Guided Response: Please review several classmates’ posts and respond to at least two classmates’ initial posts. Each response must be to a student whose post consists of an opposing argument to yours. That is, if you are assigned to argue in favor of altruism, you must respond to one student who argued in favor of egoism and one who argued in favor of “somewhere in the middle of altruism and egoism.” Your responses should challenge your classmates’ arguments using the research you found to support your argument. Continue to monitor the discussion forum until 5:00 p.m. MST on Day 7 of the week and respond to anyone who replies to your initial post.

The altruism and egoism debate has been and continues to be had in philosophy and psychology. Does true altruism exist, or are humans completely selfish (egoism)? There is enough evidence to prove that humans are capable of a mixture of both. While some humans can be more selfless or selfish than others, this does not mean they are completely either or. In fact, people can fall in between or a little bit of both, it just depends on their circumstances, environment, and mindset.

Altruism is the act of being selfless, which is different from thoughts and feelings that fall into the altruism category. However, altruism does not always mean morally correct, either. Last week’s assignment, one of theories I chose to talk about was altruism. While someone may act in a true altruistic way, they may not always be morally outstanding (Scott & Seglow, 2007). An example can be that a person may choose to help dogs, and only dogs, when donating their time and money to an animal shelter. They specifically refuse to help any other animal in there, even though they are all in need. While this person’s actions may seem truly altruistic, there is a bit of moral contradiction in there, maybe even a pinch of egoism. I say this because egoism is a selfish act, and choosing just to work with a specific group of animals you love while ignoring the other animals laying in cages next to them is a bit selfish.

True altruism is impossible to accomplish, as everyone may say they do something because “it is the right thing to do”, but really people may do it to get rid of the guilt they would feel if they did not help out. Let us say that you see a person carrying groceries by themselves when they trip and spill their groceries all over the parking lot. You stop and without thinking about it much you rush over to help them pick up all their groceries. Is this act 100% altruistic? No. In fact, the scenario may have made you feel empathetic and personal distress together, producing the behavior to help the person out (Carrera, Oceja, Caballero, Muñoz, López-Pérez, & Ambrona, 2013). This is what lead to your altruistic behavior, which has a dash of egoism in it, as if something like that happened to you, you would hope someone would help you, too. “’Givers’ earn a good reputation and people are more likely to help them when they need it” (Mather, 2015). This is how altruism and egoism are blended. In situations where someone helps another out, many believe they will be repaid in one form or another. Thus, altruism is always mixed with egoism, even if it is a small amount and not noticed or acknowledged by anyone involved.

One research study found that the mixture of altruism and egoism in behaviors fluctuate. While someone may show altruistic and egoistic behaviors towards one person in a situation, they may show a different combination of altruism and egoism towards another person. It was found that empathy was found when discussing willingness to help a family member out, but not when helping out a stranger (Maner & Gailliot, 2006). This means that our relationships do have an effect on our behaviors towards others, thus creating a variety of combination of altruism and egoism.

Some may argue that religious people are truly and purely altruistic, as they donate their time and money towards those in need and show no exclusions with their help. However, this act is considered more of a prosocial behavior and not altruistic. Proscoial behavior is a neutral term used when an act is neither completely selfish or selfless. Prosocial behavior “improves psychological wellbeing because it leads people to develop other-oriented values, motives, and a sense of self that leads them to believe that they matter to others in the social world” (Saroglou, 2013).

It is difficult for me to believe that true altruism or egoism exist. Humans are full of emotions, and those emotions get mixed together in different variation throughout the days we live through. Humans are all a mixture of altruism and egoism, also known as prosocialism.