Is it that any action done for the others good is necessarily selfless? More so, is every action done in interest of self, selfish? Our understanding of terms selfishness and altruism are often derived from the general social view that we are carrying about them. Further linguistic limitations make us misinterpret concepts and therefore the completely related idea. What does each word stand for in our mind, and how our idea about a word manipulates our idea and understanding of a concept using that word, is a subject of study itself. My endeavor here is not to point out the linguistic limitations but to put in perspective few terms that are widely used and misinterpreted. Firstly ‘selfishness’, a classical vice which was given a whole new perspective by Author and Philosopher Ayn Rand, and secondly ‘altruism’ the classical virtue which modern philosophies went about challenging to its very existence.
Altruistic paradox is unlikely a new term for most readers, especially those who have some inclination into objectivist or rather post/pro Darwinian philosophies if I am asked. I would however start with an attempt to firstly state what this paradox is all about in its classical sense. A psychological overview based on certain studies, which were done specifically to prove or disprove this theory. Finally, I shall attempt to put in perspective the term ‘selfishness’ as brought out in Objectivist philosophy.
Before the Darwinian theory of evolution came forth, the most accepted theories on origin of man were religious philosophies. All of them invariably pointed towards an intelligent design of universe and man. They held man as the finest creation of God, and qualities like altruism and love for fellow being intrinsic qualities that were embedded in man heart by the divine creator himself. Darwinian Theory of evolution changed this perception forever, with scientific proofs backing his theory he put forth the various laws of evolution. His theories of ‘natural selection’ and ‘survival of the fittest’ brought forth aggression and continuous competition between the species and more visibly within the species as most intrinsic and instinctive behavior. He argued that each living entity aggressively struggles for ones survival and further procreation. Implication of the theory was therefore that Altruism among humans is simply a paradox and our actions are not motivated by any higher altruistic goals but very selfish instincts.
Human behavior as understood by the present day psychology however transcends both these arguments. The studies that were conducted to understand various behavioral aspects of humans both clinical methods and psychoanalytic have revealed various interesting facts about these debated behavioral aspects. Altruism has been found as a behavioral trait in many species like squirrels monkeys and humans. Female Squirrels for instance make distress calls and assess its male counterparts based on their response. Guerrillas and monkeys are known to respond when the members of their clan are attacked at times some members even risking their life for the group. Discovery is rather filled with documentaries showing mothers of various species risking their lives to save their offspring. These behaviours are not in contradiction with the Darwinian Theory of evolution. Theory of Natural selection gives room to nature to select certain characteristics that aid in a species successful survival. Nature seems to encourage altruistic traits in species where offspring need a lot of support and care before they are on their own. Humans too invariably fall in that category, invariable all females have tendency to prefer protective and caring males because such instincts are more beneficial towards protection and care of offspring. Females being the one with limited capacity to procreate tend to be choosy in this regard.
What nature promotes is certain characteristic traits that are altruistic in nature overtly, but serves a very selfish purpose of self procreation covertly. Nature favors genes and not individuals based on traits that help survival the best. A classical example being the species of Black widow spider, the female has the tendency to feed on male during intercourse. Invariably the male is killed in the process and male spiders are afraid of female for this reason. It is thus that the male whose sexual drive far exceeds its intrinsic fear of death attempts mating and therefore procreates. Its fearful counterparts though live longer but in longer run vanish. Similarly, in case of species where offspring need more care and protection genes, which have more tendencies to emotionally, attach and take care stands better chance.
Such findings however do not put in perspective the philosophical and religious concepts of altruism. One that holds in esteem sacrifice of individuals for the society defines selfless love and other altruistic conceptions. These behavior trends that are found human society has its root origin in another phenomenon called social conditioning. Human mind is subjected to rhetoric conditioning by the society. Cognitive development of personality of individuals have so much bearing on the environment that he has been brought up that you can make a man most willingly carry out suicide bombing. Similarly, men can be conditioned to pity and piety, altruistic behavior patterns like sacrificing oneself for nation, for ones religion, for ones society, family and so and so forth. William MacDougall, one of the founders of social psychology had pointed out how our growth of self consciousness and self regarding sentiments is influenced by the approval and disapproval by fellow men
Almost all that animals are capable in some degree of learning to modify their instinctive behaviour in the light of experience, under the influence of pain and pleasure, and in young child, also this kind of learning leads to first step beyond pure instinctive behavior.
