Which philosophy assumes we want to help others?

[magellan01]

Which philosophy(ies) would you say is/are most firmly rooted in the belief that man is inherently good, and assumes that man has a default setting that he/she wants to help others?

[Measure for Measure]

This is an interesting question. A trope from college days was that political disagreement stemmed from views of human nature, with some thinking humans were innately good, and others more skeptical. The problem with this view is that identifiable liberal thinkers (eg Adam Smith) tended to posit that human nature was malleable and not one way or another. Some modern conservatives fashion themselves to have a more skeptical view -- though their trust in economic incentives suggests they are not purists in this regard. Maggie Thatcher certainly believed that government policies shaped behaviors.

See the discussion at wikipedia on human nature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature

Christians and Jews believe that humans are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and are thus innately good, to the extent that they conform to God's law.

Secular humanists believe that man is neither innately good nor innately evil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

But humanistic psychology posits that, "people are innately good and that mental and social problems result from deviations from this natural tendency." http://psychology.about.com/od/histo...humanistic.htm That may be the term that the OP was looking for. But I stress that humanistic psychology is not the same as humanism: the terms are similar but the intellectual traditions differ.

[samclem]

Moved from General Questions to IMHO.

samclem, Moderator

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by samclem

Moved from General Questions to IMHO.

samclem, Moderator

I'm not sure why you moved this. I'm looking for factual answers. I debated putting it in GD, but was hoping for some very specific answers for research I am doing. Would you wind moving it back to GQ, or even put it into GD?

Thanks.

[Sophistry and Illusion]

Does anyone really believe this? Psychological egoists like Hobbes teach the contrary--that people are only capable of acting self-interestedly--but those who deny this in my experience don't argue that humans are inherently good, only that humans don't always act self-interestedly. In Hume's words, they argue that "there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent."

[psychonaut]

Originally Posted by magellan01

Which philosophy(ies) would you say is/are most firmly rooted in the belief that man is inherently good, and assumes that man has a default setting that he/she wants to help others?

That's not philosophy; that's biology. Humans are social animals and by definition social animals cooperate. Of course humans and other social animals have the capacity for antisocial behaviour; we can, for example, harm and kill each other when external factors mandate it, such as during competition for scare resources. But the default seems to be cooperation. I don't know about you, but I don't live my life constantly suppressing the urge to hurt other people physically or emotionally. Whenever you observe an accident in public it's usually not long before one or more passersby arrive to help; the few well-publicized cases of major incidents in which this does not happen receive near-universal condemnation. People donate their time and money to charities, social clubs, and other unremunerated activities all the time. People often help out not just their friends but also complete strangers with favours small and large.

One researcher who has made an in-depth study of human nature is Alfie Kohn. Obviously I cannot repeat in detail all of his research here, but if you'll permit me to cannibalize an earlier post I made on this topic, I will quote some of the things he has observed and the conclusions he has reached:

The phrase "human nature" … is reserved, as if by some linguistic convention, for what is nasty and negative in our repertoire. We invoke it to explain selfishness rather than service, competition rather than cooperation, egocentricity rather than empathy. On any given day we may witness innumerable gestures of caring, ranging from small acts of kindness to enormous sacrifices, but never do we shrug and say, "Well, what did you expect? It's just human nature to be generous." […] There is good evidence to support the proposition that it is as "natural" to help as it is to hurt, that concern for the wellbeing of others often cannot be reduced to self-interest, that social structures predicated on human selfishness have no claim to inevitability or even prudence. In short, the cynical consensus about our species is out of step with the hard data.

[…]

In my experience, cars do not spin their wheels on ice for very long before someone stops to offer a push. We disrupt our schedules to visit sick friends, stop to give directions to lost travelers, ask crying people if there is anything we can do to help. According to the polls, nearly 90 percent of Americans given money to charitable causes and nearly half take the time to do some sort of volunteer work. In one study, 83 percent of blood donors indicated a willingness to undergo anesthesia and stay overnight in a hospital in order to donate bone marrow to a complete stranger.

And if we, like some researchers, choose to expand the idea of pro-social behaviour to include cooperative activities—working with others for mutual benefits such as in structured collaboration at work—we would find even more evidence of pro-social inclination. All of this, it should be stressed, is particularly remarkable in light of the fact that we are socialized in an ethic of competitive individualism.

