Altruism: Acting to help others with no expectation of reward or personal benefit - does not support the notion that one does not matter.
Comte Altruism: Acting to help others as if oneself does not matter.
Egoism: Acting to help others because it benefits oneself, recognizing that as social beings, our actions serve our own needs.
Egotism: Acting out of self-centeredness by refusing to help others, focusing solely on oneself.
SUMMARY:
We cannot see the motives of others.
Look at these motives.
1 Altruism: Balancing my needs with the needs of others.
2 Comte Altruism - I seek to help others and avoid any thought of a reward even if it is just a good feeling. I help the other for their sake only.
3 Egoism - I seek to help for I am a social creature and I need to. It is for my sake.
4 Egotism - I seek not to help. It is about me.
Your action will be classed as one of these depending on what the strongest motive is. It is said that you can have more than one of those motives for acting at the one time.
Now there is a question.
It is,
Should we assume for the sake of argument and for practicality that the world is one of them?
What if one or more of these is not what human beings are like? What if one or more of these is not a practical option?
Comte altruism and egotism seem to be bad candidates so they are out.
Most people look at what you do to see if you are self-interested or other-interested. Choosing not to see things that need fixing is an action too. What about the good things we can do but fail to do? We need to talk about how the things we do not do are more numerous and important than the things we do not.
Looking away from the person in need to help a friend in need for you get something out of that person is not selfess.
Passing the beggar while on your way to the nice restaurant is not selfless.
Most of the time we omit to do things for others however great their need.
This increases the probability that we are getting something, even something small, out of everything we do.
We are egoists in some moderate way. We don't need to say that all are ultimately completely about what they want without regard for others.
I would add that if psychologists and philosophers deny that human nature is inherently egoistic, that does not mean that some persons are not born that way. Or some can inherently develop egoism and end up being unable to be anything else.
Summary:
Our failure to act—choosing not to help others when we could—reveals
much about human nature. While helping actions are often examined
for selfish or selfless motives, it is equally important to consider
what we don’t do. Ignoring
someone in need or passing by without offering help shows that many
of our omissions are driven by self-interest or indifference, not
true selflessness. These omissions suggest that most of our acts and
failures to act are motivated, at least in part, by what benefits
us, even if only minimally. Thus, rather than being purely
altruistic, humans tend toward egoism, balancing self-interest with
social needs.