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Overview

If your family and friends were in trouble, you would help them. You’d also help strangers who are in the same situation, but it depends on the situation.

Some people are known for always helping others, even when it’s not in their best interest. They’re called altruists and they feel a strong desire to help everyone but themselves. Altruism is defined as selflessness.

An altruist is someone who puts the needs of others before their own. They are selfless and put other people’s happiness above their own. In this passage, you’ll learn what an altruist is, how they act and why they want to help others so much.

You’ll learn a lot of things from this book, such as why family shouldn’t come first and how altruism saved an 80-year old nurse. You’ll also find out that altruism was long considered selfish.

Big Idea #1: Altruism is indiscriminate and can be of great benefit to the altruistic person.

What does it mean to be altruistic? Basically, it means helping other people even if you have to sacrifice something for them. It’s more than just doing a good deed like holding the door open for someone or donating money to charity.

Acting with altruistic motivation means helping others, even when you put yourself at risk. This duty to help extends to all people, including your enemies. Such altruism was demonstrated by Dorothy Granada as she opened a clinic in Nicaragua that was still experiencing bloody conflict between two political factions.

While many of the clinic’s employees thought that they should treat only Sandinistas, Granada believed otherwise. Despite the fact that she and her staff were close to the Sandanistas and healing Contras would lead to more deaths among them, Granada felt it was her duty as a nurse to help everyone including wounded Contras. She was truly altruistic.

It can be beneficial to help the enemy. A rebel who had tortured and killed other people came to Dorothy’s clinic seeking treatment for a bullet wound in his head. The rebel looked scary, but he needed help, so Dorothy treated him anyway.

Dorothy healed the rebel’s wound, and it turned out that altruism was a good decision. Later on, the Contras were planning an attack on the clinic but Dorothy intervened to protect it. Altruism ultimately saved the clinic and its staff from harm by the rebels.

Big Idea #2: Utilitarian philosophy has a strict moral code, even when it comes to loved ones.

Have you ever tried to distract yourself from your problems by doing something nice for someone else? While it may be a good way to forget about your troubles, one argument says that if you do this excessively, then it can make you a terrible person.

Utilitarianism is a philosophy where you want to make the world a better place for everyone, including yourself.

Utilitarian philosophers believe that binge shopping is immoral behavior. Imagine you’re strolling through the countryside when you suddenly come across a child drowning in a pond. You want to jump in and help but stop because your expensive clothes will get ruined.

Of course, it’s selfish to think about your own wardrobe before saving the life of a child. However, that is the reality in many parts of the world where kids are dying every day from starvation or lack of medicine. Therefore, isn’t it just as selfish to spend money on expensive clothes rather than food or medicine that could save children’s lives?

Peter Singer, a utilitarian philosopher, uses the example of buying things beyond necessity as an immoral act. This is because humanity would be better off if we spent our money helping others instead of spending it on unnecessary goods.