In his book The Brighter Side of Human Nature, Kohn spends 15 pages tackling the question of whether aggressive behaviour is part of human nature. He concludes that it isn't. Here are some extracts:

The frequency with which nations draft their citizens into combat (and invoke stiff penalties for those who resist it) qualifies as powerful evidence against the idea that wars reflect natural human aggressiveness.

There is absolutely no evidence from animal behaviour or human psychology to suggest that individuals of any species fight because of spontaneous internal stimulation.

Like other beliefs about the intrinsic unsavoriness of our species … an assumption about aggression can also be explained … in terms of images presented to us by the mass media, and in terms of the powerful interests who are benefited by just such an assumption.
Kohn devotes three chapters to altruism versus individualism, and the motivation for people to work. He addresses that part of the "human nature" argument which states that the world's work will only get done if people are paid to do it. Kohn observes that "[p]eople do their best work when they find it fun, not when they are in it for the money". Rewards actually erode intrinsic interest. He found that encouraging pro-social behaviour by the use of incentives or other appeals to self-interest don't work very well, or only work in the short run.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Sophistry and Illusion

Does anyone really believe this? Psychological egoists like Hobbes teach the contrary--that people are only capable of acting self-interestedly--but those who deny this in my experience don't argue that humans are inherently good, only that humans don't always act self-interestedly. In Hume's words, they argue that "there is some benevolence, however small, infused into our bosom; some spark of friendship for human kind; some particle of the dove, kneaded into our frame, along with the elements of the wolf and serpent."

This is why I posted this here. I'm aware of the Hobbsian view, and thought there might be a contrary one. Not one that merely allowed for good to be innate, but posited that it was the natural state, the default state.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Measure for Measure

This is an interesting question. A trope from college days was that political disagreement stemmed from views of human nature, with some thinking humans were innately good, and others more skeptical. The problem with this view is that identifiable liberal thinkers (eg Adam Smith) tended to posit that human nature was malleable and not one way or another. Some modern conservatives fashion themselves to have a more skeptical view -- though their trust in economic incentives suggests they are not purists in this regard. Maggie Thatcher certainly believed that government policies shaped behaviors.

See the discussion at wikipedia on human nature:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_nature

Christians and Jews believe that humans are spiritual beings, made in the image of God, and are thus innately good, to the extent that they conform to God's law.

Secular humanists believe that man is neither innately good nor innately evil:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

But humanistic psychology posits that, "people are innately good and that mental and social problems result from deviations from this natural tendency." http://psychology.about.com/od/histo...humanistic.htm That may be the term that the OP was looking for. But I stress that humanistic psychology is not the same as humanism: the terms are similar but the intellectual traditions differ.

Thanks for the post, particularly the last link. But what I'm really trying to find is if there is a philosophy of human behavior (non-religious) that posits that we are wired to not just "be" good, but to, more actively, "do" good.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by psychonaut

That's not philosophy; that's biology. Humans are social animals and by definition social animals cooperate. Of course humans and other social animals have the capacity for antisocial behaviour; we can, for example, harm and kill each other when external factors mandate it, such as during competition for scare resources. But the default seems to be cooperation. I don't know about you, but I don't live my life constantly suppressing the urge to hurt other people physically or emotionally. Whenever you observe an accident in public it's usually not long before one or more passersby arrive to help; the few well-publicized cases of major incidents in which this does not happen receive near-universal condemnation. People donate their time and money to charities, social clubs, and other unremunerated activities all the time. People often help out not just their friends but also complete strangers with favours small and large.

One researcher who has made an in-depth study of human nature is Alfie Kohn. Obviously I cannot repeat in detail all of his research here, but if you'll permit me to cannibalize an earlier post I made on this topic, I will quote some of the things he has observed and the conclusions he has reached:

In his book The Brighter Side of Human Nature, Kohn spends 15 pages tackling the question of whether aggressive behaviour is part of human nature. He concludes that it isn't. Here are some extracts:

And thank you for this information. I wouldn't have come across on my own. I'm not looking for the degree to which aggressive behavior might be part of human nature. Let's say there's a baseline, where humans are hard wired to do neither be aggressive to others or help them. I'm only concerned with the help half of the equation. For instance, might there be any research that demonstrates that man is naturally inclined to help others. Either that or a theory that would take the opposite position as Hobbes.

