The people who don’t get it can’t understand altruism, think every gift horse is a toothless Trojan. Can’t understand openness and sharing and community. Can’t understand trust. The people who don’t get it live in this weird bondage of isolation and distrust. I couldn’t do it. Just couldn’t.
- JP Rangaswami, Confused of Calcutta
Update: Here is what I have written about altruism on Samizdata, in the good old days when I had more time to ponder such things at greater lengths. May the days come again soon. 
Jackie Danicki
on Aug 19th, 2006
@ 17:28 pm:
I’m surprised to see you quote approvingly a passage on ‘altruism’.
Adriana
on Aug 19th, 2006
@ 17:55 pm:
Why?
JP’s blog post is superb, I often thought about the same – what differentiates those who ‘get it’ and those who don’t. Hits the nail on the head as usual.
In turn, I am surprised to see altruism has quotes in your comment.
Jackie Danicki
on Aug 19th, 2006
@ 18:46 pm:
Because ‘altruism’ suggests selfnessness as the motivation for things like open source software, and denies the inherent drive the individual has to derive a personal benefit from what they are doing. Just because the benefit does not take the form of cash, it does not mean that the person performing the act is doing so out of selflessness. I’ve heard you say this stuff yourself, so I hardly need to explain it to you (I clarify only for your readers, though I’m not sure why my post didn’t make sense to you the first time around).
Adriana
on Aug 19th, 2006
@ 21:07 pm:
Hm, I don’t think I see things that way at all. There are many more motivations other than selfishness (i.e. personal benefit) and I do believe that in the kind of ‘gift’ economy we see now, altruims or selflessness of some sort is playing a part. That is why it is confounding business and its current culture so much. For example open source is based on individual motivations but these are closer to altruism or good will than direct personal benefit, at least that’s what it was at the start.
I certainly do many things from which I don’t derive personal benefit, including enhanced reputation or recognition or other non-monetary benefit, and I think altruism is a good way of describing it. Often we help people simply because we can. To get into discussion about whether the good feeling resulting from doing something without personal benefit is rather pointless in my view. Although I am aware that there are many people who engage in it, trying to prove non-existence of altruism.
Your comment didn’t make sense to me given in the context of JP’s entire blog post, which is not about altruism at all. The quote was to lead people to read it.
Adriana
on Aug 19th, 2006
@ 21:27 pm:
And here is my response to Antoine, who subscribes to a Randian definition of altruism (at least he used to), which I strongly disagree with:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2002/06/storm_in_a_teacup_or_too_many.html
This is an old debate that I really didn’t expect to revive, but it’s good to give the rusty brain cells a kick.
Perry de Havilland
on Aug 20th, 2006
@ 12:47 pm:
A hostility to the idea of ‘altruism’ makes perfect sense *if* you accept the very narrow (and frankly self-serving) Objectivist definition of what altruism is.
What the Randroids describe as ‘altruism’ is indeed wicked (i.e. the idea that there can be no moral good without complete sacrifice and rejection of value to self, and that as a consequence it follows that seeking value to self is always immoral).
Unfortunately no one else except the Randians actually defines altruism as perforce having the narrow characteristics and therefore consequential moral assumptions ascribed to the word by Rand, so having an argument about altruism with a Randian is pointless as they refuse to proceed with a semantic definition of altruism that means the same thing as everyone else.
I would say that given the broader sense in which the word ‘altruism’ is used by the 99.999% of humanity who have *not* read ‘An introduction to Objectivist Epistemology’ by Ayn Rand, JP Rangaswami’s remarks seem really quite reasonable
Jackie Danicki
on Aug 20th, 2006
@ 15:31 pm:
Gosh, then I wonder how one would explain a non-Randian like me thinking that this ‘altruism’ line is total cobblers!
I think the core line that I disagree with in your Samizdata post, Adriana, is this: If it is neither impossible nor irrational to act simply for the sake of another, the occurrence of satisfaction or ‘good conscience’ when we have done so is not sufficient ground for the egoist to claim that it was only for these ‘rewards’ that the acts were performed.
I’d loved to be persuaded otherwise, though – very interesting discussion.
Adriana
on Aug 20th, 2006
@ 18:02 pm:
We’ll just have to agree to disagree. The good feeling resulting from doing something good for others is not in my book a sufficient motivation. There are many things that would make me feel good but a lot of time I don’t persue them as I lack other motivation. To me good will and altruim can act as that motivation to help others or do something nice for them, and good feeling is a by-product, not the cause of such behaviour.
When I see someone in need, I don’t think “I am going to try to help them because it makes me feel good or there may be something else in it for me”.
Btw, I am still not quite clear about your position on altruim. Do you suggest that it does not exist?
Jackie Danicki
on Aug 20th, 2006
@ 20:53 pm:
When I see someone in need, I don’t think “I am going to try to help them because it makes me feel good or there may be something else in it for me”.
No, of course this must not be thought out in such a linear way, but surely there is more than a good feeling that constitutes the pay-off. In some cases, it is feeling that you have given someone else a helping hand (as others have given you, thus paying back to someone else a favour done previously for you) or otherwise satisfying a very personal need which will vary from individual to individual. For example, buying dinner for a friend who doesn’t have much money is not a case of altruism at all, though this does not take away from the benefit enjoyed by the friend.
We all gain by giving, and people do that which works for them – even though it may also damage them. It may not be as calculated as thinking to oneself, “If I do this, I gain a personal benefit, so I will do it” – in some it has evolved into near-instinct to serve others to their own detriment. But along with the detriment does come some pay-off, whether it is feeling dependable, playing ‘rescuer’, etc.
I just don’t think it is possible to dismiss those emotional pay-offs as non-benefits, as they clearly drive so much of human behaviour.