Hobbes' Beggar

          As this is the blog’s first philosophical post, I thought I should pick something I am at least moderately qualified to comment on. Though, truth be told, I don’t know much about altruism. There has been so much said about it, and not only by philosophers. Anthropologists, biologists, psychologists, sociologists all have made contributions to our understanding of altruism. And the contributions made by each discipline are unique. Theories within each field are just as varied. (A more formal analysis would require this claim to be substantiated by citing examples from each of these fields. Indeed, I would love to do that. But this is supposed to be a readable blog.) Nevertheless, all these disciplines affirm that humans are capable of behaving altruistically. Economics stands out as the only field that denies, as a matter of fundamental principle, that people can act for the primary benefit of others. Or, to put it in economic terms, that people labor without compensation.

          If you are a supporter of economic theory, you may already have objections to this. So I suppose I should make it clear that I realize there have been advances in theory. That there are plenty of economists that take seriously the claims of feminism and of evolutionary biology. But, the dominant voice in the field still maintains that there is no reason to take into account these criticisms. That the universality of rational agents renders such considerations meaningless. (At this point, I pretty much have to back up what I am saying. Besides, citing sources makes me sound smart.) And whenever something contradicts this theory, economists ignore it. “All that is required is to recognize our existing cooperation and altruism, ignored by economists since it is invisible to their models. Indeed, economic theory assumes altruism is irrational! (Sociologists have measured unpaid productivity, as mentioned earlier; and while in industrial countries, unpaid work  accounts for some 50 percent or more of all productive work, in traditional societies, the percentage is much larger.)”[1]

          Besides, if you are really concerned about my little blog post’s attack on economics, you can console yourself with the knowledge that economists still basically rule everything. And by that I mean economic thinking is the foundation of most policy in the developed world. Even a fair part of our jurisprudence is influenced by economics as seen in the legal reasoning of Richard Posner. Education, health care, energy, defense, science, communications, and every other policy is essentially set by economic ideas. Philosophers used to be let in on this action. John Dewey designing the public education system in America is a classic example. And I think they did a pretty good job. Better even, than the policy makers of today. But I digress.

          The point is, despite the fact that all serious study into the matter yields the unambiguous result that altruism is real, most people either doubt that it exists, or expect that anytime they bring it up, it will have to be defended from people who are sure it doesn’t. Our modern public discourse is so heavily influenced by ideas of radical individuality that we have largely forgotten how to reason about anything that calls these ideas into question.[2]

          That is my object. To come up with an informal theory that explains altruism as a response to the commonly held misconception that all freely made choices are motivated by self-interest. No one does anything if there isn’t something in it for them. In other words, no one exchanges his or her labor without being compensated.

          To begin, I’ll need to bring up some philosophy, just to justify calling this post philosophical. And since I have a great deal to justify, I’ll start with Aristotle. Within the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle presents theory of friendship. In it, he reveals that he is a misogynist snob who thinks there are a select few men who can be friends, and a bunch of barbarous men who can’t be, because they lack virtue. And women. Women are just irrational baby machines who are lucky that men need them around. In other words, your typical ancient Greek worldview. Aristotle claims that there are three types of friendship: a complete type between men of virtue who can be of benefit to each other, an incomplete type between a man of virtue and an inferior man, which is of limited benefit, mostly to the inferior man, and which depends on open recognition that one man is worthy while the other is almost worthless. And a third, temporary friendship between men who lack virtue that happens in the transient moment that they can be of use to each other. So, it really isn’t three types at all. Just three circumstances in which the activity of friendship is expressed. Clearly, Aristotle’s thinking is in line with modern economics. Friendship is the market relationship between men when they make exchanges. A very good teacher of mine compared Aristotle to The Godfather. Essentially, friends are men of means who can become allies and build up their empires. You can see why Aristotle is considered a conservative thinker.

