Altruism

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A term formed by Auguste Comte in 1851, on the Italian adjectivealtrui, and employed by him to denote the benevolent, as contrasted with the selfish propensities. It was introduced into English by George H. Lewes in 1853 (Comte'sPhilosophy of the Sciences, 1, xxi), and popularized thereafter by expounders and advocates of Comte's philosophy. Though used primarily, in apsychological sense, to designate emotions of a reflective kind, the immediate consequences of which are beneficial to others, its important significance isethical. As such it defines a theory of conduct by which only actions having for their object thehappiness of others possess a moral value. Anticipations of thisdoctrine are found in Cumberland's "De Legibus Naturae" (1672), and in Shaftesbury's "Inquiry concerning Virtue and Merit" (1711). Comte, however, is the founder of the Social Eudaemonism, based on Positivism, to which the name of Altruism is given. Comte's system is bothethical and religious. Not only is thehappiness to be found in living for others the supreme end of conduct, but a disinterested devotion to Humanity as a whole is the highest form of religious service. Hisethical theory may be epitomized in the following propositions.

The dominion of feeling over thought is the normative principle of human conduct, for it is the affective impulses that govern the individual and the race.
Man is under the influence of two affective impulses, the personal or egoistic, and the social or altruistic.
A just balance between these two is not possible, one or other must preponderate.
The first condition of individual and social well-being is the subordination of self-love to the benevolent impulses.
The first principle of morality, therefore, is the regulative supremacy of social sympathy over the self-regardinginstincts.

To bring about the reign of altruism Comte invented a religion which substituted forGod an abstraction called Humanity. To this new supreme being, worship was to be paid, especially in its manifestations and representatives,woman, namely, and the benefactors of the race.

The religious part of Comte's system was never acceptable to more than a few of his adherents. It was too extravagant, and as he himself confesses, it transcended positionscience. Even Littré, one of the earliest, ablest, and most ardent of his followers, disavowed it. InEngland, it istrue, it has one advocate of prominence, Frederic Harrison. Practically, however, it has ceased to attract any attention. The main defects of Comte'sethical system are those that are common to all forms of Eudaemonism: its norm of morality is relative and contingent; it possesses no principles by which the quality of its subject-matter, socialhappiness, may be defined; its imperative imposes no moralobligation. Its special defects are mainly those of Positivism, which denies or ignores any reality beyond external facts, and recognized no law except the successions, coexistences, and resemblances of those phenomena. Hence it can set before us nosummum bonum outside the region of sense. It confounds physical law with moral law, the fact that the affective faculty moves to action sufficing to make it also the norm of action. It, moreover, contracts the field of morality, and immorality as well, by making purely personal virtue or vice non-ethical. The Englishschool of Altruists differs from the French in appealing topsychology for their facts, and in interpreting them by the principles of evolution. Comte based his system on a theory of cerebral physiology borrowed with modifications from Gall.Littré found the origin of morality in two primary physiological needs, nutrition, and reproduction, and in their transformation into the conflicting impulses of egoism and altruism. Both rejected the evolutionary hypothesis, and looked with disfavour onpsychology. The representative exponent of English altruism is Herbert Spencer. The leading features of his system are these:

Conduct becomesethical in the latest stages of evolution, when it assumes social aspects, when namely its tendency is to raise the aggregatehappiness of the community.
The sense ofduty originates in egoistic feelings of utility. But these in the process of evolution are modified by experience which associates personalhappiness with social, political, and religious well-being and their sanctions. These associated experiences are recorded in the brain, and by hereditary transmission, and accumulation in successive generations they finally become certain faculties or moralintuitions, which we mistake for the voice of a superhuman authority.
The conflict between egoism and altruism is not to be removed by giving preponderance to either, since pure egoism and pure altruism are both fatal tosociety; but by compromise of their respective claims such that the final result will be general altruism, as distinguished from the altruism thatministers to the egoistic satisfaction of others only, whether these others beindividuals, or the community impersonally conceived.
This reconciliation can only be reached whensociety is perfectly evolved; when namely we are so constituted that our spontaneous activities are congruous with conditions imposed by our social environments and social relations are so complete in their adjustments that altruism will not be associated with self-sacrifice, nor egoism with disregard for others.
Hence the distinction between Absolute Ethics which formulates the behaviour of the completely adapted man in completely evolvedsociety, and Relative Ethics which enjoins only what is relatively right, or least wrong. The former services as a standard by which we estimate divergences from right; the latter by which we guide ourselves, as well as we can, in solving the problems of real conduct. By absolutely right conduct is understood, of course, that which produces pleasure unalloyed with pain; by relatively right conduct, that which has any painful concomitants or consequences.