In this way, the child’s idea of his self early comes to be an idea, not merely of his body and of certain bodily and mental capabilities, but also of system of relation between his self and other selves. Now the attitude of other person is presented towards him are more or less freely expressed by them in praise, reproof, gratitude, reproach, anger, pleasure or displeasure and so forth.
The child’s self consciousness is, then, nourished and molded by the reflection of himself that he finds in minds of his fellows
The strength of the regard men pay to the public opinion, the strength of their desire to secure approval and avoid disapproval of the fellow men goes beyond all rational grounds.
Idea that I am trying to bring forth here is that behavior trends that we tend to hold in high esteem as self less and altruistic is nothing more than a learned behavior that confirms with the self regarding sentiments that he has over the time molded to confirm. Behavior of certain nature gives his ego a boost, confirms with his image in the society and reaffirms the image that he has in his mind, the so called man in the mirror. You may even find criminal tendencies originating from such self regarding sentiment where in the criminal finds losing touch with his self if he does not continue committing crime.
Other classical examples are study on changing attitudes of children towards Negroes (study during apartheid era). The child who initially is very comfortable and loving with his coloured nanny, with time starts distancing and even abusing the same lady. In Indian context, there are instances where child of upper caste reared on the milk of lower caste women, grows up to regard her as untouchable. Social conditioning can thus explain a plethora of behavior trends that does not confirm with instinctual human behaviour.
Coming to Ayn Rand and her philosophy of objectivism, she was a lady born and brought up in Soviet Russia. She had seen the extents to which men can be exploited on the name of community and society. She had seen in her life men getting sacrificed both willingly and unwillingly to this irrational order. Her endeavour in her work was to free the man to whatever extent possible from the clutches of society. His protagonist were therefore always highly individualistic and to an extent antisocial beings.
Without dwelling into the whole epistemology of her philosophical derivations, if her philosophy were to be summarized, it would be thus. Objectivism holds reality to be absolute and objective in nature. That is A is A and 2+2 = 4, she allows no scope of relativity or perceptual bias in this regard. Secondly, she holds reason as the sole tool to make sense of the world around us, and what we derive using this tool has no biases or mystic vision. One thus need not depend on mosses or Jesus, Muhammad or Krishna or for that matter Ayn Rand to make sense of reality. No commandments or religious dictum need to be followed. What needs to be followed is purely your rational judgement. What man can perceive objectively is his self and his judgment are therefore with his context, his actions as value he derives out of it.
What we derive from here is our argument of selfishness. Well consider this scenario, you have a piece of cake in your hand and you are feeling a bit hungry, a very hungry visibly distressed kid comes in front of you and starts begging for it. What do you do? Your action can be turning away from there and having your piece of cake, or giving it to the kid. If the gleam on the face of that kid when he gets the cake is more valuable to you that satisfaction that you would have by consuming it, you can go ahead and give it to the kid. Now if you friends are standing next to you and you want to impress them, well that is again your choice, and your valuation of the action. There is no selfless in the act, it is yourself only that is deriving the pleasure and satisfaction from the action. It is but by no means correct that your friends force you to give away your cake when you wanted to have it. In such scenario in heart of heart you are not happy with what you did, or rather were made to do. In similar manner, a soldier fighting for his nation must exercise the same volition and rational judgment, and if his action suits his self, he is justified in his actions. It may be deemed as altruistic by fellow countrymen but by no logic self less. It is indeed if it was self less you have taken from the soldier the very pleasure and purpose of his life.
It is this simple fact that is not understood by many and they go about making heroes and villains out of people without judging the rationality of their actions. The society tends to push its agenda and perception bit too harshly on the individuals. It is this coercive nature of collectivism where in actions by individuals are labelled as good or bad without respecting the individuals volition and choice is what she most vehemently objected and fought. She held the state, society and the collectivist mentality that it these institutions endorse as the root cause of most vices. She rallied with the word selfishness, instead of some benign alternative perhaps because it suited her fiction writer mannerism of invoking controversy. If we do not shy to attribute her credit, she has in a single word challenged the very foundation of social moral codes. It is amazing how a single word can have such massive impact on our collective consciousness. How by declaring a classical vice having its root in holiest of books of our civilization as the new age’s virtue she altered the very perception of millions across the globe.
