Perhaps it’s because of two centuries of Kant, but there’s a definite tendency to hold up altruism – disinterestedness – as a moral ideal. Doing our duty can only be truly moral if it is done for its own sake, and its own sake alone. Any hint of reward is enough to call into question the most virtuous act or the most sincere religious sentiment. This is a major critique of virtue ethics – we are told that morality pursued for the sake of our own eudaimonia is no morality at all. Even the natural desire for happiness is enough to taint the most virtuous act.
We are told, in short, to be like God. He, as most of our theologians insist, gives with no thought of return or reward. All his acts are purely for the good of the other – of us – with no benefit redounding to himself. And how else could it be? God, we are assured by these same theologians, is 100% self-sufficient and self-contained. In full possession of every perfection, there’s no benefit he does receive or can receive by his actions. He can have no goal of his own; it is our good he selflessly seeks.
But what if this isn’t true? What if even God longs for something, and acts with a goal in mind – a goal for himself? In his poem ‘The Recovery’ Thomas Traherne makes this almost-blasphemous suggestion:
“Yea more, His Love doth take Delight
To make our Glory Infinite
Our Blessedness to see
Is even to the Deitie
A Beatifick Vision! He attains
His Ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns.”
Traherne’s God is not the God of Aristotle – “Thought Thinking Itself” – fully self-sufficient and self-satisfied (in the true sense of that phrase). He isn’t even Plotinus’ God – eternally pouring himself out with no need or desire of return. This is a God of mutual giving – we receive our fulfillment in adoring God, and God receives his fulfillment in our fulfillment!
So perhaps altruism is a false value; false because impossible and false because undesirable. Perhaps altruism (seeking to give with no return) is actually the vicious extreme opposite to selfishness (seeking to take with no return)? Giving to another’s benefit while also receiving benefit from that other is the place where relationship and mutuality lie.
Without mutual benefit there is no mutuality - and no relationship. We’re left only with the cold, detached altruism of Kant.
We are told, in short, to be like God. He, as most of our theologians insist, gives with no thought of return or reward. All his acts are purely for the good of the other – of us – with no benefit redounding to himself. And how else could it be? God, we are assured by these same theologians, is 100% self-sufficient and self-contained. In full possession of every perfection, there’s no benefit he does receive or can receive by his actions. He can have no goal of his own; it is our good he selflessly seeks.
But what if this isn’t true? What if even God longs for something, and acts with a goal in mind – a goal for himself? In his poem ‘The Recovery’ Thomas Traherne makes this almost-blasphemous suggestion:
“Yea more, His Love doth take Delight
To make our Glory Infinite
Our Blessedness to see
Is even to the Deitie
A Beatifick Vision! He attains
His Ends while we enjoy. In us He reigns.”
Traherne’s God is not the God of Aristotle – “Thought Thinking Itself” – fully self-sufficient and self-satisfied (in the true sense of that phrase). He isn’t even Plotinus’ God – eternally pouring himself out with no need or desire of return. This is a God of mutual giving – we receive our fulfillment in adoring God, and God receives his fulfillment in our fulfillment!
So perhaps altruism is a false value; false because impossible and false because undesirable. Perhaps altruism (seeking to give with no return) is actually the vicious extreme opposite to selfishness (seeking to take with no return)? Giving to another’s benefit while also receiving benefit from that other is the place where relationship and mutuality lie.
Without mutual benefit there is no mutuality - and no relationship. We’re left only with the cold, detached altruism of Kant.
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