In this blog post, we will look at the reasons why we choose altruistic behavior at the expense of our own interests and the implications of such behavior for individuals and society.
Every person has at least once acted altruistically towards others. (In this article, altruistic behavior refers to acting for the benefit of others even if it comes at a personal cost.) Even when we are just riding the subway in our daily lives, we are often faced with a dilemma of whether to act altruistically or to ignore it and focus on our own business. For example, when I’m sitting on a subway seat after a hard day, there are people standing in front of me who need to give up their seat, or when I exit the subway, I encounter people begging for money. Usually, in the first situation, I would unknowingly stand up and give up my seat unless it was really difficult, and in the second situation, I would often give them the change I had in my pocket. But if you think about it, I rarely get criticized by others for not giving up my seat on the subway, and if I hadn’t given the change in my pocket, I might have been able to spend that money on something more directly valuable to me. Nevertheless, the reason I did the above is because I (subconsciously) thought about the comfort or happiness that others would gain at my expense. If so, how did you act in this situation? More importantly, why did you act that way? Also, do you have a reason to act selflessly in situations like the one above, which you will face thousands of times in the future?
It’s easy to think of it simply. If you ignore the situation above, you are simply acting for yourself. However, we believe that there is no reason or right to blame someone who ignores such a situation. This is because each person has different values and circumstances. The “circumstances” here refer to each person’s circumstances. Also, if you act selflessly in the above situation, it will be your natural behavior for others or the result of your thoughts and actions.
But let’s think about it a little more deeply. Acting for yourself means focusing on your own “interest.” You refrained from consuming power or complex thoughts in that situation and acted in a way that was more beneficial to yourself – for example, by maintaining a tired body and going home to do more work. On the other hand, the results of your natural behavior and thoughts and actions for others have more complex meanings. First, your natural (unconscious) behavior for others can be interpreted as the result of education in morals, manners, etc. that you have received or the conscience of a human being that believes it is proper to behave in such a way. We may see that we honor the elderly and help those in need as being in accordance with morals and manners, and that we have acted in such a way because of our a priori conscience or the guilt we would feel if we had passed by the situation. The results of thinking and acting for another reason can be interpreted in various ways. One of them can be seen as being for “the benefit of another me,” which refers to the image of oneself that will be seen by others or repetitive-mutual hypothesis. In other words, it is the image of oneself that someone will be watching (whether positive or negative, for example, the image of oneself that will be talked about in a positive way or the negative gaze), or the expectation of the benefits that will come back from the other party when one acts in such a way. Another is for my own happiness, contentment, and fulfillment. It is pure desire to help others, or the satisfaction (from the happiness or gratitude of the other) and fulfillment that I will gain from helping the other, that is, I acted in such a way for my own happiness. We have probably acted in our own way in such situations for the above reasons or for our own reasons. Then, is there a reason for us to act altruistically in situations like the one above (and in situations other than the ones listed here) that we will face thousands of times in the future?
Let’s think about the reasons above in combination. The reasons above can be divided into two main categories. One is the reasons from the perspective of “me.” From my perspective, there are three reasons why we act altruistically. The first is for the benefit of another me. This refers to the praise that can be gained when acting altruistically, and even the respect or additional benefits that can be gained by helping others. An example of this is the praise that others will receive when I give up my seat and the reward for finding their wallet. Second, it is for my conscience. If I maintain a proper degree of altruism, I can protect my conscience and maintain peace of mind. For example, when I find a large sum of money or a wallet, I find the owner of the money without expecting any reward, even though I know it will be a loss to me. If you don’t find the owner, you may be more concerned about the guilt and discomfort than the happiness of spending money. Finally, you can act selflessly for your own happiness. This can be seen as a more active form of altruism than conscience, and it means the reward and satisfaction of helping others, and ultimately happiness. The happiness you feel from volunteering is an example.
The other is the reason from the perspective of “society” related to others. The reasons from the social perspective can also be divided into two categories. The first is courtesy and morality. This is something that we have culturally formed, meaning that we should be courteous to others and act morally. The second is maintaining relationships with others. We can think about the relationships that we can maintain by acting altruistically and the additional benefits that we can gain from doing so. If I had not acted altruistically, this relationship could have broken down, resulting in a loss of feelings and profits.
We act altruistically for the above five reasons, which are also the reasons why we should act altruistically. Let’s apply this to the situation of “free riding.”
We often see people taking advantage of others around them. Whether intentional or not, free riding causes a lot of damage to others. People take advantage of others for various reasons, such as not needing good grades, not caring about their relationships with teammates, or for their own freedom. However, if you don’t need good grades, you may feel guilty about seeing your teammates suffer and blame yourself, which may lead to losing your relationship with them. If you don’t care about your relationship with your teammates, you may lose another benefit of your own, which is your grades, as well as be heavily criticized and penalized in your relationship with your teammates. In other words, the reasons mentioned above are reasons not to free-ride.
Furthermore, if we think about it, preventing free riding can be one of the reasons for acting altruistically. If a person does not need a good grade in a class, they will be penalized in other areas later on. If a person does not need a relationship with a team member, they will be penalized in their grade using the team member’s reporting system. This will make it easy to prevent free-riding. In other words, if a person is penalized in a part that they have not given up on, they will have a reason not to free-ride, and the probability of not free-riding will increase accordingly.
Specifically, to prevent free-riding, a whistleblowing system should be established within the team and a team member evaluation site should be created to prevent good grades that are received free of charge through the whistleblowing system and to block future relationships with others and the additional benefits that may be gained through team member evaluations. However, these two methods have fatal drawbacks of falsehood and distrust. There may also be people who have given up on both of these. Therefore, measures to prevent free-riding should also involve measures related to individual conscience. In other words, there should be a part where the person’s level of participation is evaluated and compared with the evaluation of others.
In conclusion, we should act altruistically for the sake of our own interests, conscience, and happiness, as well as for the sake of courtesy and relationships with others. These reasons are all connected, and ultimately, we can lead a happy life when we follow all of them. Therefore, we should act altruistically.
