Is Altruism Possible? Are Altruistic Actions Necessarily in Conflict with Self-Interest?

Is altruism possible? Are altruistic actions necessarily in conflict with self-interest?

Introduction

In this essay I will argue that altruism is not possible. The issue of altruism is complicated by the lack of agreement about many aspects of it, including its very definition. Altruistic actions are not necessarily in conflict with self-interest because all our actions are motivated by self-interest.

Definition of altruism

The terminology of altruism is a helping behaviour that is motivated by a selfless concern for the welfare of another person. Based on above definition, not all helping behaviour is altruism and it may be difficult to determine whether helping behaviour truly reflects altruism. This seems to be true because there are a number of possible selfish motives to help another person. The egoist says that all apparently altruistic action are actually egoistic. Usually, altruistic action gives us satisfaction so we must be doing them for selfish reason.

Example that altruism is not possible

In the argument that "we always do what makes us feel good" or "that we always do what we want to do", there is two amazing example of alleged-altruism: "Mother Teresa the nun who spent her life working among the poor people in Calcutta" (Rachels & Rachels 2010,p. 67), and Raoul Wallenberg, a Swedish business-man that he helped many people find a places to hide during the closing month of the World War II( Rachels & Rachels 2010,p.64). Thus, seems like that both examples are the perfect example of pure-altruism because this people they did sacrifice their life to help other without having nothing back and in the case of Wallenberg he risked to get caught and even of course risked his own life. But on the other hand we can think that Mother Teresa sacrificed her life for nothing but only because she may believed that she would be handsomely rewarded in haven, and Raoul Wallenberg that had been risking his life to help other people, he did that because he may wanted to be a famous person. Therefore their actions were dictated by their own desire. Thus, it may not be possible to completely separate selfish motivation from altruistic motivation in these two stories.

Another important factor in human altruism is that there is the complication of compassion, which sometimes is confused with altruism. Compassion refers to an emotion and altruism to an action; although they are connected, one can act altruistically without sharing in the feelings of others, and one can feel compassion without taking altruistic action." This is because compassionate reactions are products of what has been called the caregiving behavioural system"(

Arguments are sometimes made against calculation theories of altruism based on the decision to perform an altruistic act, for example jumping into the water to