Chapter 13: Egoism, Altruism, Mutualism

1. The Views of Spencer and Bentham

The two main issues on which moral philosophers have been most deeply divided, almost from time immemorial, have been that of Hedonism versus Non-Hedonism (some supposedly broader or "higher" goal), and that of Egoism versus Altruism. These two issues overlap, so much so that they are often confused with each other. A far greater overlap, almost to the point of identity, exists between the subject of the present chapter, the proper relations between Egoism and Altruism, and that of our preceding chapter, the relations between Prudence and Benevolence. In fact, Prudence and Egoism on the one hand, and Benevolence and Altruism on the other, may seem to many to be nearly synonymous terms. In any case, the subject calls for further exploration, and the traditional terms Egoism and Altruism will emphasize different aspects of it from those we have already considered.

The division between Egoism and Altruism has seldom been so wide or deep as is generally supposed. Let us distinguish, first of all, between psychological theory and ethical theory. There have been many moral philosophers (of which the archetype is Hobbes) who have contended that men are necessarily selfish, and never act except in accordance with their own (real or imagined) self-interest. These are the psychological Egoists. They contend that when men appear to be acting unselfishly or altruistically the appearance is deceptive or a hypocritical fraud; they are merely promoting their selfish interests. But there are very few ethical Egoists (the only one I can think of is the contemporary Ayn Rand, if I rightly understand her), who hold that while men can and do act altruistically and self-sacrificially, they ought only to act selfishly.

A similar division is possible (but practically non-existent) among Altruists. A psychological Altruist might hold that men necessarily and always act unselfishly and altruistically. I know of no one who does hold or ever has held this position. A pure ethical Altruist holds that men should always act altruistically and never out of self-interest. The ethical Altruist is necessarily a psychological Altruist, however, if only in the sense that he must believe it possible for a man to act solely in the interests of others and not of himself -- otherwise it would be impossible for him to do what he ought to do. Most moral philosophers have been ethical Altruists -- so much so that the popular conception of ethics is action in the interest of others and the popular conception of the chief dilemma of ethics is the supposed conflict between Self-Interest and Duty.

The basic cause of the immemorial controversy over Egoism and Altruism, in fact, has been the false assumption that the two attitudes are necessarily opposed to each other. Even conscientious efforts to effect a "reconciliation" between Egoism and Altruism have been at least partly vitiated by this assumption. A notable example is that of Herbert Spencer. In his Data of Ethics we have first a chapter (XI) on "Egoism versus Altruism," then a chapter (XII) on "Altruism versus Egoism," then a chapter (XIII) on "Trial and Compromise," and finally a chapter (XIV) called "Conciliation."

Spencer's conceptual error is most clearly revealed at the beginning of Chapter XIII on "Trial and Compromise": "In the foregoing two chapters the case on behalf of Egoism and the case on behalf of Altruism have been stated. The two conflict; and we have now to consider what verdict ought to be given .... Pure egoism and pure altruism are both illegitimate. If the maxim, 'Live for self,' is wrong, so also is the maxim, 'Live for others.' Hence, a compromise is the only possibility."

Spencer might have avoided this assumption of necessary conflict if he had examined more closely the implication of his own previous arguments. He begins his chapter on "Egoism versus Altruism," for example, by maintaining that "the acts by which each maintains his own life must, speaking generally, precede in imperativeness all other acts of which he is capable .... Egoism comes before altruism. The acts required for continued self preservation ... are the first requisites to universal welfare. Unless each duly cares for himself, his care for all others is ended by death. ... The adequately egoistic individual retains those powers which make altruistic activities possible."

But what is this but an argument that the same acts that are necessary to promote egoistic ends are necessary to promote altruistic ends?

