Potential Criticisms Of Empathy-Altruism

Human behavior is exceedingly complicated and it is impossible to categorize the motives behind all of our actions under the singular primary reasoning. Despite this, various philosophers such as Hobbes and Nietzsche have supported that egoism as the most prominent explanation for all motivation and actions. Fitting all of human motivation into one concept would be an injustice to the beautiful complexity of the human mind; assuming that there is one underlying reasoning to all of humankind’s actions ignores how complex social interactions, human thought, and decision-making can be. Instead, we must adopt an alternative theory on human interactions with others with incorporates both an egoistic and altruistic viewpoint. A well-supported alternative
The altruistic motivation caused by empathic emotion will be the primary motivation even if there are any other motivational factors, such as self-benefit that can stem from helping others or the avoidance of the potential criticism of one’s actions.
It should be noted that this hypothesis does not deny that egoism can be the motivation for our actions and that humans tend to ensure their own self-preservation and well-being first. Instead it aims to provide an alternative view on human behavior to deviate from the common classification that all actions are purely egoistic and therefore reconcile the extremes of human motivation that are egoism and
EAH was tested against this egoistic competitor in two different experiments that involved female undergraduates. Both experiments presented the undergraduates with the option to help a young woman for who they either felt low or high empathy, but they were placed in one of the following two scenarios: (1) no one other than the experimenter would know of their decision to help the woman (low to no social repercussions) and (2) both the experimenter and the young woman would know of their decision to help or not help the woman (high social