Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!microsof!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!ariel!houti!hogpc!houxm!ihnp4!ixn5c!inuxc!pur-ee!iuvax!isrnix!tim 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