When I tell students about my course on The Psychology of Altruism and Helping, someone
always announces that “There is no such thing as altruism.” When I ask them to
explain, they say something like: “People are selfish. Everything they do, they
do to pursue their own interests. Therefore there is no altruism. People never
really care about others; only themselves.”
Delighted to encounter such passionately
engaged students, I tell them it all depends on how the various key words are
used – a claim they will get very used to hearing if they sign up for my course.
I then suggest that we start our conversation somewhere other than by arguing about
what words like selfish, self-interest, and altruism might mean.
I invite the student to start instead by
thinking about the sorts of things that people do and why they do them.
Sometimes, I suggest, people do things because
they want to have a positive impact on others’ lives. People with this goal do
things like give blood, volunteer, comfort friends, donate to charity, buy Fair
Trade goods, become organ donors, help strangers, and leave bathrooms as they
would like to find them.
I invite the student to think about their
own life. I ask if they have ever wanted to make things better for anyone else
and whether they have ever acted on that impulse. I ask if any of their friends
are nicer than others; more considerate, compassionate, and caring. Maybe I’m
lucky in the students who show an interest in my course, because they keep
saying “yes”.
At other times, I suggest, people do things
for reasons other than wanting to improve others’ lives. Often without a
thought for how such things might affect anyone else, people eat, watch films, drink,
chat, and relocate traffic cones.
I invite the students to think again about
their own lives. I ask them to identify times when they have done things without
even thinking about whether or not their actions might be helpful for anyone
else. They can always think of examples.
I then ask the students to consider whether
there might be important differences between people doing things without considering the impact of those
things on the welfare of others and people doing things because they want those things to have a positive
impact on the welfare of others.
I tell the students that I believe there
are important differences between such behaviours and that I set up my Psychology of Altruism and Helping course
as part of my attempt to understand the more other-considerate, other-serving ones.
I say I know that not everyone will
agree that “altruism” is a good name for the behaviours I am interested in, and
that people will claim that those behaviours are “not really altruistic” but,
hey, they need a name! (In my next post I will start an argument that “altruism” is a good name for them.)
I then thank the students for their
interest and wish them luck in finding a course that’s right for them. I bid
them fare well and hope they have a good life.
Thank you for reading. Considerate questions
and constructive comments are welcome.
Key Points
People sometimes do things because
they want to have a positive impact on others’ lives.
When people do such things, they,
their actions, their goals, and their desires can, to that extent, be called altruistic.
It is important to be able to identify and
understand when people are and are not altruistic.
Final
thoughts and further reading
Academics routinely confuse themselves and
others with jargon. This is not trivial. It impedes knowledge, understanding,
and progress.
Jingle-jangle fallacies. (No date). Wikipedia. Link
Rozin, P. (2001). Social psychology and science: Some lessons
from Solomon Asch. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 5,
2-14. Link
How
to cite this blog post using APA Style
T Farsides. (2013, September 23). No such thing as altruism? Retrieved from http://tomfarsides.blogspot.com/2013/09/no-such-thing-as-altruism.html
Image credits
Girl sharing ice lolly
from link
Relocated traffic cone
from link