          But, despite all that, Aristotle didn’t deny that sometimes, a strange thing happens, and we act like we are friends to people for no reason at all. Sometimes even strangers. “Goodwill would seem to be a feature of friendship, but still it is not friendship.  For it arises even toward people we do not know, and without their noticing it, whereas friendship does not.”^[3] And what is goodwill? How does this relate to altruism? In this case, it will be necessary to think of an altruistic act. For the purpose of examples I’ll bring up later, we will use the act of giving money, to a beggar. Just to be clear that this is the type of thing Aristotle meant, here is this: “…goodwill can also arise in a moment, as it arises, for instance, [in a spectator] for contestants.  For [the spectator] acquires goodwill for them, and wants what they want…”^[4] A more modern example would be weeping in a theatre for a character in a dramatic movie, something that is hardly rational. The irrationality of wanting to feel what such a character feels is the basis of Augustine’s critique of the theatre in The Confessions. (While this is undeniably pretentious, I love to bring up The Confessions.) But, the important point here is that goodwill has to do with wanting what someone else wants, and wanting it for them. So, wanting a beggar to have money because he wants money fits the description.

          To clarify my argument, I’ll make it clear that no one who believes that people are absolutely selfish will be convinced by my reasoning. The argument I am refuting, that doing something for someone else is really selfish because it makes you happy, is not conclusive. It presumes that: a) everytime anyone does something for someone else, the object of the act was not indeed to help them at all, but to gain happiness, and b) that happiness isn’t a reasonable secondary effect of altruism. If it is shown that people can act for the benefit of others simply because they want to help that person out, not really considering their own happiness, or if I can show that being happy as the result of doing something good is a natural consequence, then I will have successfully refuted the argument. In other words, I am taking a negative position against the positive argument that altruism is non-existent. The normal result is that egoists immediately shift positions and argue that I have not positively argued altruism exists, in other words, just because I have proved them wrong, I haven’t proved I am right. Which is plainly false, I have. But pursuing anything past this point has never actually worked for me.

          To keep this from going on too long, I’ll quickly go through the rest of Aristotle. He says this, “But in general goodwill results from some sort of virtue and decency, whenever one person finds another to be apparently fine or brave or something similar.”^[5] And he says this: “Similarly, though people cannot be friends without previous goodwill, goodwill does not imply friendship; for when they have goodwill, people only wish goods to the other, and will not cooperate with him in any action, or go to any trouble for him.” ^[6] Of course, not going to any trouble means, in terms of the games and a spectator, not hopping into the arena. In a general way, it means that you are not going to give a beggar asking for money a home and an income. You will, however, give him some pocket money, provided it is no real trouble, and you will do this not expecting something in return from him. Maybe if Aristotle were less conservative, he might find these moments sufficient to justify an institutional solution for beggars. But he wasn’t. So I’ll have to think about that sort of thing on my own. In any case, Aristotle would not be convinced by the idea that we give money to beggars to feel good. That’s just as good as getting nothing at all. And virtuous men feel good about themselves anyway.

          In terms of theory, this is what I am making of Aristotle’s observations. We occasionally come across someone else, someone who is not a friend, but who we observe something in that person which we find brave, or fine, or at least something relative to us. Something similar. That relation allows us to momentarily feel sympathetic to this person, to want what they want. And, we are willing to participate in a temporary, limited, friendship-like relationship with this person. By bringing up sympathy, I’ve already brought up the next philosopher, David Hume.

          Hume’s contribution is almost entirely summed up with this: We may begin with considering a-new the nature and force of sympathy.  The minds of all men are similar in their feelings and operations, nor can any one be actuated by any affection, of which all others are not, in some degree, susceptible.  As in strings equally wound up, the motion of one communicates itself to the rest; so all the affections readily pass from one person to another, and beget correspondent movements in every human creature.  When I see the effects of passion in the voice and gesture of any person, my mind immediately passes from these effects to their causes, and forms such a lively idea of the passion, as is presently converted into the passion itself.”^[7]

          Hume’s observation provides a psychological explanation for the moment, described by Aristotle, when goodwill arises. Here it is sympathy. I am calling it altruism. It is easy to see the connection. We see something in someone else that we can relate to. Notice that Hume doesn’t say that it is the same. It isn’t necessary that each person involved in this sympathetic link identify with an identical thought or feeling. Just a similar one.

