by Lucius Trae

Created on: March 24, 2010

If I went into a physics class room and argued fiercely that gravity is the result of giant trolls, it would be appropriate for people to discard my opinion. It's false, of course, and I have no expertise in physics. Philosophy is a subject many people, including myself, studying seriously as a discipline. Philosophers are charged with the task of explaining reality through the usage of clearly defined language. Now the critics against altruism aren't as ridiculous as people arguing for gravity causing trolls. However, I've noticed some serious problems while reading many views on this topic.

The first problem is that people are debating what altruism is. The word "altruism" has a specific definition, and it is this very definition that leads to the question "does altruism exist?" Altruism states that human beings are capable of acting in the interests of others at the expense of their own interests. In other words, it means that a person can sacrifice their life for someone because they valued that person's interests over their own.

Historically, the view that altruism does not exist has been unpopular. A viewpoint referred to as "psychological egoism" is the viewpoint responsible for this skepticism. Basically, psychological egoism claims all people act in their own self-interest. Altruism, thus, cannot be true if psychological egoism is correct.

Unfortunately, psychological egoism intrigues a lot of supporters. I am not particularly happy about the fact that I once believed psychological egoism was true. However, it is an appealing idea because it provides us with an excuse for acting inappropriately. Being "selfish" is just how humans are, we can respond to our critics. When confronted with a situation where a person is argued to be behaving altruistically, psychologically egoism creates elaborate stories to explain why, in fact, the person is actually being selfish. Making up elaborate and unfalsifiable stories is not a proper methodology in science or philosophy.

Many philosophers have accused psychological egoism of circular logic. Whenever someone performs an action, they do so because it makes them happy. Consequently, anyone who performs an action does so in his own interests. If these are the criteria, you will never produce a false value. The problem is that the argument itself is really a convoluted version of claiming "this is true because I said so."

Very few philosophers support the idea that altruism is a myth. There are plenty of cases where

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