Similarly, when he comes to the chapter on "Altruism versus Egoism" Spencer argues: "In various ways the well-being of each rises and falls with the well-being of all.... Each has a private interest in public morals, and profits by improving them.... Personal well-being depends in large measure on the well-being of society," etc. What is this, again, but an argument that the actions which promote the well-being of society also promote the well-being of the individual? As Spencer himself puts it: "From the dawn of life, then, egoism has been dependent upon altruism as altruism has been dependent upon egoism." All that Spencer succeeds in proving by his specific arguments, in fact, is that a misconceived or short-sighted pursuit of self-interest is not really in one's self-interest, and that a misconceived or short-sighted benevolence or self-sacrifice for the imagined good of others is not really beneficent, and harms, rather than promotes, the long-run good of others or the ultimate wellbeing of society.

This is true also of the argument of Spencer in which he seeks to reduce "pure" altruism to an absurdity:

When, therefore, we attempt to specialize the proposal to live not for self-satisfaction but for the satisfaction of others, we meet with the difficulty that beyond a certain limit this cannot be done ....

Mark the consequences if all are purely altruistic. First, an impossible combination of moral attributes is implied. Each is supposed by the hypothesis to regard self so little and others so much, that he willingly sacrifices his own pleasures to give pleasures to them. But if this is a universal trait, and if action is universally congruous with it, we have to conceive each as being not only a sacrificer but also one who accepts sacrifices. While he is so unselfish as willingly to yield up the benefit for which he has labored, he is so selfish as willingly to let others yield up to him the benefits they have labored for. To make pure altruism possible for all, each must be at once extremely unegoistic and extremely egoistic. As a giver, he must have no thought for self; as a receiver, no thought for others. Evidently, this implies an inconceivable mental constitution. The sympathy which is so solicitous for others as willingly to injure self in benefiting them, cannot at the same time be so regardless of others as to accept benefits which they injure themselves in giving. (1)

Spencer's reductio ad absurdum, of which the foregoing quotation is only a part, is shrewd and entirely valid. His argument, in fact, was anticipated by Bentham:

Take any two individuals, A and B, and suppose the whole care of the happiness of A confined to the breast of B, A himself not having any part in it; and the whole care of the happiness of B confined to the breast of A, B himself not having any part in it; and this to be the case throughout. It will soon appear that in this state of things the species could not continue in existence, and that a few months, not to say weeks or days, would suffice for the annihilation of it. Of all modes in which for the governance of one and the same individual the two faculties could be conceived as placed in different seats -- sensation and consequent desire in one breast, judgment and consequent action in another this is the most simple. If, as has been said with less truth of the blind leading the blind, both would in such a state of things be continually falling into the ditch, much more frequently and more speedily fatal would be the falls supposing the separation to have place upon any more complex plan. Suppose the care and the happiness of A being taken altogether from A were divided between B and C, the happiness of B and C being provided for in the same complex manner, and so on, the greater the complication the more speedy would the destruction be, and the more flagrant the absurdity of a supposition assuming the existence of such a state of things. (2)

2. Egoism and Altruism Interdependent

But though egoism, in the final analysis, must have priority over altruism, it remains true, as both Bentham and Spencer contended, that they are interdependent, and that, in general and in the long run, the actions that promote the one tend also to promote the other.

In brief, to say that whatever promotes the interests of the individual promotes those of society, and vice versa, is another way of saying that society consists of, and is simply another name for, the collection of individuals and their interrelations.

The argument, however, should not be overstated. The interests of a particular individual can never be said to be identical with those of society (even if we consider a "long-run" period as long as that individual's life). But over the long run (and the longer the period considered the more is this true) there is a tendency toward coalescence in the actions, and especially the rules of action, that promote self-interest and the public interest respectively. For in the long run it is in the greatest interest of the individual that he should live in a society characterized by law, peace, and good-will; a society in which he can rely on the word of others; in which others keep their promises to him; in which his right peaceably to enjoy the fruits of his labor, his rights to security and property, are respected; in which he is not shoved, cheated, beaten or robbed; in which he can depend on the cooperation of his fellows in undertakings that promote their mutual benefit; in which he can even depend on their active aid should he meet with accident or misfortune through no commensurate or glaring fault of his own.