Spencer's system is eudaemonistic and, therefore, subject to the defects already noted. Moreover, he reduces the moral imperative to apsychological constraint not differing in kind from other natural impulses. At best, even granting his evolutionary premises, he has only presented us with the genesis ofconscience. He has not revealed the nature or source of its peculiar imperative. The fact that Iknow howconscience was evolved from lowerinstincts may be a reason, but is not a motive for obeying it. Lastly, the solution of the difficulty arising from the conflict between egoism and altruism is deferred to a future ideal state in which egoism, though transfigured, will be supreme. For the present we must be content to compromise, as best we may on a relative morality. Spencer's own judgment of his system may be accepted. "The doctrine of evolution", he says "has not furnished guidance to the extent I had hoped . . . some such result might have been foreseen."

TheCatholic teaching onlove of others is summed up in the precept ofChrist: Love they neighbour as thyself. Thelove due to oneself is the exemplar of thelove due to others, though not the measure of it. Disinterestedlove of others, or thelove of benevolence, the outward expression of which is beneficence, implies a union proximately based on likeness. All men are alike in this that they partake of the same rational nature made to the image and likeness of theirCreator; have by nature the same social aptitudes, inclinations, and needs; and are destined for the same final union withGod by which the likeness receive through creation is perfected. Bysupernatural grace the natural likeness of man to man is exalted, changing fellowship into brotherhood. All likeness of whatever grade is founded ultimately in likeness withGod. Love, therefore, whether of oneself or of others is in its last analysislove ofGod, by partaking of Whose perfections we become lovable.

The conflict between self-love and benevolence, which is inevitable in all systems that determine the morality of an act by its relations to an agreeablepsychological state, need not arise in systems that make theethical norm of action objective; the ethically desirable and the psychologically desirable are not identified.Catholic ethics does not deny thathappiness of some kind is thenecessary consequence of good conduct, or that the desire to attain or confer it is lawful; but it does deny that the pursuit of it for its own sake is the ultimate aim of conduct. Apparent conflict, however, may arise betweenduties to self and to others, when only mediately known. But these arise from defective limitations of the range of one or otherduty, or of both. They do not inhere in theduties themselves. The general rules for determining the prevailingduty given byCatholic moralists are these:

Absolutely speaking there is noobligation tolove others more than self.
There is anobligation which admits of no exceptions, tolove self more than others, whenever beneficence to others entails moral guilt.
In certain circumstances it may beobligatory, or at least a counsel of perfection, tolove others more than self. Apart from cases in which one's profession or state of life, orjustice imposesduties, these circumstances are determined by comparing the relative needs of self and others.
These needs may be spiritual or temporal; the need of the community or of the individual; the need of one in extreme, serious or ordinary want; the need of those who are near to us by natural or social ties, and of those whose claims are only union in a common humanity. The first class in each group has precedence over the second.

Catholic ethics reconciles self-love and benevolence by subordinating both to the supreme purpose of creation and the providential ends of the Creator. It teaches that acts or self-love may have a moral quality; that sacrifice of self for the good of others may sometimes be aduty, and when not aduty, may oftentimes be an act ofvirtue. It distinguishes between precept and counsel. The Positivist can only give counsel, and in his effort by emphasis and appeal to sentiment to make it imperative, he destroys allethical proportion. Because theCatholic doctrine does not confound moralobligations with the perfection of moralgoodness it is often charged with laxity by those whose teaching undermines all moralobligation.

Sources

COMTE, Positive Polity, I, tr. Bridges (London, 1875-79); SPENCER, Principles of Ethics (London, 1892-93); STEPHEN, Science of Ethics (London, 1882); SIDGWICK, Methods of Ethics, IV, iii, and passim (5 ed., London, 1893); MARTINEAU, Types of Ethical Theories, I (3 ed., Oxford, 1898); CAIRD, The Social Philosophy of Comte (Glasgow, 1885); AQUINAS, Summa Theologica, IIa-IIae, QQ, 25 and 26 (Basle, 1485; Paris, 1861); RICKABY, Aquinas Ethicus, loc. cit.; COSTA-ROSETTI, Philosophia Moralis, Thesis 99; MING, Data of Modern Ethics Examined, 15 (New York, 1897); MAHER, Psychology, 5 ed. (London, 1903).

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APA citation.Brosnahan, T.(1907).Altruism. InThe Catholic Encyclopedia.New York: Robert Appleton Company.http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01369a.htm

MLA citation.Brosnahan, Timothy."Altruism."The Catholic Encyclopedia.Vol. 1.New York: Robert Appleton Company,1907.<http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01369a.htm>.

Transcription.This article was transcribed for New Advent by Thomas M. Barrett.Dedicated to Clemmie Lucy Washington.

Ecclesiastical approbation.Nihil Obstat. March 1, 1907. Remy Lafort, S.T.D., Censor.Imprimatur. +John Cardinal Farley, Archbishop of New York.

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Altruism

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