A young man was on his way to work one faithful morning, as he walked towards the BRT station in Ikorodu, Lagos he noticed a blind little boy, not more than six years, walking alone with his walking stick on the pedestrian road. “What is this boy doing walking alone in this world of today, does his parent not know he can be kidnapped?” The young man thought. All of a sudden he saw a truck zigzagging on the main road driving towards the blind boy, immediately he ran towards the boy at the same time shouting to him to leave the road. Unfortunately for the young man, he pushed the boy out of the road on record time but got hit instead. He died instantly. He died a hero. This young man who could have minded his business sacrificed his life for a little boy who he had no relations with. He indeed was selfless. But the question is was he altruistic? Was his action purely altruistic? Is pure altruism possible?

Altruism means acting in the best interest of others rather than in one’s self-interest at the cost of the self. When we think about examples of altruism like what we have above, we often think about helpers and our thoughts goes ‘these people are selfless.’ Now if we find out later on that a particular person or set of people who we believed to be selfless were actually paid for their actions or that they acted the way they did because of their loved ones or to satisfy their minds and conscience, are they truly altruistic? Can we have truly selfless good deeds?

Our intuitions relates to us to encourage altruistic acts because it is selfless. But what if, just what if altruism in humans isn’t selfless at all; that our acts of altruism isn’t because we are selfless but because our altruistic intuition are due to a fact that they are at our own best interest? This is where we begin to talk about the motives behind our actions as altruism starts from motivation. To discuss if a behavior is truly altruistic, we must first underline the psychological motives towards such behavior to determine whether the behavior is selfish or genuinely altruistic. To discuss this, we must differ between altruism and actions mistaken to be altruism.

According Ranyways Random, altruistic behavior must be distinct from helping behaviors, the distinction being an element of self-sacrifice. Altruism is all about helping others but helping others does not necessarily mean one’s action is altruistic. Again, altruistic behavior should not be predicated by loyalty, friendship, patriotism or any social group thus altruism shouldn’t be based on loyalty. Social psychology has shown that people are likely to help others who are considered as in group members. For example, Hausas are more likely to help Hausas. Also, to score a behavior as altruistic, intrinsic satisfactions shouldn’t be a motivation. We have realized that most people act in a certain way, like donating a kidney, for either religious purpose or for self-satisfactions. Now, if the reason for people to engage in helping others is to seek intrinsic reward or satisfaction, then it is benefiting the self. Thus, it isn’t really altruistic.

We might not really know the motive that led the young man to sacrifice his life for the blind boy as cited in the above, we could assume that he did not intend to die; his goal being to drag the boy away from the road only. If he had known he would die at the process, would he have done what he did? If I may ask if you were in his shoes, and you have few minutes to reflect on the action before doing it knowing with full intent that if you do, you might die, would you have done the same thing? Some of you would say yes while some would say no. it doesn’t really matter if we choose yes or no, most of us if not all would choose no and those that will choose yes either feels they have spent so much time on earth and it’s time to go (which is actually benefiting the self since it gives intrinsic satisfaction) or that you’d manage to manipulate your moves so that the truck wouldn’t hit you to death or that Jesus sacrificed himself for the world so they can too. One thing I’d like to say is that Jesus had a motive towards sacrificing himself, the motive being the salvation and redemption of souls leading to His father’s kingdom.

Well, either we choose yes or no, does our answers make us more or less altruistic? Most of us engage in altruistic acts, like when we give a free ride to stranded strangers, but aren’t altruistic towards other things in our lives. While I believe that we can’t as humans be purely altruistic, there are some actions which are actually altruistic that we engage which makes the existence of altruism possible. Which also means that pure altruism do not exist only altruistic actions. So while the young man might have died in the place of the young boy, he might not be fully altruistic in his normal life. But that’s just my view, I’d really like to note your view so kindly comment on the box below and let me know what you think.