And as it is in the interest of everyone to promote such a code of conduct on the part of others, so it is in his own interest to abide rigorously and inflexibly by such a code. For every infraction on the part of any individual tends to provoke infractions on the part of others, and endangers the maintenance of the code. There must even be a sanctity surrounding observance of the moral rules. If this sanctity does not exist, if the code is not inflexibly preserved, it loses its utilitarian value. (This is the element of truth in the objections to crude or ad hoc utilitism though not to rule-utilitism.)

Any individual who violates the moral code not only contributes to the disintegration of the code, but the more frequently or flagrantly he does so the more likely he is to be found out, and the more likely he is, therefore, to be punished, if not by the law, then by the retaliations and reprisals not only of those whom he has directly injured, but of others who have learned of the injuries he has inflicted.

Even to emphasize the necessity for "reconciling" egoism and altruism, therefore, as Herbert Spencer does, may be misleadingly to imply that they are normally antagonistic to each other.

On the contrary, particularly when we consider the long run, the usual and normal situation is the coincidence of egoism and altruism, the tendency of their aims to coalesce. It is their apparent "irreconcilability" that is unusual and exceptional. In fact, the overwhelming majority of people could be persuaded to adhere to a given code of ethics only if they were persuaded, however vaguely or even subconsciously, that adherence to such a code was in their own ultimate interest as individuals as well as in the interest of society.

We may, however, go even further than this. Not only does the code of conduct which best promotes the long-run interests of the individual tend to coincide with the code that best promotes the long-run interests of society, and vice versa, but it is much less easy than the majority of moral philosophers acknowledge to determine when an individual is acting primarily out of self-regard or out of regard for the interests of others. When a young man spends half his week's salary on a Saturday night taking his girl to dinner, the theater and a night club, is he acting "selfishly," or "altruistically"? When a rich man buys his wife a mink coat, does he do it, as Thorstein Veblen contended, merely to advertise his own wealth and success, or does he do it to please his wife? When parents make "sacrifices" to send their children to college are they doing it for the pleasure of boasting about their children (or even about their own sacrifices), or are they doing it primarily out of love for their children?

3. Bishop Butler on Self-Love

In contending that the same rules of conduct that tend most to promote the long-run interests of society are those that tend most also to promote the long-run interests of the individual who adheres to them, in contending that "egoism" and "altruism" tend to coincide, in contending even that "selfish" and "altruistic" motives are in practice often difficult to distinguish, I no doubt do my argument an injury in the eyes of a certain group of writers by pointing out the extent to which Herbert Spencer and particularly Jeremy Bentham supported it. For these writers have for years indicated their own superior culture, sensitiveness, and spirituality by their disdainful references to "Benthamism"; and their scorn has been effective be cause the prevailing conception of what Bentham thought and taught has been in fact a caricature. But perhaps these writers will be more impressed if I point out that the arguments of Bentham on this point were in turn anticipated, a full century before him, by no less a figure than the pre-Utilitarian, Bishop Butler.

The subtle mind of Butler made contributions both to ethical and psychological insight that are as valuable today as when he published his Fifteen Sermons in 1726. I shall confine myself here to those bearing directly on the issue between egoism and altruism.

"Self-love and benevolence, virtue and interest," he tells us in his preface "... are not to be opposed but only to be distinguished from each other ... Neither does there appear any reason to wish self-love were weaker in the generality of the world than it is .... The thing to be lamented is not that men have so great regard to their own good or interest in the present world, for they have not enough; but that they have so little to the good of others .... Upon the whole, if the generality of mankind were to cultivate within themselves the principle of self-love, if they were to accustom themselves often to set down and consider what was the greatest happiness they were capable of attaining for themselves in this life, and if self-love were so strong and prevalent as that they would uniformly pursue this their supposed chief temporal good, without being diverted from it by any particular passion, it would manifestly prevent numberless follies and vices."

Butler is here opposing "self-love" to "mere appetite, will, and pleasure," or "any vagrant inclination." But what he is really arguing for, in more modern terms, is the practice of the prudential virtues. He urges us to act in our true long-run self interest rather than for some merely temporary advantage or under the influence of unreflecting impulse or passion.

