Why Altruism?

I am proposing altruism as the true basis of morality. To some, this will not seem so extraordinary. After all, altruism is at the core of most religions and even other secular moral philosophies. Only Ayn Rand's Objectivism explicitly denies the morality of altruism. But I feel that I must defend altruism not only because of objectivism, but also because I am rejecting religion as a tool for tyrants. So, one might well wonder either "Why do you need altruism if there is no God, Heaven, etc.?" or, on the other hand, "Isn't altruism just a tool for tyrants also?"

The Inside and the Outside of it

Two opposing ways of looking at a human being are from the inside, and, from the outside. Most of us are quite familiar with what I am calling the inside view; we are a biological organism which consists of various organs, including a brain which seems capable of both symbolic reasoning and some kind of self-awareness we call consciousness.

What I am calling the outside view will be less familiar to many. It most was most clearly enunciated by Marx, but may not be entirely unknown to serious students of other philosophies and religions. Marx defines the individual human as an "ensemble of social relations." I take this slighly farther and define an individual human as an impact on the total environment, including society, planetary ecosystems, and even radiation beaming off and through us into space.

I hold that neither of these definitions is complete or superior to the other; they depend on one another. However, I believe they are both essentially materialistic (not supernaturalistic), logically valid, and useful. Furthermore, no deity or government is necessary for either of them to be valid.

The Inside is Mortal while the Outside is Immortal

As biological organisms, our lifetime is limited. But our effect on our environment may persist a long time, if not forever. Not just the images we have conjured in others minds, the words we have spoken, the books we may have written, but even the photons we have emitted or altered may pass into space forever. (Even if they collide with other photons, etc., they will have had some impact on them, etc.) Another way of describing ourselves is as processes affecting waves that are traveling through our interiors.

Since our impact lasts forever, that is the side of ourselves we should be most concerned with. We should make that impact as benificial (or at least, as undestructive) as possible. And that is why altruism is the true basis of morality.