18 Responses to “Altruistic Paradox, Virtues of selfishness, A perspective”
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gaurav Says:
January 18th, 2009 at 8:29 pmIntresting article transcending from the subjective description of theories of evolution to Ayn rand’s theory of objective realization. It is to be acknowledged how this single word has affected so much to our collective consciousness. Talking Spinoza, i think it was destined to be so, But maybe Ayn rand presents all those first hander protagonists, there’s a evolution of Human’s individual perspectives through centuries toil. Today when world is at such impressive stage of scientific and other evolutions, it’s not because of any collective conscience but rather individualist mind-scapes like Newton, einstein, lebinitz, friedman, socrates, gailileo, vivekanand and many others. How come they evolved, Human beings were freed from the clutches of these hypocritical collective conscience by people liek them who realized that self-worth is more ro do with understanding your worth,than understanding some Almighty’s worth,Human being are destined to excel but not to be charitable,because only an excellant one can be charitable,That’s one having content can deliver,All those collective conscience terms are things that can only by followed before one excels for his own self before that he just being parasite on some else’s efforts.As they say Money is sin as it promotes greed is just being fearful of theier own aboilities,because an able person will always produce money,Money is a bound to be the effect of a rational brain,because money unlike human beings Follows just the law of productivity.So hail objectivism.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 18th, 2009 at 9:01 pmFirst of all, let me mention Dotovsky here alongwith kriekgard and nietzsche.
Existentialism and Rational Self-interest isn’t a new idea nor was it for Ayn Rand.
We all get the previous/past knowledge as Raw material, and each of us is free to use that Raw Material to develop and create further. If all of us get complacent, and satisfied with the knowledge of past, evolution will stop, and so will stop existence.
Nature is bound to keep changing. If we as individual’s won’t try to develop to evolve further to create ideas, technologies knowledge, we will endanger our existence.
Not all can be First handers. Neither all can be second handers.
The truth that second handers exists and will always exist cannot be denied. The truth that existence of second handers provides the scale to distinguish the first hander cannot be denied. The relation of First hander and second handers is very selfish. And there is nothing wrong in that relation.
Wrong it becomes when the relation acquires irrational tactics of egalitarianism, socialism, communism, collectivism.
I would like to mention a certain characteristic of almost all societies and cultures. All socio-culture teachings projects women as mother, sisters, divine respectable.
Social norms say that a person should respect every woman, every girl. In girl, there is a mother, and mother should be respected, because that represents life. Such norms provide the required incentive for an Individual girl to accept the social limits. In accepting these social lmits, she feels safe, protected and dignified. Her acceptance of such social norms is also inspired by the sense of selfishness. Her self is safe if she accepts the norms of the society, if she won’t accept, she will be demonized, she will be termed WYTCH, and will be burnt. She will be tortured she may face rapes and molestation and harassment. Such social limits decide the further freedom. that is why there are different degrees of freedom for women in different societies. For the usual incentive of respect, safety and care, girl accepts the culture, dress codes and norms of a society. It becomes her selfish reason. We all need social relations nobody supports solipsism, neither it is possible. Yet, accepting the enforced limits does not make a girl safe. She remains under threat and control. Moreover, that makes her accept that prostitution is wrong, immoral, pornography is wrong, lesbianism is wrong, she also accepts that Burqa/ghoonghat is right and is for her safety, that being a woman she is second sex, that man should lead the society. She accepts it as a price for safety, not as a sign of selflessness. She accept this sacrifice for the greater importance of safety and existence, dignity and respect. She sacrifices her freedom, to protect herself and her procreational responsibility. It is simple “selfishness”, yet society denies it, it declares that such is the nature of woman, woman is the epitome of sacrifice, selflessness. But all this doesn’t saves her. She still gets killed, raped, harassed. She still suffer forced abortions, she still suffers dowry deaths, she still gets burnt in fire being claimed as a wytch, she still is killed on the name of Honor.
That is the reason people say Mothers love is selfless.
Basically it is just a selfish trap of the collectivist chauvinists to keep individual woman under control. To limit an individual woman under the realms of societal beliefs. no matters those beliefs are right or wrong.
Woman Is not for Procreation Alone. She is not a machine under the hands of program of evolution. it is her freedom to decide if she want to procreate or not.
Sex is not a duty of human to procreate. Sex is the Cherish of life. Sex is the gift and expression and projection of one’s most loved values. Yet the collectivists denies this simple fact. They stress that woman is made to procreate, that it is genetical/natural or whatever.
yes it is genetical, but above genetical compulsions, there resides the MIND. its she who will decide what to do with her ability to procreate she is Free!
