It seems to me that there is a fallacy here in the claim that, if you 'benefit' in any way from an altruistic act, then it is not altruism.
This seems to me to be akin to arguing that the word altruism has no meaning, and is therefore a redundant term. It would be bizarre to say the least if altruistic acts could only be performed by people who gained nothing positive from the experience.
We could just as well argue that an act is not a selfish one, if we can demonstrate that there an element of non-selfishness involved in it.
So, I take the last doughnut without asking, but that is not selfish because I know that you are trying to lose weight and this happens to help you out.
I sometimes hear people add the word 'purely' in front of words like altruism to help explain what they mean, as in 'no act is purely altruistic'. This is possibly true. However, I would argue that putting a word like 'purely' in front of such a term simply changes what is being referred to out of all recognition.
I would suggest that the term 'altruism' refers to an act where the primary motivation of the person performing the act is not personal 'reward' and/or where the costs involved (i.e. in terms of time/effort etc) outweigh any perceived benefits to the individual.
I have no problem assigning the word 'altruism' to many day-to-day acts of kindness, even if the person does experience a sense of well-being as a result.
Originally posted by FMFPerhaps it is not altruism, but awareness. 😉
Yes, I think so. But I suppose the question wolfgang59 has posed is... if being ostensibly selfless rewards us in some way, maybe it's not so selfless after all. Does my self become a little bit selfmore ~ rather than selfless ~ if a do some "altruism"? 🙂