Why altruism is selfish | Neuroscientist Abigail Marsh

• One of the reasons that many people argue there's no such thing as true altruism—people are never truly motivated to help other people for their own sake—is because, paradoxically, altruism is a source of enormous joy for people who help others. People who have donated kidneys to strangers will reliably tell you it's one of the best things they've done in their life; they would do it again in a heartbeat if they could. They're glad every day that they did it.

And so, it's easy to look at something like that and say, "Aha! Well, then it wasn't really altruistic because if it brought you such pleasure, well then it must have been selfish." I think there was actually a "Friends" episode about this exact question.

• "This isn't a good deed. You just wanna get on TV; this is totally selfish."
• "Whoa, whoa, whoa. What about you having those babies for your brother? Talk about selfish."
• "What, what are you talking about?"
• "Well, yeah, it was a really nice thing and all, but it made you feel really good, right?"
• "Yeah, so?"
• "Well, it made you feel good, so that makes it selfish. Look, there's no unselfish good deed, sorry."

I think there's a little bit of a puritanical streak in the idea that for something to be moral, it can't also be joyful. There may be people who are suspicious about any behavior that brings us too much pleasure; that somehow it can't at heart be simultaneously a source of pleasure and morality. But I don't tend to think that that's true.

I would say, because this makes people more likely—once they've done something altruistic, they see what a positive effect it has on other people, they experience the vicarious joy of helping other people—they're much more likely to do it again. It's one of the reasons we are such an altruistic species: it's because we take joy in helping other people.

The way philosophers put it is in terms of something called "The Doctrine of Double Effect," which is basically the idea that the morality of a behavior is a factor of not just its outcome, but its intended outcome. So, if the goal of helping others was to achieve happiness, then that's not very altruistic. However, if you help other people, given happiness as a foreseeable outcome of that behavior happens anyway, that doesn't take away from the goal of actually helping them.

There's a Buddhist monk and neuroscientist named Matthieu Ricard, who in his book, "Altruism," I think boiled this topic down succinctly, and I'll paraphrase him. He said, "The fact that helping others brings us joy is not contradictory to the idea of altruism. In fact, that's what it means to be altruistic: to find it a source of joy to help other people. If we didn't find helping other people pleasurable, we wouldn't be altruistic."

This becomes obvious when you think of the counter example, which is the person who gives begrudgingly, the person who gives and finds it a source of unhappiness and wishes they hadn't done it. Most of us would not want to be helped by somebody who helped begrudgingly. That would be a source of guilt, not gratitude.

And in fact, most people, when they're helped by somebody who they know helped them voluntarily because they sincerely wanted to, are much more likely to feel all of those positive effects of gratitude that are a source of joy universally. I think the fact that altruism brings us joy is certainly not evidence that altruism is never genuinely motivated by a desire to help other people.

Really, it's a sign that we are a fundamentally social species, that joy is catching, that we are built to want to help those around us, and that that is the basis of a good society. And we want to be members of a society where people take joy in helping others.

Hey Big Thinkers. Not only is helping other people joyful and enjoyable, it has also been shown to enrich mental well-being. But if you're in a rut, you might find it difficult to want to engage with other people at all, let alone help them.

Taking care of your mental health isn't just important for your overall well-being. It can also help you become more involved with the people in your surrounding community. Therapy is an effective way to improve your mental well-being, but it turns out therapy has some issues of its own. Like finding the right therapist, fitting into their schedule, getting to their office. And of course, the cost.

Today's sponsor, BetterHelp, was created to help address those problems because you deserve to focus on yourself and make your mental well-being a priority. BetterHelp is convenient, built around your schedule, and surprisingly affordable.

Start by filling out a brief questionnaire to be matched with a licensed therapist who fits your needs and preferences and connect with them by phone, video chat, or messaging. If you're not comfortable with your therapist, you can change at any point at no additional cost.

Let BetterHelp connect you to a therapist who can provide the support you need, all from the comfort of your home. You can go to betterhelp.com/bigthink or choose Big Think during the signup process to save 10% on your first month.

• Want to dive deeper? Become a Big Think member and join our members-only community, watch videos early, and unlock full interviews.