Steve Taylor, Ph.D., posted his article Extreme Altruism on September 20, 2018.
It declared that one third of donors of kidneys in the United Kingdom are living donors. Eleven percent are non-specified donors who have no connection at all to anybody needing their kidney.
This may be great, but shows that if altruism happens, it is still only a minority who do it in an unmistakable way. Or is it that unmistakable? He found, at the Living Kidney Donation in Manchester, that these donors are usually people who have suffered greatly. They were in wars where they were nearly killed. And people who suffered serious illness were also donors, as were those who suffered a terrible bereavement.
He writes, “Most acts of altruism are reactive — that is, we do them when we witness other people’s suffering or misfortune firsthand, or through the media.” But, “It’s less common for people to be altruistic in a more proactive way, on a point of principle. It seems to speak of a more deep-rooted and unconditional compassion, resulting in what you could call ‘unconditional altruism.’”
He thinks such altruism cannot be explained by things such as you trying to look good in your own eyes. He thinks the answer is that we know we are all human, “share the same essence,” and this makes us feel that if some suffer, it is something we are a part of that suffers, so we are still involved, though it looks like we are not. He calls altruism innate for this reason.
But if you feel the other is really you in some way, and their suffering is really yours, then that is an illusion. It is not altruism but illusion. And your intention is somehow to help yourself as in the ‘other’ you.
What we think others are like says more about us than them. We distract ourselves from the badness in us by projecting it to others. We want to see altruistic goodness in others so we pressure ourselves to see it. Altruism is never pure if it depends too much on us seeing others as extensions of ourselves.
Nobody knows if any act they see as altruistic really was for the agent will not admit it if it were not. We are told that the same problem exists with assessing any motives, even self-interested ones. But if altruism is a big claim. It is not on the same level.