terms of
my own purposes. (1985, p. 35)

The contractarian theory of ethics, associated with John Rawls (1971) and the tradition
of Thomas Hobbes, is dismissed here as pseudoethics because it only builds
on the strategic self-interest of egoists attempting to maximize their future
prospects. Some evolutionary biologists have endorsed this contractarian model
of ethics, although the recent resurgence of group selection theory may imperil
their analysis (Alexander, 1987). It is far from obvious that evolutionary biology
and psychology require this too easy capitulation to enlightened egoism.
Altruism is virtue to all but the ethical egoist, who holds the view that even if
psychological altruism exists it should never be implemented, for it only encourages
dependence and weakness in the recipient. The ethical critique of egoism is
most clearly associated with Emmanuel Levinas (1969). In contrast to Sartre, who
viewed the decentering of the self through the presence of the other as a threat to
personal integrity (“the look”), Levinas views this decentering as a call to moral
life, which begins precisely when the egoism of the self has been called into question
quite literally by the face of the other. The other’s expression summons me to
take another center of meaning into my world.

The elevation of empathic capacities into a reliable affirmation of the other
requires a conceptual act of valuation—that all human lives have equal worth.