Egoism Vs Altruism

When there is a sign of a cry for help what is the first instinct one 's mind comes to? To deceive or to help others? There has always been a debate about the question of whether humans are naturally altruistic, helpful, or naturally egoistic, selfish people. Many believe that it depends on the situation where a person has a choice in being helpful or deceitful by considering a person’s ethnicity, personality, or circumstances. Altruism versus egoism has also lead down to conclusions allowing people to believe that is natural to be both selfish and helpful. However, by narrowing down this subject to the real question: how humans naturally act when given an instinctive opportunity to be altruistic or to be selfish, it is ultimately selfless.

Such as in Plato’s three-part soul where it discusses three parts of a person which relate to particular virtues. The mind is the rationality, which makes the rational decisions, the heart being the spirit, which gives reason to be courageous, while “below the midriff” being the appetite, which gives people pleasure. Altruism and egoism can be compared to the three-part soul by combining reason with spirit brings out a moral, altruistic soul while combining spirit and appetite brings out an immoral, egoistic soul (Palmer 263-264). Relating this back to the point of altruism is a natural, instinctive human behavior, then this concept would support altruism over egoism, because the moral, altruistic souls, the rational lead person are those who are rulers in society, people who take others further for the betterment of everyone. While another philosophical concept, called utilitarianism, addresses an idea relatively close to the definition of altruism. In which, utilitarianism introduces the idea that “one should maximize pleasure and minimize pain for all parties involves in a decision” (Leib slide 12). To summarize, this concept states that there should be “the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people” (Palmer 273). This philosophical view makes the most sense in today’s society by eliminating things that cause pain away from

From articles, people can infer that as an instinctive response, dealing with a situation in a quick manner, that goes without thinking leads to an altruistic result. From philosophical theories, people can understand that altruism is ultimately what the majority of people want in their society, for everyone to treat one another happily and rationally. If one were lead to believe that everyone was controlled by the appetitive part of their soul, or they just naturally thought everyone was selfish, would disregard that that person may have had time to think further about those their egoistic decisions. Those who are egoistic in behavior do not take self-centered actions because they instinctively felt it was best to deceive others; instead, they are presented with situations that they thought long about. Even if egoistic people did intuitively believe their appetites in life, then this must come from their past experiences where they wished to gain everything for oneself, without a care for others. For example, when a person first learns how to drive they drive cautiously because they are still learning how to drive. Once that person determines that driving is a system that can be cheated then they may become unfair, selfish drivers who may turn without signals, or may speed to get ahead of traffic. Furthermore, egoism is not a natural human