[samclem]

Originally Posted by samclem

Moved from General Questions to IMHO.

samclem, Moderator

Originally Posted by magellan01

I'm not sure why you moved this. I'm looking for factual answers. I debated putting it in GD, but was hoping for some very specific answers for research I am doing. Would you wind moving it back to GQ, or even put it into GD?

Thanks.

I moved it because it was actually asking for opinions, not cold hard facts. And, you can still get facts in IMHO.

I've now moved it to Great Debates.

samclem, Moderator

[Measure for Measure]

Wherever forum this thread lands on¹, I hope we can stay focused on the question, which is not whether humans are intrinsically good, but rather which schools of thought believe that. It's a factual matter.

Originally Posted by magellan01

Thanks for the post, particularly the last link. But what I'm really trying to find is if there is a philosophy of human behavior (non-religious) that posits that we are wired to not just "be" good, but to, more actively, "do" good.

I was surprised that I couldn't find something like Euhumania, to make up a word. In common conversation, it's not an unusual viewpoint. Anyway, I'm going to talk around your question, in the hopes that we can stumble upon something.

If you want a theory about how humans are wired to act in a certain way, the literature is in evolutionary psychology and the keyword is "Altruism". But just because altruism is evolutionarily mandated, doesn't mean there won't be other less palatable instincts as well.

The Chinese had a term for human nature and natural instincts called Xing. In the early 20th century it acquired the additional meaning of sex. See p. 606 of this document: http://cambridge.academia.edu/LeonRo...n_Modern_China But before that, there might have been some discussion about whether Xing was good, bad or neither.

One solution to the Problem of Evil, is that there is no evil, or at least there is no real evil. There's only the absence of Good. (I don't believe this, strenuously, btw.) That might be a lead though.

Here's a list of various theories of human nature: http://www.carroll.edu/msmillie/phil...umannature.htm None of the 10 theories seem to match the OP.
Peter Lopston's book (in its 3rd ed!) has a chapter on conservative individualism and a chapter on liberal views: http://books.google.com/books?id=-jU...nature&f=false

¹Next stop: Cafe Society!

[Measure for Measure]

Wikipedia on Mencius:

Mencius (...372 – 289 BCE...) was a Chinese philosopher who was arguably the most famous Confucian after Confucius himself. ...

While Confucius himself did not explicitly focus on the subject of human nature, Mencius asserted the innate goodness of the individual, believing that it was society's influence – its lack of a positive cultivating influence – that caused bad moral character. "He who exerts his mind to the utmost knows his nature"[9] and "the way of learning is none other than finding the lost mind".[10]

His translator James Legge finds a close similarity between Mencius' views on human nature and those in Bishop Butler's Sermons on Human Nature.

And on Joseph Butler:

Joseph Butler (18 May 1692 O.S. – 16 June 1752) was an English bishop, theologian, apologist, and philosopher. ...

The "Sermons on Human Nature" is commonly studied as an answer to Hobbes' philosophy of ethical egoism. ...¹

Today, he is commonly cited for the blunt epigram, "Every thing is what it is, and not another thing."

¹As of c 1910...

[Measure for Measure]

Here's a decent treatment of some of the underlying philosophic issues:
All people are good.

Aristotle had a cheery view of human nature, believing that an impulse to the good was part of it. Of course there are other aspects.

In fiction
At a writing message board they discussed, "Are all people fundamentally good?"

Neil Gaiman said, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

[Naxos]

Originally Posted by Sophistry and Illusion

Does anyone really believe this? Psychological egoists like Hobbes teach the contrary--[...]

Well, as far as philosophy is concerned most of the pre-20th Century philosophers are only good enough for academic study and nothing else.

Apart from the birth of philosophy with the ancient Greeks, where it's still amazing to see how people with such little scientific real-world knowledge came up with such diverse and often very accurate explanations about the cosmos, we now know so much more about reality and Nature and the psychological drives of human beings, that makes almost all philosophers from the 1500's to 2000 inconsequential and irrelevant to reality.