GP Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 8:47 pmIdea that I am trying to bring forth here is that behavior trends that we tend to hold in high esteem as self less and altruistic is nothing more than a learned behavior that confirms with the self regarding sentiments that he has over the time molded to confirm.
in case u do belive in such things)
<<<<<Hmmm, your view seems to be absolutely correct for common beings but when I think of Gr8s like Mother Teresa or M K Gandhi,Baba Amte and his son Dr. Prakash Amte, I think they are truely altruistic individuals.
Coz they had chosen path breaking goals for themselves( so this meets your 1st point i.e. their decisions are not influenced by other common beings or its kind of learned behaviour.)
Now if you term their goals or the work they did was for their own “mental satisfaction” as “duty/social responsibility towards society”
or acts to gain social recognition or perhaps, for spiritual gain/advancement ( In the eyes of Chitragupta
then I have nothing to say – as each individual is entitled to interprete things in his/her own way.>>>>>>>
Bottomline : For me Altruism and altruistic indidviduals do exist and extremely rare to find. Also, when it comes to evaluation of such individuals actions in terms of rationality and logic then perceptions do differ subjectively
based on their conditioning and I always believed intangible things such as emotions, righteousness and personal judgements can’t be segregate into selfish/selfless , rational/irrational with one dimensional view of logic and reasoning
they still remain like a Rashomaan unless you know the whole story.
Nice Article though. Keep writing !!
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 8:53 pm@GP
There’s nothing like truly altruism.
About Mother Teressa, why do not you REREAD this piece, Isn’t Everyone Selfish?
By the way, did you notice your lack of integrity and consistency? For you, sometimes A is A, some other times, A can be B too other times it can be something else, sometimes 2+2 is 4, sometimes it can be 5 too or something else.
if you re-read that article, you will come to know that there, you agreed that every human action is selfish. Your exact words were “I do agree with rest of article i.e. Every human act is selfish.“
I guess you are disillusioned by the paradox of Altruism.
Liberty Speaks Says:
January 19th, 2009 at 10:29 pmhi GP…
Nice that you gave a early read this time around…but it seem I failed in my attempt to convey the idea. I never refuted that there are no altruistic behaviour pattern…infact most of the initial part is gone to show that such ppl do exist. It is but also true that it is a mere behaviour pattern which finally emanates from the self…It is the idea of selflessness that I refuted.
Mother terressa mission is noble and it is altruistic too, to the extent that yes it is done to help some one else…but it has a selfish intent for it is her self that derives pleasure and happiness out of it.
If you are saying that she feels indifferent about what she is doing and derives no joy out of helping ppl I guess you are wrong.
anyways keep reading…I am sure that I ll win you over. by the way I like criticism more than praise, it makes you think again on the subject and revalidate ur ideas…its a beautiful process akin of chemical iteration …every chalenge leaves the idea better and more polished…so thanks
Mihir Jha Says:
January 20th, 2009 at 10:26 amHi Diva,
Thanx for the comment on my blog.
Its an Interesting article.I liked that example of piece of cake the most.It was touching and appealing.
Tell me if u have any plans of writing a book sometime in future.I say so because i do have some ideas. I mean we can discuss.
All the best.
GP Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 6:37 pm@Unpretentious
I think there is difference between ur definistion and my definition of selfish
Let me tell u my definition of selfishness which I believe somewhat analogous to definistion given in wiki.
for me selfishness is nothing but “any act performed by particular human only to fullfill his/her own interest”.
Now if other ppl are also benefitted from his/her act then I wouldn’t term it as “selfishness” coz for me “person is selfish ONLY if his acts are beneficial to him/her ONLY and he wouldn’t care if they are beneficial to others or not.
Now exceptions to my above definition are – duty and services/business,etc. I don’t think i need elaborate on this as you must be already knowing this.
Now I did ping wiki( I knew its not bible of all knowledge in the world but it sounds quite reasonable most of the times so I prefer to refer it) for definition of selfishness and as per wiki “It is the act of placing one’s own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others”
Now for me – as I can’t tangibly measure the scenario or incidence where we can clearly say or generalise – “that person had given precedence to his own self interest above others” coz this decision
will always be subjective based on inidvidual’s conditioning (socio-economic,mental,religios,etc.) In short- just like u can’t say any act as good or bad.
