Sure, but just "feeling good" for helping others could be viewed as selfish as well. But at that point it's just semantics. I think we need to call altruism altruism for the actions, regardless of your return net effects. Is charity not altruism because you happen to benefit from it 50 years later in societal growth?

Wrote my post before I saw this one. This is in line with what I was thinking, an act of altruism to make yourself feel good is not pure altruism.

I also agree that it is about the actions more than what you gain by doing so.

Charity is a good example of how altruism helps yourself, I donate to charity every now and then and of course it makes me feel good about donating, thus the act has an emotional gain for me.

I actually struggle with this idea myself. I consider myself a good person, and I enjoy helping others. Sometimes with a fair bit of cost to myself.

But I don't consider it "altruistic". I help them because I want to help them and enjoy having done so, and not out of some innate sense of ethics or of what needs to be done.

I think people doing altruistic things do enjoy them, but they don't do them because they enjoy them. They do them because they need to be done, and the enjoyment is a side effect.

Of course, this distinction makes it incredibly difficult to know if someone is actually being altruistic or not.

At that point, does it particularly matter if it's altruistic or not if the person is helping others for their own selfish gain, or for the benefit of others?

For example, a restaurant owner might serve food for free for homeless people for increasing their own reputation and social wellbeing, vs the owner who does it entirely out of the goodness of their hearts. The net result is the same, so why worry so much about the motivation behind it? I'd say they're both equally good people, in this example.

Being able to be generous and therefore altruistic is also a decent signal to the rest of your group you're fit and healthy.

> I think people doing altruistic things do enjoy them, but they don't do them because they enjoy them. They do them because they need to be done, and the enjoyment is a side effect.

What is the difference between the two conditions? The only one I can think of is that removing the side effect does not change the behavior, but removing the main motivator does. How is this significant though? Is it easier to lose enjoyment from altruistic activities than to lose a sense of responsibility? Is pleasure more fickle than duty?

That distinction, IMHO, also makes the definition of altruism so narrow as to be useless.

It totally is. I think the selfless aspects are highlighted more as they are for long term benefit. It also about definition of self from that point onwards..

That's why I called it practical. It's more like a long term investment where everyone wins (not only you). That's why it can be considered selfless.

Good point, if it is altruism out of self-interest it is not altruistic in the pure sense.

I think that I might go as extreme as to say it is only altruistic if it makes you feel bad or puts you in a clearly bad position.

Let's say that out of an act of altruism you help a person achieve some goal of theirs. Now you do not have a material gain from this, but doing so will make you feel good, hence you did it to make yourself feel good?

I think the thread has gotten way off topic. The article is about kindness, not altruism. Kindness is, in my experience, doing something that makes someone else feel good, regardless of how it makes you feel. You do something, in kind, as it reciprocates the emotive intent to be helpful. You don't do something, in kind, as it creates a lack (for either party) as a result of that act. Self sacrifice and kindness are completely unrelated. Self sacrifice should not, and must not, be a deciding factor in what determines kindness as it confuses the moral agent motivating the act.

> But can it still be called altruism? Imho, helping out the group to preserve yourself disqualifies it as such; the selfish aspect is clearly there.

What you described there is in nature called symbiosis [1]. Like a cat or dogs lives with a human, or an ant with a fig tree.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbiosis

well altruism is an emotional response, if the brain has evolved to exhibit altruism it would be because the behaviors most likely to be exhibited by altruism were rewarded with survival and possibilities for procreation, as well as helping with the survival of those carrying your genetic material.

just as ascribing intentions to evolution is frowned upon, the evolutionary successful behaviour doesn't have to be intentional, does it? This's no direct dispproval of the selfishnes, however, just semantics.