Who wants dinner?

Walking back from a night out I was offered some cake from a man. I love cake so I said “of course.” Cake at 3am!? Not bad, not bad. After standing and chatting for a while I asked him why he was there, he replied that he wanted to be nice and was part of the Christian Union.

After discovering this, I didn’t feel obliged to stay and talk but did as I found him interesting. Altruism is a great thing. However those around me have led me to question whether altruism in its truest form exists.

Universal egoism is perhaps juxtaposed with regards to the Kamikaze suicide attacks that took place in the closing stages of the pacific campaign of World War II. The aircrafts were built laden with explosives in order to maximise the destruction of opposing warships.

Writing in The Descent of Man in 1871 Darwin acknowledged that, "he who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature."

To many individuals dismay, psychologists frequently purport that altruism in its purest essence fails to exist. This is for a range of reasons; one of the primary reasons for helping relatives is allegedly to ensure that one’s genes will be passed on sufficiently to the ensuing generation. Helping strangers on the other hand is avowedly to enhance one’s own self esteem and perhaps in the hope that the favour will be praised or returned.

An alternative perspective is that people will be just as equally satisfied when another steps in to offer assistance to the individual in need. In other words, as long as the helpless are helped an individual shouldn't feel immaterially indebted towards their self esteem.

The universal egoism theory states that we help others in order to impress others and gain social acceptance in a society that places high emphasis on selfless acts and overall benevolence.

This pessimistic outlook on seemingly selfless acts leads me to question virtually every act that occurs around me:

I love to cook, so much so that a dinner for three often expands itself into a dinner for eight. If I hear that someone isn’t eating properly my background and natural inclination has been to feed them. When looking at this through egoistic shaded frames one could suggest that I only enjoy to cook for others because seeing someone satisfied makes myself happy which is essentially a selfish act. . .

Hmm, I’ll still cook for people.

http://www.helium.com/items/1470117-does-altruism-exist?

The evolution and psychology of unselfish behaviour By Elliott Sober, David Sloan Wilson