"To aim at public and private good," Butler tells us in his First Sermon, "are so far from being inconsistent that they mutually promote each other."

I must however remind you that though benevolence and self love are different, though the former tends most directly to public good, and the latter to private, yet they are so perfectly coincident that the greatest satisfactions to Ourselves depend upon our having benevolence in a due degree, and that self-love is one chief security of our right behavior toward society. It may be added that their mutual coinciding, so that we can scarce promote one without the other, is equally a proof that we were made for both.

Butler goes on to point out some of the psychological reasons why this is so.

Desire of esteem from others ... naturally leads us to regulate our behavior in such a manner as will be of service to our fellow creatures .... Mankind are by nature so closely united, there is such a correspondence between the inward sensations of one man and those of another, (3) that disgrace is as much avoided as bodily pain, and to be the object of esteem and love as much desired as any external goods; and in many particular cases, persons are carried on to do good to others, as the end their affection tends to and rests in, and manifest that they find real satisfaction and enjoyment in this course of behavior .... Men are so much one body that in a peculiar manner they feel for each other .... And therefore to have no restraint from, no regard to, others in our behavior is the speculative absurdity of considering ourselves as single and independent, as having nothing in our nature which has respect to our fellow creatures, reduced to action and practice. And this is the same absurdity as to suppose a hand or any part to have no natural respect to any other or to the whole body.

In his Third Sermon Butler goes even further: "Conscience and self-love, if we understand our true happiness, always lead us the same way. Duty and interest are perfectly coincident, for the most part in this world, but entirely and in every instance if we take in the future and the whole, this being implied in the notion of a good and perfect administration of things."

Though this argument depends for its full force on the Christian assumption of a life hereafter, with the rewards of heaven or the punishments of purgatory, it is enlightening to notice the similarity of the worldly part of it to that of Bentham's Deontology, with its subtitle: "The Science of Morality, in which the Harmony and coincidence of Duty and Self-Interest, Virtue and Felicity, Prudence and Benevolence, are Explained and Exemplified."

It is in his Eleventh Sermon, however, that Butler expounds at greatest length his criticism of the view that self-love and benevolence are necessarily hostile to or even inconsistent with each other:

And since, further, there is generally thought to be some peculiar kind of contrariety between self-love and the love of our neighbor, between the pursuit of public and of private good, insomuch that when you are recommending one of these, you are supposed to be speaking against the other; and from hence arises a secret prejudice against and frequently open scorn of all talk of public spirit and real goodwill to our fellow creatures; it will be necessary to inquire what respect benevolence hath to self-love, and the pursuit of private interest to the pursuit of public; or whether they be anything of that peculiar inconsistency and contrariety between them, over and above what there is between self love and other passions and particular affections, and their respective pursuits.

Butler's inquiry and argument show a philosophic penetration far in advance of his time; in fact, most contemporary writers on ethics have not yet caught up with it. "Every particular affection, even the love of our neighbor," he writes in his Fourth Sermon,

... is as really our own affection as self-love; and the pleasure arising from its gratification is as much my own pleasure as the pleasure self-love would have from knowing I myself should be happy some time hence, would be my own pleasure.... Is desire of and delight in the happiness of another any more a diminution of self-love than desire of and delight in the esteem of another? ... That others enjoy the benefit of the air and the light of the sun does not hinder but that these are as much one's private advantage now as they would be if we had the property of them exclusive of all others. So a pursuit which tends to promote the good of another, yet may have as great tendency to promote private interest as a pursuit which does not tend to the good of another at all or which is mischievous to him.