          It would be useful to go into Hume’s thoughts further. And fun. But I must stay on task. It is, however, permissible to include this last bit: “Now the pleasure of a stranger, for whom we have no friendship, pleases us only by sympathy.  To this principle, therefore, is owing the beauty, which we find in everything that is useful.”^[8] Basically, Hume thinks is pleasurable to be sympathetic to strangers because we find some use in it. Before we jump to conclusions, and believe this to be self-interest, I’ll just state briefly here, and expand later, that the motivation for the act is still the benefit of someone else, and the act is not compensated by anything by “feeling good,” a sentiment so useless that it would normally be disregarded altogether by economists. But, I will attempt to provide a theoretical explanation for the “feeling good” factor. Suffice it to say, for now, that Hume isn’t denying altruism. In fact, he is refuting those that would say we can have a society that is purely rational, void of sympathy. The beauty and usefulness we find in being sympathetic need not be because we benefit from it, but because we think it is useful to be a benefit to others.

          This is really the basic point of contention. Whether or not feeling good about doing something for someone else is the motivation for performing that act. It is clear that Hume and Aristotle have observed an altogether different motivation. Goodwill and sympathy can arise spontaneously when we relate to someone. We aren’t performing the act with the expectation of feeling good, we do it because we see someone wanting something.

          OK, so I will now explain the title of this post. This anecdote appears in Alasdair MacIntyre: “Aubrey has a story of how, outside St. Paul’s Cathedral, an Anglican clergyman who had seen Hobbes give alms to a poor man tried to improve the occasion by asking of Hobbes (who was reputedly impious and atheistic) if he would have given the alms, had not Christ commanded it.  Hobbes’ reply was that he gave the alms because not only did it please the poor man, but it pleased him to see the poor man pleased.  Thus, Hobbes tries to exhibit his own behavior as consistent with his theory of motives, namely that human desires are such that they are all self-interested.”^[9] Hobbes wants to believe that he acted out of self-interest, because he has something at stake. I would like to ask this though, why did it please him to see the poor man pleased? Isn’t this perfectly in line with what Hume and Aristotle observed? The poor man was made happy, and Hobbes recognized something fine about that happiness, taking the motions of the string wound up in the beggar into himself, and thereby feeling the happiness too. The motivation was caused by the poor man’s want. The happiness by his happiness. Why is this taken to prove anything about self-interest, when it is perfectly in line with altruism?

So it is clear that altruism is a plausible alternative explanation for the very argument used to disprove it. Of course, it is possible to imagine someone giving something away selfishly. (Only a fool would try to prove that self-interest does not exist.) We all know a jerk that has from time to time done something generous and bragged about it.

Usually, the argument is used to imply that an altruistic act is one that doesn’t benefit the agent at all and therefore in order to be clearly altruistic, it must somehow actually decrease the happiness of the agent. You wouldn’t give money to a beggar if it made you unhappy, therefore there is no altruism. Someone I know once tried to prove altruism doesn’t exist to me by posing this choice: if you had to choose between saving the life of your child, and someone else’s you’d always pick yours. Therefore there is no altruism.[10] Apart from being unnecessarily macabre, this Sophie’s Choice for idiots is also completely irrelevant. It merely demonstrates that sometimes the selfish choice is arguably morally acceptable. If the moral choice was always altruistic, or always selfish, then morality only requires rationally recognizing what the selfish choice is, or which choice benefits someone else. That the moral choice would sometimes be selfish and sometimes be altruistic based on the circumstances should be obvious. It isn’t difficult to think of a situation where a selfish choice is acceptable, such as the stupid don’t let your kid die to save someone else’s choice, or even necessary, like saving your own life because someone else depends on you. Who, in this age of planning for the zombie apocalypse hasn’t thought through the need to be selfish for moral reasons? But that is morality, and ethical decision making. We are not talking about that, but about whether or not altruism is even possible.[11] 
           Though, for the record, sometimes people do perform an act for the benefit of someone else, even though it does make them somewhat unhappy. Commonly this is within families. If you can't ever put someone else's needs before yours, and make a sacrifice, then I advice you to never get married, have kids, or enter into any other permanent relationships. And, yes, this happens outside of families too. It just usually requires someone needing something more than spare change. Like the very real instances of people jumping on subway tracks, risking their lives, to save someone else. 
           Since we are trying to determine whether or not being happy as the result of an altruistic act proves anything, I would like to propose that being happy as the result of doing something for the benefit of another doesn’t indicate that you are a self-centered pleasure seeker, but that you get pleasure from the things that are good. If you really were only self-interested, it is unlikely that you would get any pleasure from someone else having your money. Here is how another of my favorite philosophers made that same point: “Men who have benevolence to others have pleasure when they see others’ happiness, because seeing their happiness gratifies some inclination that was in their hearts before. They before inclined to their happiness; which was by benevolence or good will; and therefore when they see their happiness, their inclination is suited, and they are pleased. But the being of inclinations and appetites is prior to any pleasure in gratifying these appetites.”[12]

