This is a philosophical journey on altruism. With the word ‘altruism’ we usually mean an act or action, a behavior or patterns of behavior, or, generally, a way of living consisting in achieving the well-being of others. Our philosophical destination is, thus, the ‘well-being’ of ‘others.’
Let us start with the traditional definition of altruism. As the Oxford Dictionary suggests, altruism is “disinterested or selfless concern for the well-being of others, esp. as a principle of action.”1 To achieve the well-being of others in altruism in such a disinterested or selfless way is to act for the sake of others unconditionally and without reserve. Doing something good for the other without wanting anything in return. Not wanting anything in return means not expecting anything in exchange for the good act. Properly speaking, it is a non-reciprocal acting at the expense of the one who engages in the altruistic act. This expenditure for the sake of others may sometimes lead to one’s death. In such cases, we say that such an act has as its denouement an unconditioned and unconditional giving in the form of sacrificing one’s life for the well-being of others. We tend to consider such acts as the epitome of altruism. The limit of altruism, the ultimate horizon of altruism, becomes the sacrifice of life. With respect to ‘well-being,’ the limit is an unconditioned and unconditional givenness represented as a sacrifice for the others.
The ‘others,’ the recipient of the well-being to whom the altruistic act aims and ends, could be a single person, a group of people or the totality of the world as in the case of Christ. Formally, we could use the term ‘Other’ to include all cases of receivers. The capital ‘O’ will allow us to investigate the altruistic act irrespective of the recipient. Altruism will not depend on who the actor or the recipient is. And since we have announced through our title that altruism is the essence of human existence, then we are warranted, if not justified, for this abstraction, this capitalization, and this general investment signified in the collective and encapsulated in this assigned circle: ‘O.’
Altruism is very popular today. One could even say that altruism is in scholarly fashion. There are scientists who provide ‘proof’ that the essence of the human species is altruistic. We have instincts that are altruistic, they say. We are made to live altruistically otherwise we cannot survive. For that reason, they provide us with ways of enhancing these altruistic instincts that secure our well-being and our perpetuation as a species. In a similar vein, there are
It is also timely with respect to our times. Currently, we witness a concern with respect to the Other; a concern to otherness in general and our relationships with others. Public opinion is concerned with the future of Europe. Inter-national relations have become an issue – financial crises, Brexit, the future of the European Union to name a few. On a global level, on-going wars around the world produce refugees and the dealing with these other people has become an issue. The threat of a new nuclear war is still there as the media inform us. And the current situation with what has been referred to as the ‘covid-19 pandemic’ has, despite its semantic problems, lead to the implementation of measures in the name of protecting the vulnerable Other. In this respect, our research is timely, that is, it is aligned with these common concerns.
Yet, at the same time, our research is untimely. Untimely in the sense that Friedrich Nietzsche conceptualized the untimely. This research is untimely since we are using a technology which is rather outdated; one could even say ancient. This technology is thinking (as) questioning. For wont of a more fitting word, a more adequate term at this time, we shall use the name ‘meditation.’ And we could then claim that this “meditation too is untimely, because [we are] here attempting to look afresh at something.”2 We are attempting to look afresh at a timely concern: altruism.
Our coming to feel that we need to look afresh at altruism will be questioned in our next chapter, our prologue. Through our technology of thinking (as) questioning we shall attempt to show why such a new way of looking at altruism is required – lest we fall into an abyss of paradoxes. In our proper introduction, which comes after the prologue, we shall propose another way of looking at altruism with a promise to question it all along in case it becomes hostile to altruism, to the well-being of the Other.
This untimely way, this looking afresh at altruism requires another way of writing about it; a writing faithful to our end, the ‘well-being of the Other;’ in other words, an altruistic writing. But the untimeliness of the new, an absolutely new way of writing, new in-itself, an absolutely new writing risks becoming a foreign language. We cannot afford to estrange ourselves to the point of creating such communicational boundaries. Yet, these boundaries as limits make altruism possible. The movement for the well-being of the Other
See relevant entry in oed.com.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Untimely Meditations, trans. R.J. Hollingdale (Cambridge: cup, 1997), 60; hereafter, Untimely.
Aporous means, literally, without the means to pass. The aporous is thus the one who cannot pass or, metaphorically, the one who is also without the means to get by, thus poor. We shall try to overcome this aporia later.