So I would like to completely remove this term from my definition of “selfishness” hence, for me the act is selfish ONLY if it does not involve any concern/benefit to other ppl or person.
Now, lets come to your point – For u selfishness is term where – anything even remotely returned in the form of happiness/mental satisfaction/contentment out of ones’ act make him/her selfish
hence, for you every human is selfish. I got that. But if you think from my point of view I hope u will call them altruistic not selfish.
and regarding my comments about “Your exact words were “I do agree with rest of article i.e. Every human act is selfish.” — I think u overlooked my statement “your view seems to be absolutely correct for common beings but when I think of Gr8s like Mother Teresa or M K Gandhi,Baba Amte and his son Dr. Prakash Amte, I think they are truely altruistic individuals.”
The word “common beings” is really important to distinguish truly altruistic personalities from common people.
For the record – For me Altruism and selflessness are not at all same ( as claimed by wiki) coz as long as ur soul trapped in human body you can’t be free from sensual and materialistic pleasures so defintely for me there is nothing like “selflessness” exist in world. Certainly not if you are aware of “Mayawaad/ The effect of Maya” but anyways thats wud be another topic.
Bottomline – Definition of word “selfishness” is preety much subjective and can result in confusion [:)]
GP Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 6:39 pm@Liberty Speaks
Nice that you gave a early read this time around…but it seem I failed in my attempt to convey the idea.
I never refuted that there are no altruistic behaviour pattern…infact most of the initial part is gone to show that such ppl do exist.
<<<<<Yup I know and thats wht I like about your writing. You always keep it open-ended.>>>>>>
It is but also true that it is a mere behaviour pattern which finally emanates from the self…It is the idea of selflessness that I refuted.
<<<<<<Agreed and if u read my reply to Unpretentious you will understand my point.>>>>>>>>
Mother terressa mission is noble and it is altruistic too, to the extent that yes it is done to help some one else…but it has a selfish intent for it is her self that derives pleasure and happiness out of it.
If you are saying that she feels indifferent about what she is doing and derives no joy out of helping ppl I guess you are wrong.
<<<<<Nope. I never said or thought or tried to imply that she was getting any pleasure out of it. See as per my understanding she given utmost importance to help those needy,poor ppl and orphans so that she can see them smile
and in return even if they are not able to give anything in return ( yup I am talking abt smile/mere words of thanks/or happiness on their face) I don’t think
she wud have stopped continuing with her work. The point is — her attitude was like “Neki kar aur Dariya me daal (Help others but don’t expect anything back)”
but technically I can’t prove you that – she wasn’t expecting anything in return or getting any pleasures out of it so unless u put aside logic and reason
you won’t be convinced that its not act of selfishness so I thought its better to support my theory with my definition of “selfishness” ( yup I can take the liberty to refute the definition of selfishness which u guys have
coz its not science/geography or maths where u can apply the universal laws and axioms to refute my definition of “selfishness” [:)])
anyways keep reading…I am sure that I ll win you over. by the way I like criticism more than praise, it makes you think again on the subject and revalidate ur ideas…its a beautiful process akin of chemical iteration …every chalenge leaves the idea better and more polished…so thanks
<<<<<Yup. I like your spirit of not taking criticism by heart or get irritated which some passionate ppl do when they are being contradicted. Keep writing and write on more philosophical topics such as “free will” (in case you permitted to write [:P]) whenever you are free.
and yeah I never treated our “discussion/sharing of ideas” as competition so no question of wining/losing or “who’s the boss” kinda thing.
>>>>
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 6:40 pmIts you who keeps making it subjective, (you also keep changing your statements.)
Selfishness is Selfishness, an Objective Principle. there is no subjectivity in it.
GP Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 8:24 pmNope. I never changed my statements. I guess u just overlooked the exceptions. Besides , concept of “selfishness” do differ from person to person based on his/her act and defintely you can’t generalise it on your own perception and hence, I written its subjective.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
January 21st, 2009 at 8:28 pmSelfishness is Selfishness, an Objective Principle. and you will keep differing your statements, i have no problem with that, you are free to do it.
