Altruistic and Selfish Human Nature

Matthieu Ricard emphasizes that when we see that other has a specific need or desire whose satisfaction will enable him to avoid suffering or to experience well-being, empathy makes us become aware of this need. Empathy in his definition is the ability to enter into affective resonance with the other's feelings and to become cognitively aware of his situation. Empathy alerts us in particular to the nature and intensity of sufferings experienced by others.

Empathy is a term more and more commonly used, both by scientists and in everyday language. It in fact covers several distinct mental states that we will try pinpoint. The word 'empathy' is a derived from the German word Einfühlung, which refers to the ability to 'feel the other from within'.

Empathy can be set off by an affective perception of feeling for the other, or by cognitive imagination of his experience. In both cases, the person clearly makes the distinction between his own feeling and the other's, unlike emotional contagion in which this differentiation is blurred.

Daniel Batson suggests that the most commonly proposed source of altruistic motivation is empathic concern. By empathic concern he means an Other-oriented emotional response elicited by and congruent with the perceived welfare of a person in need. Empathic feelings include sympathy, compassion, tenderness, and the like. Empathic concern is Other-oriented in that it involves feeling for the Other. Such concern is considered to be a product of 

• (a) perceiving the other as in need,
• (b) adopting the perspective of the other, which means imagining how the other is affected by his or her situation, and
• (c) intrinsic valuing of the Other's welfare, such as often experienced for family of friends, seems to precede and produce Other-oriented perspective taking.

Empathy concern has been named as a source - if not the source - of altruistic motivation by Thomas Aquinas, David Hume, Adam Smith, Charles Darvin, Herbert Spencer, and William McDougall, and in contemporary science be Hoffman, Krebs, and Batson. Moreover, there is now evidence from over 30 experiments supporting the empathy-altruism hypothesis, the hypothesis that empathic concern produces motivation. This evidence contradicts the value assumption of the theory of rational choice. 

Matthieu Ricard mentions that neuroscientists think that empathy has two important advantages: a precise path to predict Other's behavior and acquiring useful knowledge about our environment. He also defines empathy as a precious tool of communication with the Other. Since Plato's classic discussion in the second book of the Republic, debate has raged over why people behave in ways to benefit others, even while knowing that their behavior can be dangerous, costly or even unpleasant for themselves.

Viewing humans as seeking to promote their own personal interests in every circumstance is a concept that took shape under the influence of the English philosopher Thomas Hobbes, who presents the individual as a basically selfish being. The notion was adopted by a number of contemporary thinkers. Specialists in human sciences have termed this 'universal selfishness', or 'psychological selfishness,' the theory that postulates not only that selfishness exists, which no one doubts, but that it motivates all of our actions. Even if we want others to be happy, it would only be viewed as a roundabout way to 'maximize' our own interests. Although no one denies that fact that personal interest can be one of the reasons we help others, the theory of universal selfishness goes far beyond that by asserting that personal interests is the only reason.

David Hume, one of the Hobbes' main opponents, was not kindly disposed toward the proponents of universal selfishness, and though this point of view stemmed from 'the most careless and precipitate examination'. He was more inclined to observe human behavior empirically than to construct moral theories. Speaking about the thinks of his time, he mentioned: 'It is full time they should attempt a like reformation in all moral disquisitions; and reject every system of ethics, however subtle or ingenious, which is not founded on fact and observation.' From him, denying the existence of altruism went against common sense: 'The most obvious objection to the selfish hypothesis is, that, as it is contrary to common feeling and our most unprejudiced notions, there is required the highest stretch of philosophy to establish so extraordinary a paradox. To the most careless observer there appear to be such dispositions as benevolence and generosity; such affections as love, friendship, compassion, gratitude.'

During the last centuries selfish or egoistic view of human motivation has had no shortage of eminent advocates, including La Rochefoucauld, Bentham, and Nietzsche.1 Egoism is also arguably the dominant view of human motivation in much contemporary social science, particularly in economics. Dissenting voices, though perhaps fewer in number, have been no less eminent. Butler, Hume, Rousseau and Adam Smith have all argued that, sometimes at least, human motivation is genuinely altruistic.

In 20th century we see that this polemic topic did not lose its positions in philosophical dialogue which became more social and open for everyone. For instance, despite the fact that Emanuel Levinas is the most readable and well-known philosophers in the modern world, the masses is more attracted by the idea of 'caring about yourself' which is being promoted by another famous philosopher of the second half of 20th century - Michel Foucault. This approach has no ethical dimensions and based on the social pragmatism which has no awareness about the issue of Other. From ethical prospective, as Levinas mentioned, everything starts from the free and conscious self-limitation, with 'questioning of my spontaneously by the fact of Others presence'.