For someone with my specific philosophical interests in heroism, human rights, religion, and morality, The Stone has been really terrific of late. If you’re interested in any of these topics, you should probably just add it to your list of RSS feeds.

Today, it’s a long and quite interesting post about altruism from Judith Lichtenberg that begins with the same example, of Wesley Autrey, that will kick off the introduction to my new book. She also refers to the altruism of Paul Rusesabagina, whose heroic actions during the Rwandan genocide were at the center of a paper I published earlier this year.

Lichtenberg uses the Autrey example to begin her discussion of altruism and, in particular, whether it’s ever possible to act in a manner that others would regard as purely altruistic:

[W]hen our desires are satisfied we normally experience satisfaction; we feel good when we do good. But that doesn’t mean we do good only in order to get that “warm glow” — that our true incentives are self-interested (as economists tend to claim). Indeed, as de Waal argues, if we didn’t desire the good of others for its own sake, then attaining it wouldn’t produce the warm glow.

Common sense tells us that some people are more altruistic than others. Egoism’s claim that these differences are illusory — that deep down, everybody acts only to further their own interests — contradicts our observations and deep-seated human practices of moral evaluation.

At the same time, we may notice that generous people don’t necessarily suffer more or flourish less than those who are more self-interested. Altruists may be more content or fulfilled than selfish people. Nice guys don’t always finish last.

But nor do they always finish first. The point is rather that the kind of altruism we ought to encourage, and probably the only kind with staying power, is satisfying to those who practice it. Studies of rescuers show that they don’t believe their behavior is extraordinary; they feel they must do what they do, because it’s just part of who they are. The same holds for more common, less newsworthy acts — working in soup kitchens, taking pets to people in nursing homes, helping strangers find their way, being neighborly. People who act in these ways believe that they ought to help others, but they also want to help, because doing so affirms who they are and want to be and the kind of world they want to exist.

Lichtenberg’s conclusion:

Altruism is possible and altruism is real, although in healthy people it intertwines subtly with the well-being of the agent who does good. And this is crucial for seeing how to increase the amount of altruism in the world. Aristotle had it right in his “Nicomachean Ethics”: we have to raise people from their “very youth” and educate them “so as both to delight in and to be pained by the things that we ought.”

Very much related to her point, here’s how I use the Autrey example to begin my book-length discussion of the classical categories of heroic behavior and, in particular, moral heroism:

The American fascination with the heroic often raises the status of an otherwise average citizen to that of a celebrity, at least for a bounded period of time. Consider the recent cases of Wesley Autrey and Chesley Sullenberger, whose respective actions in 2007 and 2009 saved lives and earned them well-deserved plaudits from their fellow citizens, the media, and even Presidents Bush and Obama.[1] With the passage of time, their names are most likely no longer as immediately recognizable to as wide an audience as was once the case, and the fame that still attends them will likely continue to diminish. After all, the amount of time and attention paid to these heroes is far surpassed by that given to entertainers like Britney Spears and Michael Jackson -– or to someone like Kim Kardashian who seems to be famous for no particular reason at all. But it’s also important to note that Americans’ fascination with everyday heroes is seldom prurient in the way it often is with other celebrities; it’s not at all the case that Americans want their heroes to fail in the way that they seem to relish when it happens to singers, models, actors, or athletes. In a certain sense, these heroes are rewarded with a small measure of fame but are then allowed to fade back into the broader American tableau before anything untoward might be revealed about them (if there is any such thing). For the time that they capture our attention, their ordinariness is what shines through for us; they encourage us to think about what we might have done in a similar situation – and to hope that we would be able to take the heroic course that they took.

And here’s how I wrap up my introduction:

My conclusion is that, in addition to critical thinking about one’s mortality and the life that one wishes to have lived, greater personal identification with victims is a crucial ingredient for moral heroism. After all, I am sympathetic with Peter Singer (1972) about the duty we should feel to help those who are starving in remote corners of the world, but it is only when I recognize that they are like myself in some important respect that I am likely to act on their behalf, for surely I already understand they are human beings just like I am and I have yet to act. Indeed, as the examples of Achilles, Odysseus, and Socrates powerfully illustrate, the actions that one takes (and the stories that are told about them) are ultimately all that will remain of this fleeting existence; if we can combine critical thinking about our mortality with an expansive moral imagination about those who are suffering, then the kind of life that we lead takes on an incredible importance and we are able to open a space for morally heroic action.

When can you get your hands on such an interesting new book? Oh, it’ll be a good little while yet: 5 chapters drafted, 2 to go. Then there’s a little matter of finding a publisher…

[1] In 2007, Autrey -– a construction worker and veteran of the Navy –- jumped from a Manhattan subway platform to rescue another man who had suffered a seizure and fell onto the tracks as a train approached (cf. Buckley 2007). In 2009, Sullenberger averted catastrophe for the 155 passengers on board the plane he was piloting by safely landing US Airways 1549 in the Hudson River after losing power in both engines (cf. McFadden 2009).

Bibliography

Cara Buckley. 2007. “Man Is Rescued by Stranger on Subway Tracks,”New York Times (January 3).

Robert D. McFadden. 2009. “Pilot Is Hailed After Jetliner’s Icy Plunge,” New York Times (January 15).

Peter Singer. 1972. “Famine, Affluence, and Morality,” 1 Philosophy and Public Affairs 3 (Spring).