4. What Is Egoism?

But these quotations raise an unsettling question, which may seem to make everything I have previously said or quoted, not only in contrasting "egoism" and "altruism" but even in distinguishing them, confused and invalid. Suppose we extend Bishop Butler's conception of "self-love" just a bit more. We have asserted that all action is action undertaken to exchange a less satisfactory state of affairs for a more satisfactory state. Isn't every action I take, therefore, taken to increase my own satisfaction? Don't I help my neighbor because it gives me satisfaction to do so? Don't I seek to increase the happiness of another only when this increases my satisfaction? Doesn't a doctor go to a plague spot, to inoculate others or tend the sick, even at the risk of catching the disease or dying of it, because this is the course that gives him most satisfaction? Doesn't the martyr willingly go to the stake rather than recant his views because this is the only choice capable of giving him satisfaction? But if the most famous martyrs and the greatest saints were acting just as "egoistically" as the most brutal despots and the most abandoned voluptuaries, because each was only doing what gave him most satisfaction, what moral meaning can we continue to attach to "egoism," and what useful purpose is served by the term?

The problem, I suspect, is chiefly a linguistic one. My choices and decisions are necessarily mine. I do what gives me satisfaction. But if we therefore extend the definition of egoism to cover every decision I make, all action becomes egoistic; "altruistic" action becomes impossible, and the very word egoism ceases to have any moral meaning.

We can solve the problem by returning to the common usage of the terms involved, and examining it more carefully. Because I necessarily act to satisfy my own desires, it does not follow that these desires merely concern my own state, or my own narrow personal "welfare." In a shrewd psychological analysis, Moritz Schlick concludes that "egoism" is not to be identified with a will to personal pleasure or even to self-preservation, but means, in its common usage as a term of moral disparagement, simply inconsiderateness. It is not because he follows his special impulses that a man is blamed, but because he does so quite untroubled by the desires or needs of others. The essence of egoism, then, -- or, to use the more common term, "selfishness" -- "is just inconsiderateness with respect to the interests of fellow men, the pursuit of personal ends at the cost of those of others." (4)

5. Mutualism

What we normally condemn, in brief, is not the pursuit of self-interest, but only the pursuit of self-interest at the expense of the interests of others.

The terms "egoistic" and "altruistic," though they are used loosely in common conversation, and are difficult if not impossible to define with precision, are still useful and even indispensable in describing the dominant attitude that guides a man or one of his actions.

So, returning to this loose but common usage, let us see how far we have now come in this chapter, and whether it is possible to push our analysis a little further.

Neither a society in which everybody acted on purely egoistic motives, nor one in which everybody acted on purely altruistic motives (if we can really imagine either) would be workable. A society in which each worked exclusively for his own interest, narrowly conceived, would be a society of constant collisions and conflicts. A society in which each worked exclusively for the good of others would be an absurdity. The most successful society would seem to be one in which each worked primarily for his own good while always considering the good of others whenever he suspected any incompatibility between the two.

In fact, egoism and altruism are neither mutually exclusive nor do they exhaust the possible motives of human conduct. There is a twilight zone between them. Or rather, there is an attitude and motivation that is not quite either (especially if we define them as necessarily excluding each other), but deserves a name by itself.

I would like to suggest two possible names that we might give this attitude. One is an arbitrary coinage -- egaltruism, which we may define to mean consideration both of self and others in any action or rule of action. (6) A less artificially contrived word, however, is mutualism. This word has the advantage of already existing, though as a technical word in biology, meaning "a condition of symbiosis (i.e. a living together) in which two associated organisms contribute mutually to the well-being of each other." The word can with great advantage be taken over (even retaining its biological implications) by moral philosophy.

If two people, where there might otherwise be conflict, act on the principle of egaltruism or mutualism, and each considers the interests of both, they will necessarily act in harmony. This is in fact the attitude that prevails in harmonious families, in which husband and wife, father, mother, and children, put first, not only as the principle on which they act, but in their spontaneous feelings, the interests of the family. And mutualism, enlarged, becomes the sentiment or principle of Justice.

