By What Objective Standard?

This altruism stuff is really cool, because precise definitions are so evasive. One of the best posts I have seen so far on the subject is this post by Don Watkins.

What most fascinates me about altruism is that it is so often used as a cover for selfishly evil motivations that it really shouldn't be called altruism at all. Selfishness can be just as evil as altruism. Take sodomy. (No, you don't have to take it; just take the laws. Or if you prefer, take the drug laws, like the notorious rave laws I criticized earlier.)

A number of people (using God's "laws" as a pretext) would actually lock up homosexuals out of simple hatred. Ditto with the people who want to lock up drug users because they hate them. Both often sell their underlying hatred to the public by sugar-coating it with altruism. Why? Because they know that altruism sells. It has been used as a hatred-marketing tool for thousands of years.

However, especially in light of studies by Pinker and others this begs the question: what is altruism? If altruism is self-sacrifice, then those who use altruism for their own ends are not altruists. Naturalists have discussed the paradox of altruism:

Altruism is the deliberate sacrifice of a portion of an individual’s reproductive capacity in order to increase that of another. This reproductive capacity is more often described as an individual’s genetic fitness, and is precisely defined as the contribution an individual makes to the gene pool of succeeding generations relative to the contributions of other individuals within a population. Thus, an altruist is defined as an individual who decreases his own genetic fitness to increase the fitness of another. The concept of altruism is best understood through example: an African wild dog voluntarily “babysitting” the pups of a pack, while the pack’s hunters search for food ; a bird giving an alarm call to warn others of an approaching hawk, and thus drawing attention to itself in the process ; a man jumping into a swimming pool to save a drowning stranger.

A frequent attack leveled at homosexuals is that they are "selfish" because they are not having children, and thus they are not contributing anything "to society." This assumes not only that altruism is good, but that having children is a contribution. Yet I have heard many angry denunciations of "breeders" by homosexuals who feel strongly that contributing more children harms society, and thus heterosexuals are the "selfish" ones.

I do have a few questions:

Is it selfish (or egoistic) to have children, or is it altruism? (Are people better or worse either way?)

Are homosexuals selfish or unselfish people? (Again, better or worse either way?)

Is consensual promiscuity selfish or altruistic? Is rape the only egoistic form of sexual expression?

Is it possible to have an efficient military without altruism? (The concept of risking one's life just to retrieve dead comrades is an ancient one, and while I am not trying to promote altruism here, the idea behind it is based on morale. Similarly, Roman soldiers would risk their lives simply to retrieve a fallen or captured standard.)

Do these questions matter in the real world, or is this just more libertarian Objectivist theorizing? No doubt greater minds than mine have weighed in with definite conclusions, but I am disinclined to see the world in terms of black or white. Particularly in view of the fact that altruism is so often used as a deception to advance purely egoistic aims, I cannot state with confidence whether a particular behavior (such as homosexuality or heterosexuality or the use of mind-altering drugs -- or falsely altruistic claims that imprisoning these people will "help" them) is altruistic or egoistic.

Far too many shades of gray.

Years ago, I saw a bumpersticker at a gun show, which struck me as very altruistic at the time. Now I'm not so sure. (Is the deliberate spreading of an opinion a form of altruism?) It read, simply,

PLEASE GOD, DON'T LET THE GOVERNMENT HELP ME ANY MORE.

If you want to practice altruism in private, well, that might be foolish, and you might end up unhappy, frustrated, resentful, and dead. Crazy as it sounds, I draw the line where people cross the line -- between reciprocal and non-reciprocal altruism. Instead of practicing the Golden Rule, some people expect that doing good entitles them to having good done to them in return, or worse yet, that it entitles them to demand that other people do good as they define good -- or else be ashamed.

Do your damned good if you must, but please shut up about it. Above all, don't try to make me pay for it -- and please don't guilt-trip me or annoy me with bumperstickers saying things like

PRACTICE RANDOM KINDNESS AND SENSELESS ACTS OF BEAUTY