Liberty Speaks Says:
January 23rd, 2009 at 12:55 am@ GP
I guess you like to keep things open ended
…………………
well I guess that was below the belt, I thought I heeded to ur advice and started giving conclusion to my articles in a mare assertive way.
well as far as understanding ur point is concerned, yes, I have. I guess I mentioned that I am referring to selfishness as Ayn rand brought out in he works, did I mention wiki in that. I also had briefly mentioned linguistic limitations , but I was not keen to add paras on analytic and linguistic philosophies and limitation of languages. Invoking Ludwig wittgensten in that article would have taken it tangent. Please run a wiki on that name too if you are not aware of what I am talking about. Language has its limitation, tomorrow I may come accross some one who attributes completely different meaning to the same word. Well some may even think that selfish is some kind of fish
…. I am sorry I cant help you with that. It is philosophy of objectivism, and there are definite charecteristics attributed to that idea, that is what essentially construes as a selfish act and, I guess I did my best to explain it.
Vikas Gupta Says:
February 11th, 2009 at 7:03 pmThanks for inviting me to this article Ms Gargi!
You have a very scholarly blog (and a beautiful one too). And the discussion here clearly indicates that you have an intellectual following.
I had bookmarked this blog a fortnight ago but failed to add it to my favourites. This is a blog that would delight any thinking individual.
I am subscribing to the RSS feeds and will keep an eye on the new posts here though I may not comment frequently thanks to lack of time.
Actually I will not keep an eye but keep an ear ( Odiogo). By the way, If I recall correctly I learnt about Odiogo from your blog only and then added Odiogo podcasts on my WP blog despite the limitations! So , thank you.
Another good service that you may consider for your wonderful blog is Commentluv.
You may edit/delete this comment because it does not relate to the topic above and I will not take offence, needless to say.
Unpretentious Diva Says:
February 11th, 2009 at 7:24 pmYou are welcome
I guess I have Commentluv plugin , may be its not activated yet..
renegade_division Says:
February 11th, 2009 at 10:27 pm@Vikas
Hi, thanks for your comments and appreciation.
I did install commentluv plugin, but it didn’t really show any thing it claimed to do, so I deactivated it. Lemme enable it again and maybe you can test it and see if it works.
Vikas Gupta Says:
February 11th, 2009 at 10:34 pmHmm! Okay I guess I can be of help here!
A wonderful Canadian woman runs a WP blogging help site (http://onecoolsite.wordpress.com). She is an enthusiastic blogger and a good woman. On her personal blog http://thistimethisspace.com she has enabled commentluv and you can catch it in action there. Presently her web host ‘one small Orange’ has some problem and your comment may not be published if you leave it there but you can see how wonderful it looks (and how democratic it is)!
You can put this question to her on her One Cool Site; she is recovering from serious injuries (fibromyalgia) and it will take one more year; she helps just the same.
You must seek help in commentluv forum/support/help. I was really surprised when I saw commentluv in action for the first time; your readers will love it and show here more often as well!
Legal or Illegal? | Reason for Liberty Says:
April 19th, 2009 at 6:26 am[...] cannot, simply cannot from the core of your heart accept this line of reasoning. You are simply not programmed to be that cold hearted. From your childhood its taught to you that you must be compassionate towards other human beings [...]
Emmanuel Says:
October 10th, 2010 at 5:21 pmI think you are inferring that, because an act happens to bring pleasure to us, it is selfish. If a person believes in an ideal, and therefore puts that ideal above their own wants and needs, by definition that is not selfish. The fact that pleasure happens to be derived because of the knowledge that one’s charity is being used to better another does not mean that the donor gave with that feeling in mind. Take someone who sees a homeless man on the street, puts 20 dollars under the trash bin in the corner, goes back to the man and whispers in his ear about the money. He does this specifically so nobody will see him be “charitable”. Why?
You might say that he is doing this to say in his mind, “I’m a REAL giver. I’m more charitable than all those phonies who only give when people are watching”. Which in most cases might be true. But I strongly believe that there are people who do it for the act of love, whether of the fellow man or the God they might honor by doing so. One then may (OR MAY NOT) feel a warm, fuzzy feeling in their gut from helping someone. I’ve found about half the time there is no pleasure. It is done for the act of love, which I feel usurp’s pleasure’s throne as the highest goal.
In the cases where there is pleasure, the pleasure that is felt is based off of a relationship, which in my case is to a higher power. Making God happy makes me happy. The pleasure is a result, not the motivating factor.
You may say that, through trial and error, we learn to determine that certain acts bring about good feelings. But I counter that in the moment, those feelings are not the ones that motivate us.