Why do we choose to act altruistically even when we know it’s to our detriment, and what does it mean for us and society?

This article explores the reasons and implications of why people choose altruistic behaviors in their daily lives. People often sacrifice personal gain for the sake of others’ happiness and social relationships, and this behavior can ultimately lead to individual and societal happiness.

 

We have all had the experience of acting altruistically for others (in this article, altruism is defined as acting for the good of others, even if it costs us something). In our daily lives, even just taking the subway, we often find ourselves in situations where we have to choose between acting altruistically or ignoring it and focusing on our work. For example, when I’m sitting in the subway at the end of a hard day and there’s a person standing in front of me who needs to give up their seat, or when I’m leaving the subway station and I see people begging for money. In the first situation, I would usually get up and give up my seat unless I was really struggling, and in the second situation, I would often give them the change I had in my pocket. However, if I think about it, I would rarely be criticized by others for not giving up my seat on the subway, and if I didn’t give them the change I had in my pocket, I could have spent it on something more directly valuable to me. Nevertheless, the reason I did this was because I was thinking (even subconsciously) about the comfort or happiness that someone else would gain at my expense. So how did you act in this situation? Or, more importantly, why did you act the way you did? And do you have any reason to act altruistically in the thousands of situations like the one above that you will encounter in the future?
It’s easy to keep it simple. If you ignore the situation, you’re simply acting for yourself. But we have no reason or right to criticize someone for ignoring such situations. Everyone has different values and different circumstances. When we say “circumstances,” we mean your own. And if you acted selflessly in the above situation, it would be your natural behavior for others or the result of your thoughts and actions.
But let’s think a little deeper. Acting for yourself means that you are focused on your own “self-interest”. You’ve refrained from expending energy or complex thought in the situation so that you can act in a way that is more beneficial to you – for example, by staying tired so that you can go home and do more work. On the other hand, the consequences of your natural behavior or thoughts and actions for others are more complex. First, your natural (unconscious) behavior for others can be interpreted as a result of your education in morals, manners, and so on, or as a result of your human conscience telling you that it is the right thing to do. When we honor the elderly and help someone in need, it can be seen as a matter of morality and decency, and we do so because of our a priori conscience or because of the guilt we would feel if we passed the situation by. Another way of looking at it is that the outcome of our thoughts and actions can be interpreted in several ways. One of them is for our “other self,” which refers to how we will be seen by others, such as repetition and reciprocity, meaning that we expect someone to see us (positively or negatively, e.g., how we will be viewed or judged) or what we will get back from them for our actions. Another is for our own heart, happiness, and reward. This is when you act purely out of a desire to help others, or because of the satisfaction (from the other person’s happiness or gratitude) and reward you’ll get from helping them, or for your own happiness. We have all acted in our own way in this situation for one of these reasons or another. So, do we have a reason to act altruistically in situations like this (and beyond) that we will encounter thousands of times in the future?
Consider the above reasons collectively. These reasons can be broken down into two main categories. One is the “I” reason. From my perspective, there are three reasons why we act altruistically. The first is for the benefit of others. This refers to the praise, admiration, or even respect that you may receive from others for acting altruistically, or the additional benefit of helping others. Examples include the praise you receive when you give up your seat, or the reward you receive when you find a wallet. The second is for your conscience. Maintaining the right amount of altruism can clear your conscience, and in doing so, maintain your peace of mind. For example, if I find a large sum of money or a wallet, and I know that it would be to my detriment to find the owner, but I don’t expect a reward, I’ll find the owner of the money. If you don’t find the owner, you may feel uncomfortable or guilty about it, which may outweigh the happiness of spending the money. Finally, you can act altruistically for your own happiness. This is a more active form of altruism than conscience, and refers to the reward, pride, and ultimately happiness that comes from helping others. An example of this is the happiness you get from volunteering.
The other is the “social” reason, which is related to others. Social reasons can also be divided into two categories. The first is civility and morality. This is culturally shaped, meaning that we are expected to be polite to others and behave morally. The second is maintaining relationships with others. You can think about the relationships you can maintain by acting altruistically and the additional benefits you can gain by doing so. If I don’t act altruistically, this relationship may be broken, resulting in loss of emotion and loss of profit.
We act altruistically for the above five reasons, which are also the reasons we should act altruistically. Let’s apply this to the situation of “free riding”.
We often see people around us taking free rides. Whether it’s intentional or not, it causes a lot of harm to others. Everyone has their own reasons for doing this, whether it’s because they don’t need a good grade, they don’t care about their teammates, or they just want to be free. However, if you don’t need good grades, you may feel guilty when you see your teammates suffer and blame yourself, and you may lose your relationship with your teammates; if you don’t care about your relationship with your teammates, you may not only lose your grades, which is another benefit to you, but you may also be heavily criticized and penalized in your relationship with your teammates. In other words, the above reasons are reasons not to do it.
If you think about it further, how to prevent free riding can also be part of the reason to act altruistically. If you don’t need a good grade in a class, it’s easy to deter free-riding by making sure that you’re penalized in other areas later, and if you don’t need a relationship with a teammate, you can use a teammate’s whistleblowing system to penalize them for it. In other words, if a person is penalized for something they didn’t give up, they have a reason not to free-ride, and therefore are more likely to do so.
Specifically, you can prevent free riding by having a whistleblowing system within the team and a teammate rating site to prevent free credits and teammate ratings to prevent future relationships and other benefits. However, both of these methods have significant drawbacks: falsehoods and distrust. And some people may have given up on both. Therefore, preventing free riding will also require measures that involve the individual’s conscience, i.e., having them evaluate their own participation and compare it to the evaluations of others.
In conclusion, we should act altruistically for reasons of self-interest, conscience, happiness, civility, and relationships with others. These reasons are all connected, and ultimately, they all lead to a happy life. Therefore, we should act altruistically.