ET2002 Egoism vs Altruism(Written Communication)

What Is Altruism?

Altruism is when we act to promote someone else’s welfare, even at a risk or cost to ourselves. Though some believe that humans are fundamentally self-interested, recent research suggests otherwise: Studies have found that people’s first impulse is to cooperate rather than compete; that toddlers spontaneously help people in need out of a genuine concern for their welfare; and that even non-human primates display altruism.

Evolutionary scientists speculate that altruism has such deep roots in human nature because helping and cooperation promote the survival of our species. Indeed, Darwin himself argued that altruism, which he called “sympathy” or “benevolence,” is “an essential part of the social instincts.” Darwin’s claim is supported by recent neuroscience studies, which have shown that when people behave altruistically, their brains activate in regions that signal pleasure and reward, similar to when they eat chocolate (or have sex).

This does not mean that humans are more altruistic than selfish; instead, evidence suggests we have deeply ingrained tendencies to act in either direction. Our challenge lies in finding ways to evoke the better angels of our nature.

For More: Why do some people risk their lives to help others? Read about Kristen Renwick Monroe’s research to understand heroic altruists.

For an in-depth overview of where generosity comes from, what its benefits are, and how to cultivate it, read this special white paper on the science of generosity prepared for the John Templeton Foundation.

Instructions

Overview

For this Assessment, you will answer a series of short-answer questions to demonstrate your understanding of egoism, altruism, social contract theory, virtue ethics, feminist thought, and ethics of care.

Submission Length: 10 items with responses ranging from 1–4 paragraphs in length

Professional Skills: Written Communication and Inquiry and Analysis are assessed in this Competency.

Instructions

Before submitting your Assessment, carefully review the rubric. This is the same rubric the assessor will use to evaluate your submission and it provides detailed criteria describing how to achieve or master the Competency. Many students find that understanding the requirements of the Assessment and the rubric criteria help them direct their focus and use their time most productively.

Download the ET2002_WR_Template.docx and answer each question in 1–4 paragraphs in length.

Download the Writing Checklist to review prior to submitting your Assessment.

All submissions must follow the conventions of scholarly writing. Properly formatted APA citations and references must be provided where appropriate. Submissions that do not meet these expectations will be returned without scoring.

This Assessment requires submission of one (1) document: a completed Written Response Template. Save this file as ET2002_firstinitial_lastname (for example, ET2002_J_Smith).

You may submit a draft of your assignment to the Turnitin Draft Check area to check for authenticity. When you are ready to upload your completed Assessment, use the Assessment tab on the top navigation menu.

Academic Writing Expectations Checklist

The faculty will use this checklist to evaluate whether your written responses adhere to the conventions of scholarly writing. Review this checklist prior to submitting your Assessment to ensure your writing follows academic writing expectations. Click the links to access OASIS Writing Center resources:

Sentence-Level Skills

|_| Constructing complete and correct sentences Note: See an explanation of sentence components and how to avoid sentence fragments and run-ons.

|_| Using and spelling words correctly Note: See a list of commonly misused words and information on MS Word’s spell check.

|_| Using punctuation appropriately Note: See the different types of punctuation and their uses.

|_| Using grammar appropriately Note: See a Grammarly tutorial to catch further errors.

Paragraph-Level Skills

|_| Using paragraph breaks Note: See a description of paragraph basics.

|_| Focusing each paragraph on one central idea (rather than multiple ideas) Note: See an explanation of how topic sentences work.

Use of Evidence

|_| Using resources appropriately Note: See examples of integrating evidence in a paper.

|_| Citing and referencing resources accurately Note: See examples of citing and referencing resources in a paper.

|_| Paraphrasing (explaining in one’s own words) to avoid plagiarizing the source Note: See paraphrasing strategies.

Formatting Written Assignments

|_| Using appropriate APA formatting, including title page, margins, and font Note: See APA overview and APA template from the Writing Center.

Comments:

©2014 Walden University 1

Virtue ethics

Character-based ethics

A right act is the action a virtuous person would do in the same circumstances.

Virtue ethics is person rather than action based: it looks at the virtue or moral character of the person carrying out an action, rather than at ethical duties and rules, or the consequences of particular actions.

Virtue ethics not only deals with the rightness or wrongness of individual actions, it provides guidance as to the sort of characteristics and behaviours a good person will seek to achieve.

In that way, virtue ethics is concerned with the whole of a person's life, rather than particular episodes or actions.

A good person is someone who lives virtuously - who possesses and lives the virtues.

It's a useful theory since human beings are often more interested in assessing the character of another person than they are in assessing the goodness or badness of a particular action.

This suggests that the way to build a good society is to help its members to be good people, rather than to use laws and punishments to prevent or deter bad actions.

But it wouldn't be helpful if a person had to be a saint to count as virtuous. For virtue theory to be really useful it needs to suggest only a minimum set of characteristics that a person needs to possess in order to be regarded as virtuous.

...being virtuous is more than having a particular habit of acting, e.g. generosity. Rather, it means having a fundamental set of related virtues that enable a person to live and act morally well.

James F Keenan, Proposing Cardinal Virtues, Theological Studies, 1995

Principles

Virtue ethics teaches:

An action is only right if it is an action that a virtuous person would carry out in the same circumstances.

A virtuous person is a person who acts virtuously

A person acts virtuously if they "possess and live the virtues"

A virtue is a moral characteristic that a person needs to live well.

Most virtue theorists would also insist that the virtuous person is one who acts in a virtuous way as the result of rational thought (rather than, say, instinct).

The three questions

The modern philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre proposed three questions as being at the heart of moral thinking:

Who am I?

Who ought I to become?

How ought I to get there?

Lists of the virtues

Angelic-looking 10-year-old girl wearing whiteWhat would a virtuous person do? ©

Most virtue theorists say that there is a common set of virtues that all human beings would benefit from, rather than different sets for different sorts of people, and that these virtues are natural to mature human beings - even if they are hard to acquire.

This poses a problem, since lists of virtues from different times in history and different societies show significant differences.

The traditional list of cardinal virtues was:

Prudence

Justice

Fortitude / Bravery

Temperance

The modern theologian James F Keenan suggests:

Justice

Justice requires us to treat all human beings equally and impartially.

Fidelity

Fidelity requires that we treat people closer to us with special care.

Self-care

We each have a unique responsibility to care for ourselves, affectively, mentally, physically, and spiritually.

Prudence

The prudent person must always consider Justice, Fidelity and Self-care.

The prudent person must always look for opportunities to acquire more of the other three virtues

Good points of virtue ethics

It centres ethics on the person and what it means to be human

It includes the whole of a person's life

Bad points of virtue ethics

it doesn't provide clear guidance on what to do in moral dilemmas

although it does provide general guidance on how to be a good person

presumably a totally virtuous person would know what to do and we could consider them a suitable role model to guide us

there is no general agreement on what the virtues are

and it may be that any list of virtues will be relative to the culture in which it is being drawn up.