Written by: Ronaish Arshad
Origin of Altruism
The word altruism derives from the Italian word altrui, which in turn derives from the Latin word alteri, meaning “other people” or “somebody else.” The word was coined by French philosopher Auguste Comte, as altruisme, for an opposite of egoism. In recent times, altruism philosophy has become a major topic in effective charity, psychology and even evolutionary biology.
Altruism Theory
According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, behaviour is normally considered altruistic when it is motivated by a desire to benefit someone other than oneself for that person’s sake. James Fieser—professor of Philosophy at the University of Tennessee at Martin—describes ethical altruism as follows: “An action is morally right if the consequences of that action are more favourable than unfavourable to everyone except the agent.”
Altruistic people put the needs of others before their own, hence, the altruism philosophy has an element of self-sacrifice. Altruism encourages individuals to practise selflessness and to be willing to aid people in their times of need. Why should we aid them? Are we morally obligated to do so?
Why Help People?
In his Medium essay, Weng Yek Wong turned to John Rawls’ two principles of justice in an effort to find a universal justification for helping others, instead of simply relying on ‘sympathy’ or emotional guilt. Rawls was a 20th century American political philosopher—as someone who grew up in a World War II-stricken and lawless society, he witnessed a great deal of injustice, unfairness and poverty in the United States. As a result of wanting to change this, he proposed two principles of justice in his 1971 novel The Theory of Justice. Rawls’ two principles of justice continue to be cited amongst history’s most influential political theories. He argues that statistically, society is incredibly unfair—the rich make much more money and live much longer than the poor. As a statistician, he knew that the ‘rags-to-riches’ stories about how the poor can rise solely through the power of ambition are overall so negligible as to not even warrant significant attention from political theorists.
Rawls knew that those who benefit from injustices could not be bothered to think about what their life would look like if they were born under different circumstances. And so, he proposed a simple thought experiment, popularly known as ‘the veil of ignorance.’ Rawls asks us to imagine ourselves in a conscious state before our birth, without any knowledge of the kind of life we were about to be born into. What sort of society would it feel safe to enter? This experiment allows us to look at the risks of entering society as if it were a lottery: you could wind up the child of a rich and prestigious family or one born in extreme poverty. Would any sane player take this gamble? Or would they insist the rules of the game be changed? Any participant in this thought experiment would want a society with a number of things in place, such as good schools and decent housing for everyone. We know what kind of a society we want to live in, we have failed to pay attention to this because the choices have already been made.
Weng Yek Wong states in his essay, “What we are endowed with — both the good and the bad — are the result of an accident; a natural lottery. Just as we can’t claim to deserve our endowments, so too we don’t really deserve our deficiencies, their unfavourable consequences, and the resultant inequalities.”
By helping others, we assist in creating a more equal society for everyone. Imposing perfect equality might not be possible, however, society should guarantee that everyone has an equal opportunity to prosper. This could result in greater attainments for everyone, even if the distribution at large has less than perfect equality.
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