Altruism, the doctrine that the wellbeing and dignity of others matters and yours does not, only produces nasty hypocrites
Altruism is about having a spirit of “rather me than you”.
Can you prove that altruism turns people into hypocrites?
If it is good to put others before yourself and to hurt your feelings to
spare theirs then the altruists do not live up to that standard at all. The
sacrifice should be it's own reward. Doctors and clergy and nurses and teachers
and other vocations should get only a minimum of wage and not as a payment for
what they have done but so that they will live to do more.
Altruism has to force doctors, carers and nurses, not to take much money so
that altruism will be developed in others better through their example for
people who look up to them.
Altruists do things like loving the pope despite all the harm through the
propagation of AIDS his ban on condoms has effected in the more naïve regions of
the globe. It is selfish of them to forgive him when they never suffered or knew
what it was like for his victims though they knew about them. It is easy for
them to forgive. We don’t see many of the high and mighty altruists doing
voluntary work where the biggest problems are. And if they believe in God who
looks after them in all situations their badness is compounded. They should be
able to make any sacrifice if they believe in a Heaven they can go to. They
cannot prove that free will exists or that altruism is good and they dare to say
that teaching and developing altruism in others is the paramount duty meaning
that teaching is. They don’t use people power to enforce altruism on the world
and so they are just hypocrites and their good works are defiled by their
hypocrisy and are just masochistic deceptions.
Will altruism lead to cynicism?
Suppose that altruism is possible and is identical with genuine goodness,
then goodness is so difficult and unpleasant it follows that there can be few
real altruists about and the altruists themselves will only be altruists
occasionally. This will make it impossible for an altruist or believer in it to
genuinely praise others.
One sin defiles all your good works for you do good and if you refuse to cast
out the polluting sin. Your good works would be like water with a little poison
in it that is only fit for throwing down the drain. Compassion will be
impossible for it declares that a person should not suffer which is not true if
we deserve it. It would be evil to ask us to feel sorry which is hurtful to
ourselves for sympathy is painful for a person who did not deserve it. It would
be the same as letting that person hit us across the face. Even one who has
never done serious harm has done lots of little things that mount up to serious
harm.
Religion or philosophy that accuses us of being rarely sinless is saying that
one should assume that all people are bad no matter what they do. They deny this
and claim that it is better not to injure the good by thinking they are bad for
there is no, or not much of an injury in assuming that all are good even if you
are wrong most of the time. There is injury in it. Bad people do more harm when
they do not fear condemnation. If it is wrong to say a good person is bad then
it is wrong to say a bad person is good. If you love the sinner you will not
say, you will not pretend, that the sinner did not sin for sin demeans and harms
the person who commits it. If most people are bad then it is anti-truth to make
it out that most should be assumed to be good. It is not fair. If truth and
justice do not matter then it is silly to say that people or yourself matter.
This God that revealed religion wants us to lie to ourselves and then believe
that he never deceives.
What about the argument that altruism is a precaution against becoming
uncaring and ruthless?
Most thinking altruists know and use this argument but the truth is that
altruism seeks to stop us caring for ourselves and to get us to destroy one
another by making them as bad as us. It is rules altruism cares about not
people.
If the argument for altruism is saying that we should be uncaring and ruthless to ourselves for the sake of others and serve them though we hate it then it is incoherent.
It is saying that we should abuse ourselves for others even when they don’t
need it which is hardly a recipe for a moral theory. If altruism is needed to
stop us becoming ruthless then clearly it needs to be practiced all the time and
we need to practice constant self-denial.
Ethics would make no sense with the reasoning that it is okay to be ruthless
and nasty to ourselves but not others.
There are do-gooder liars who say that altruism is the idea that we should
like helping others. (This view is doubtful for altruism implies helping others
not to please yourself at all). If they are right then we might as well be
rational egoists and be there for others for we love being of service to them.
Anyway, the argument says that we are biased towards being antisocial. This
is wrong for even the worst of us does not take every possible chance to do harm
to others and double-dealing when they will get away with it. If we are as bad
as altruism says then perhaps altruism was invented because we are evil and want
to have an evil morality?
The person who feels terrible at the thought of stealing would be advised to steal until he stops to feel terrible about it and starts to enjoy it which means he refrains from stealing not because he feels he should - which is indulging himself but because it is his altruistic duty. Motive is more important than anything in altruism. A doctrine like altruism with its disinterest in what is good for individual practitioners, conditions people to undertake a life of crime for the attitude it has is at the root of crime. The sensibly selfish person will respect himself or herself too much to have a life of felony.
The naturalness of egoism or self-centredness means that you have to trick yourself into thinking you can and do put others first. That amounts to a lot of deception for people want to believe they are rarely putting themselves first. They want to pretend they saved Jane because she was special and not because they felt like saving her. If you are naturally selfish then trying to disguise it and hide it even from yourself will only make you selfish in a nasty and hostile way. What passes for altruism is really passive aggression in theory and in practice.