We might indicate the consequences of each of these three attitudes, in its pure state, by an illustration (in which I shall permit myself a touch of caricature). A fire breaks out in a crowded theater in which the audience consists solely of pure egoists. Each rushes immediately for the nearest or the main exit, pushing, knocking down, or trampling on anybody in his way. The result is a panic in which many people are needlessly killed or burned because of the stampede itself. The fire breaks out in a crowded theater in which the audience is made up solely of pure altruists. Each defers to the other -- "After you, my dear Alfonse" -- and insists on being the last to leave. The result is that all burn to death. The fire breaks out in a crowded theater in which the audience is made up solely of cooperatists or mutualists. Each seeks to get the theater emptied as quickly and with as little loss of life as possible. Therefore all act much as they would at a fire drill, and the theater is emptied with a minimum loss of life. A few, who are farthest from the exits or for other reasons, may perish in the flames; but they accept this situation, and even cooperate in it, rather than start a stampede which may cost far more lives.

I have preferred to call the ethical system outlined in this book Cooperatism. But it could almost as well be called Mutualism. The former name emphasizes the desired actions or rules of action and their probable consequences. But the latter name emphasizes the appropriate feeling or attitude that inspires the actions or rules of action. And both imply that the attitude and actions that best promote the happiness and well being of the individual in the long run, tend to coincide with the attitude and actions that best promote the happiness and well-being of society as a whole.

The word Mutualism may seem new and contrived in this connection, but there is nothing new or contrived about the attitude it stands for. It may not necessarily imply a universal Christian love, but it does imply a universal sympathy and kindness, and a love of those who are nearest.

6. How Moral Rules Are Framed

Let us examine again the false antithesis between the "Individual" and "Society."

It is a confusion of thought to think that ethics consists of the rules that "society" imposes on the "individual." Ethics consists of the rules that we all try to impose on each other. It may even be thought of as the rules that each individual tries to impose on all other individuals, on "society," at least in so far as their actions are likely to affect him. The individual does not want anyone to aggress against him; therefore he seeks to establish non-aggression both as a legal and a moral rule. He feels obliged, in consistency (and for the sake of getting the rule enforced), to abide by it himself.

This is how our moral rules are continuously framed and modified. They are not framed by some abstract and disembodied collectivity called "society" and then imposed on an "individual" who is in some way separate from society. We impose them (by praise and censure, approbation and disapprobation, promise and warning, reward and punishment) on each other, and most of us consciously or unconsciously accept them for ourselves.

Each of us plays in society a constant dual role -- he who acts, and he who is affected by the action, the Actor and the Affected, the Agent and the Patient, the Doer and the Done-to. Each of us may play also, at times, a third role -- that of the Disinterested or Impartial Observer.

If we are to frame workable and acceptable moral rules, we must imaginatively look at each hypothetical or real situation from all three standpoints -- that of the Agent, that of the Patient, and that of the Impartial Observer. It is because over the course of accumulated human thought and experience, actions have been looked at and judged from all three standpoints, that our traditional moral code, in the main, takes account of all three. Moral disputes and moral rebellions arise, in large part, because one or both of the disputants looks at a situation from only one of these standpoints.

As a prospective Agent it may seem to A's short-run interest to hit his neighbor P over the head and take his money. But as the prospective Patient P will find this wholly objectionable. And either, or a third man O, will see as an Impartial Observer that such a rule of action would be disastrous to society. It is the failure to look at actions or rules of action from all three standpoints, and to put oneself imaginatively, in turn, in the role of Agent, Patient, and Disinterested Spectator, that has led to innumerable ethical fallacies -- from the fallacy of shortsighted pursuit of selfish aims to the fallacy that everybody should sacrifice himself to everybody else.

It is the purpose of ethics to help us test or frame moral rules. We cannot secure objectivity in testing or framing such rules unless we imaginatively put ourselves successively in the place of each of the persons that a given rule would affect. Suppose our question is: Should a passerby undertake to rescue a drowning swimmer? Under what circumstances, and at how much risk to himself? In seeking the answer one should first put oneself in the position of the passerby, and ask how much inconvenience, risk, or danger one would think it obligatory or rational to undertake. Secondly, one should put oneself in the position of the struggling swimmer, and ask how much danger or risk on the passerby's part, if you were the man in the water, you would think it obligatory or rational for him to undertake. And if you arrived by this process at two widely differing answers, you should then ask whether an Impartial Spectator might arrive at some answer in between.

