Wizblog

Is Altruism Natural?

Are we humans capable only of self-interested behavior? A lot of people think so, and Roger Kimball thinks "it is interesting to ask why". As usual, then Kimball proceeds to make it interesting. An excerpt:

We are naturally taken aback when we hear someone praise selfishness as a virtue because we know it is not a good thing to be "without regard for the well being of others." Of course, people who praise selfishness as a virtue know this.

Often, I suspect, their praise is deliberately provocative. They know as well as the rest of us that one should not be selfish--that one should not act "without regard for the well being of others." They know, too, since they are not lunatics, that there is plenty of selfless benevolence around: just look at the behavior of most mothers towards their infants.

But they praise selfishness in order to call attention to the hypocrisy and sentimentalization that often attends the praise of selflessness and altruism. This is very much worth doing. For there can be no doubt that some people who loudly praise selflessness are concerned less with the welfare of others than in enhancing their own feelings of virtue. (Such feelings help explain the attraction of what we have come to call political correctness: see, e.g., here. )

Kimball links us there to this terrific essay from The National Interest on the PC phenomenon. Here's a taste of that:

Major newspapers in the United States refuse to accept advertisements for houses to let that mention that their property has "good views" (unfair to the blind), is "walking distance" to the train (unfair to the lame), is on a "quiet street" (unfair to the deaf). I know it sounds mad. It is mad. Nevertheless, it is true.

But to return to the sources of political correctness: Robespierre, Mao, 1984-what a grisly confraternity. Is it too grisly? In some ways. It does not seem quite right to describe Robespierre as "PC." Or does it? How about Mao? Or Orwell's enforcer O'Brien? Were such sinister figures "PC" within the usual meaning of the term? Not quite, perhaps; and yet, almost."

All of those figures in one way or another demonstrated what the essayist calls "a union of abstract benevolence, which takes mankind as a whole for its object, with rigid moralism. This is a toxic, misery-producing brew."

Check it out. Long, but worth it, especially if you've read this far already.