Is an altruistic act possible?

Question

Is an altruistic act possible?

Answer 1

As to the former answer, it dissimulates on the meaning of 'altruistic". As Aquinas pointed out, nobody acts from totally pure motives. But we can from the love of someone do something we would not do for any other reason. It is a great perversion to think that to be altruistic one must be utterly equivocal about the person you are helping.

Dietrich von Hildebrand spent years and years combating this perversely anti-Christian view.

Sign up for the Hildebrand Project's free reading group on DvH's "The Nature of Love"

http://www.hildebrandproject.org/

Answer 2

Yes.

Suppose I fall on a hand grenade to save my buddies. I "wanted" to do this. So it was motivated by my own interests. So it was "really" a selfish act...

This is a line of argument that people new to philosophy find endlessly tempting, but it's pure silliness. It gets to the conclusion ("We are pure egoists") by conflating the boring tautology that I am always (at one level) motivated by what motivates me (duh) with the potentially interesting (but, frankly, obviously false) claim that I'm always motivated by what's in my most immediate interests as opposed to what's in the interests of others.

People are complicated: they can desire passionately to stay alive but at the same time desire that their buddies live to fight and win the battle (or not fight and enjoy peace) another day. One person resolves this conflict by putting their own immediate interests first and another chooses to sacrifice them to the interests of others. The second person wants to be more altruistic; that marks a real distinction that egoism refuses to recognize; it doesn't means they are "not really" being altruistic.