They tried their best to explain their world, but all of them are convinced that the human existence is at the center of the universe - parallel to the flawed cosmological views supported mainly by religion - so everything has to be explained in human terms. They could not comprehend the subjective bias of the human mind with the little they had to work with in terms of scientific knowledge of reality.

As far as an answer to the OP question, all philosophies recognize the human drive to be altruistic or good or moral. They differ in whether they consider it important and in how to deal with it.

[TATG]

Originally Posted by Measure for Measure

Aristotle had a cheery view of human nature, believing that an impulse to the good was part of it. Of course there are other aspects.

Along these lines, it wouldn't surprised me if some modern day Virtue Ethics proponents have a similar view.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Measure for Measure

Here's a decent treatment of some of the underlying philosophic issues:
All people are good.

Aristotle had a cheery view of human nature, believing that an impulse to the good was part of it. Of course there are other aspects.

In fiction
At a writing message board they discussed, "Are all people fundamentally good?"

Neil Gaiman said, “It may help to understand human affairs to be clear that most of the great triumphs and tragedies of history are caused, not by people being fundamentally good or fundamentally bad, but by people being fundamentally people.”

Love that quote! Thanks. I think maybe another way at this is through the altruism angle. I'm wondering if humans are, as a default, hard-wired for altruism. It seems we might be, as 1) we do have empathy and 2) altruistic acts make us feel good. I forgot which philosopher it was who questioned if an act can be completely altruistic, because we derive personal pleasure from such actions.

What I'm ultimately trying to get a better understanding of is how we assess whether we should help someone, when it is in our power to do so. If you drop a book and your hands are full, it costs me very little to pick it up for you, so I likely will. If you have a flat and don't know how to change it, the cost of me helping is higher, so the odds of me changing it for you go down.

I'm working on project (that I can't get into too much) that will enable people to help others. We're trying to dial down as much as we can the cost of helping, but I'm trying to get an idea—from a psychological, or maybe even physiological, standpoint—of what the baseline inclination is.

[Farmer Jane]

Nitpick on the Judaism thing: Judaism teaches that people have the ability to be good or bad, and that we should strive to be like God, but aren't born that way by default. A good example of this is Jacob v. Esau.

People are born with a degree of innocence, though. (Not good. Just not bad.) What Measure for Measure stated must be more of a Christian idea.

Hmm. Never thought hard on the OP's question before.

I don't think it's natural for humans to want to help everybody, but I do think it's natural for humans to help whomever they view as part of their 'tribe' (religion, region, gender, political affiliation, class, ______).

A good man is hard to find.

[BigT]

The first definition I got of liberalism was that people, if left to their own devices, would inherently be good. That was what was liberal about it.

This is directly opposed to every religion I am aware of. They all teach that doing good is work. At best humans are neutral.

It's also the problem I have with egocentrism: by claiming that looking out for yourself is good, you eliminate any push to be altruistic. So, likewise, being inherently altruistic would mean you'd neglect yourself and you'd never be able to be a useful human being.

[Max Torque]

Utilitarianism's central tenet is "happiness is good, so the act which brings the greatest happiness to the greatest number of people is the right act." It's pretty easy to conclude that helping people makes them happy, and the more people you help, the more happiness you create.

There are other problems with utilitarianism, but for "helping others" it's pretty solid.

[magellan01]

A request: can we leave religions out of the discussion?

Thanks.

[BrainGlutton]

Rousseau, I suppose.

[njtt]

Originally Posted by magellan01

A request: can we leave religions out of the discussion?

Thanks.

I doubt whether it is possible to answer your original question meaningfully while excluding all reference to religion. Until very recent times, virtually everybody who thought seriously (or even not-do-seriously) about human nature did so within some sort of religious framework, and, even now, most people who think about the matter probably do so against a background of some sort of religious belief. Their views about human nature will not really make sense divorced from that context.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by njtt

I doubt whether it is possible to answer your original question meaningfully while excluding all reference to religion. Until very recent times, virtually everybody who thought seriously (or even not-do-seriously) about human nature did so within some sort of religious framework, and, even now, most people who think about the matter probably do so against a background of some sort of religious belief. Their views about human nature will not really make sense divorced from that context.