Suppose we use this method to test the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have others do unto you. The difficulty with this is that there is practically no limit to the benefits that most of us would be willing to accept from others, at whatever cost to them. But suppose now that we turn the rule around, and make it: Do not ask or expect others to do for you more than you would be willing to do for them, or Accept from others only as much help as you would be willing to extend to them if you were in their position. You would begin to set more reasonable and workable limits to the rule. (Either in the Golden Rule or in this Converse Golden Rule, however, as thus stated, the test is too subjective. Only in one's role as an Impartial Observer can one frame the appropriate rule objectively.)

Suppose we apply the test to the Christian precept "That ye love one another." Literally, probably none of us is capable of fulfilling such a universal and indiscriminate obligation, if only because we cannot command our feelings. We can love a few people to whom we are drawn by special qualities or bound by special ties. But for the rest the most we are capable of is outward demeanor or action -- considerateness, fairness, kindness. This constant effort to be considerate and kind in our outward attitude will, of course, affect our inward feelings. The Christian ideal, by commanding an unattainable goal, has sometimes led men, from despair or cynicism, to fall far below a reasonably attainable moral achievement. "Man is neither angel nor beast, and the mischief is that he who would play the angel plays the beast." ~ Nevertheless, because of the Christian ideal, there is probably far more loving-kindness in the world than there would have been without it.

7. The Limits of Obligation

Regarding the extent of our obligations to others, the opinions of different individuals are bound to vary widely. In general the strong and independent and well-off will think that relatively narrow limits should be set around the supposed extent of their obligation to others, whereas the weak and dependent and badly off will want the assumed extent of obligation to others to be considered much wider. Experience will tend to work out a compromise of such opinions in the moral tradition, because each will find himself at times in the position of one who wants help and at times in the position of one who is asked to help.

That is why this is one of the unsettled problems of ethics. There will be those who think that the only obligation of the individual is not to transgress against others; and there will be those who think that his obligation to help others is practically without limits. There will be still others who take an intermediate position, and hold that people in need or distress should be helped, but only to the extent that this does little or nothing to reduce their incentives to self-help -- or to reduce the incentives to production and effort of those who are called upon to supply the help.

Probably no exact boundary can be drawn, and no exact rules can be framed, concerning the extent of our duties to others. In such duties there will always be a twilight zone, shading off from what is clearly imperative to what is clearly quixotic and in the long run harmful.

We might end this chapter, logically, with a discussion of the problem of "self-sacrifice." But this problem has occupied such a prominent and crucial role from the very beginnings of moral philosophy -- and above all since the birth of Christianity -- as to call for consideration in a separate chapter.

Notes

1. Data of Ethics, Chap. XIII, pp. 268 and 270.

2. Jeremy Bentham, "The Constitutional Code," Works (1843), Part XVII, pp. 5b, 6a, written in 1821, 1827, first published in 1830. I am indebted for the quotation to David Baumgardt, Bentham and the Ethics of Today (Princeton University Press, 1952), p. 420. Bentham repeated the argument, in another part of "The Constitutional Code" (using as examples Adam and Eve instead of A and B) and in Thc Book of Fallacies (1824), pp 393f.

3. This anticipates the emphasis that Hume and Adam Smith were later to put on Sympathy.

4. Moritz Schlick, Problems of Ethics (New York: Dover Publications, 1962), Chap. III, p. 77.

5. The word is formed by combining ego and altruism. If the first two syllables seem to suggest the egal in egalitarianism, that is no disadvantage, for they imply equal consideration of self and others.

6. "L'hornme n'est ni ange ni bete, et le malheur veut que qui fait 1', nge fait la bite."-Pascal's Pensees, with an English translation, brief notes and introduction by H. F. Stewart, D.D. (Pantheon Books, 1950), p. 90.

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