What Jonathan Edwards is talking about is basic Aristotelian ethics. A man of virtue will act ethically. Goodwill, or sympathy, results in happiness simply because the person who does the act is conditioned to take delight in things when they are improved. And a good man knows what the best way for things to be is, and therefore knows when they are being improved, or worsened.[13] Their passions are balanced.

So, it is possible to account for everything in the argument that giving to a beggar is a selfish act because it makes you happy. The act is motivated by sympathy or goodwill. The happiness that results is just the happiness you get from seeing the world get a little better. This is why people who didn’t even give money to a beggar can be happy when someone else does. And I am aware that die hard objectivists won’t buy this. However, their argument was designed to show that altruism is non-existent. Altruism, in this theory, describes the motivation for an act, as well as the act itself. I’ve done this, to help provide a rhetorical answer to the common argument that altruism doesn’t exist because we can always understand an act to be motivated by self-interest.

And I’ll end with one last parting shot on economists, from Theodore Roszak’s introduction to Small is Beautiful by the sublime E. F. Schumacher: “And what sort of science is it that must, for the sake of its predictive success, hope and pray that people will never be their better selves, but always be greedy social idiots with nothing finer to do that getting and spending, getting and spending?”[14]

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[1] This is from Hazel Henderson’s Paradigms in Progress, published by Berrett Koehler.

[2] http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/workingmans-constitution/

[3] Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, trans. by Terence Irwin. This is the Hackett edition, p. 143.

[4] This is from the same page as the other quote, 143. Please excuse my less formal citation, but unless this is a formal essay, there really isn’t any cause to use the word “Ibid.” Also, excuse my non-standard grammar. Ellipses are best reserved to signify something is omitted. However, I think it is logical to use them when you have omitted something before and, after the quote, so you don’t have to adapt the grammar of the original language.

[5] This time, the citation is from page 144.

[6] Now it starts on page 143 and goes on to page 144.

[7] This is from Hume’s A Treatise on Human Nature.

[8] Ibid, p. 160.

[9] Alasdair MacIntyre, A Short History of Ethics: A History of Moral Philosophy from the Homeric Age to the Twentieth Century, second edition p. 135. If you want to harp on the notion that this is a philosopher who rejects altruism, then by all means embrace Hobbes. However, you should know that most readers of Hobbes acknowledge that his anthropology was a “half lie.” The Ebensteins are a great example.

[10] This guy also has an excerpt from Atlas Shrugged for his profile picture on facebook. That’s real. I am not making this up.

[11] Although, this is an interesting topic. If you are inclined, you should check out James Sterba’s The Triumph of Practice over Theory in Ethics.

[12] Jonathan Edwards, The Nature of True Virtue.

[13] This is worth saying because plenty of people argue that giving to beggars actually hurts them. And, while they may have a point that is worth discussing, this theory, in all, necessarily implies that there is at least some good in giving to them.

[14] I’ve already cited the source enough.