That's a fair point, but it's one thing for a philosophy to sprout from someone and have it mesh with his religion. Aquinas on numerous subjects comes to mind. It's another to have the theory be part of the religion. But for what I am looking for, a religious component makes it unhelpful. That's why I thought moving into to psychiatry/physiology might be helpful. For instance, is their a component of dopamine release when we help people, etc.

[LonesomePolecat]

Rousseau is the only philosopher I'm aware of who definitely stated that people are inherently good and only become evil when they are corrupted by society. How inherently good humans came to create wicked, corrupt societies, he does not say. In any case, Rousseau was a pretty corrupt character himself.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by LonesomePolecat

How inherently good humans came to create wicked, corrupt societies, he does not say.

The process should be utterly familiar to anyone who has ever sat on any form of committee.

[Measure for Measure]

Originally Posted by magellan01

Love that quote! Thanks. I think maybe another way at this is through the altruism angle. I'm wondering if humans are, as a default, hard-wired for altruism. It seems we might be, as 1) we do have empathy and 2) altruistic acts make us feel good. I forgot which philosopher it was who questioned if an act can be completely altruistic, because we derive personal pleasure from such actions.

What I'm ultimately trying to get a better understanding of is how we assess whether we should help someone, when it is in our power to do so. If you drop a book and your hands are full, it costs me very little to pick it up for you, so I likely will. If you have a flat and don't know how to change it, the cost of me helping is higher, so the odds of me changing it for you go down.

It sounds like you are interested in the social science aspect, i.e. the economics of altruism.

This may be a little daunting, but there are 2 Handbooks on the subject, if you have access to a university library. Don't be reluctant to skip over the indecipherable greek letters.

Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, Volume 1: Foundations (Handbooks in Economics) http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Econo...ref=pd_sim_b_1
Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, Volume 2: Applications (Handbooks in Economics) http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Econo.../dp/0444521453
There may be something there. Or there may be nothing there. But the Handbook series tends to provide a very good roundup of economic research, and those editions were published last decade.

Here's a website that may be relevant: http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/
Low grade ore I think, but it may have a few nuggets.

Robert Wright may or may not have something to say. I enjoyed The Moral Animal but have not read this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ef=nosim/0sil8

You might also google for Altruism in Experiments, Prepared for the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2007 by James Andreoni, William T. Harbaugh, and Lise Vesterlund. Read the abstact and the first couple of paragraphs. Skip to the conclusion. Then circle back or try pulling the references if you feel like it.

[magellan01]

Originally Posted by Measure for Measure

It sounds like you are interested in the social science aspect, i.e. the economics of altruism.

This may be a little daunting, but there are 2 Handbooks on the subject, if you have access to a university library. Don't be reluctant to skip over the indecipherable greek letters.

Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, Volume 1: Foundations (Handbooks in Economics) http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Econo...ref=pd_sim_b_1
Handbook of the Economics of Giving, Altruism and Reciprocity, Volume 2: Applications (Handbooks in Economics) http://www.amazon.com/Handbook-Econo.../dp/0444521453
There may be something there. Or there may be nothing there. But the Handbook series tends to provide a very good roundup of economic research, and those editions were published last decade.

Here's a website that may be relevant: http://www.altruists.org/about/altruism/
Low grade ore I think, but it may have a few nuggets.

Robert Wright may or may not have something to say. I enjoyed The Moral Animal but have not read this one: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...ef=nosim/0sil8

You might also google for Altruism in Experiments, Prepared for the New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics, 2007 by James Andreoni, William T. Harbaugh, and Lise Vesterlund. Read the abstact and the first couple of paragraphs. Skip to the conclusion. Then circle back or try pulling the references if you feel like it.

This looks very interesting. Thanks so much! I'm going to try to get through some of it this weekend.

[BrainGlutton]

Originally Posted by magellan01

Thanks for the post, particularly the last link. But what I'm really trying to find is if there is a philosophy of human behavior (non-religious) that posits that we are wired to not just "be" good, but to, more actively, "do" good.

Look to science for that.