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From: tim@isrnix.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Altruism vs morality
Message-ID: <267@isrnix.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Jul-83 06:35:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: isrnix.267
Posted: Thu Jul  7 06:35:16 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 8-Jul-83 19:14:38 EDT
References: houti.330
Lines: 58

MAHATMA GANDHI! Tom certainly has a different understanding of altruism
than I do! I had always thought that "altruism" was something voluntarily
given to another or some service voluntarily performed for another!
I.E. a gift with no expectation of return.  I have known people who only
give with the idea of getting something back but that is not really
giving as I define it.  This is rather curious-here a few notes back I
recall Tom fighting vociferously for the "right" of the wealthy to
pass on all their advantages via inheritance-it is just a "gift" from
them to their children so it is OK. Now we find that ,egads, if
I give my sister a Christmas present in a gesture of "altruism" that 
it implies some degree of coercion?  "Altruism" is something given
without coercion or any strings attached.  Whether excessive giving
breeds dependency in the receivers is another question-but then they
can always refuse to accept the proffered gifts.  It is not crammed down
their throats. If it is it is no longer altruism as I define it.
    But perhaps Tom is confusing altruism with the obligation to
repay rights under the government with some services or money.  If people
have a "right to life" as Tom implies then doesn't that also imply 
that we all have some reponsibility to see that others continue to live?
Let us take a newborn child for example.  We COULD take the Objectivist
attitude and say "let the kid fend for itself". However I don't think
the human race would last very long with that attitude. The fact is that
children HAVE to be cared for by adults or they will die.  It is part of
the price we pay for our incredibly long gestation period as human beings.
Which is why "love", "altruism" whatever one wishes to call it is part
of our biological being-without care for infants our species would have
died many thousands of years ago.  Many people find such love for others
very fulfilling. I happen to agree with Mohandas Gandhi that it is one
of the most powerful forces in the universe, more powerful than guns or
bullets-indeed Gandhi freed a nation without guns but through
calling up the vast human reserves of love and sympathy.  I would much
rather have everybody in the world take love as their supreme value
than rationality-one can be utterly rational in exploiting other human
beings.  Like Hitler for example-the gas chambers were oh so rational,
why they even reused the hair for wigs and other purposes, corpses
were studied for the advance of science, why nothing went to waste.
All very rational.........
Not that I am accusing Objectivists of anything like that, I know Tom
will immediately jump on me and say:"that's a violation of people's
rights,etc." But how about not positive violence done to people but
simply incredible neglect by which many are just as effectively
harmed.  If a child is starving is it a crime of "altruism" to give
the child food? Is it terrible to think that perhaps we all have some
obligation to our fellow human beings to care for them and see they
don't starve to death? Or how about someone crippled in an auto accident?
Should we leave them "fend for themselves", I mean who cares, they have
their rights why worry about more? Or people who have given their lives
in work and love as parents who now find themselves slowly falling apart?
Is it wrong to say as human beings we have some obligation to care for
the people who cared for us, who brought us into the world?
That is what is best about humanity is people caring for each other.
I see nothing wrong with that and we will not survive if we don't
start caring about every other person in this planet, Russians aas well
as Americans, the third of the world that is hungry as well as our own
little section of humanity that must fight obesity.
         LOVE to all,
         Tim Sevener
         decvax!pur-ee!iuvax!isrnix!tim