Is Altruism Practical?
by Joseph Rowlands

Conservatives and liberals, for lack of better names for them, have major ideological differences. At the same time, they share some fundamental premises. I believe the differences and similarities rest on a single question. Is altruism practical?

Both ideologies accept the validity of altruism. They see it as the fundamental moral premise in politics. Yes, the poor should be helped. A more equal world is a better world. It would be a better world if everyone acted for the interests of others, instead of their own. The moral foundation is accepted by both, but they answer the big question in different ways.

Conservatives view altruism as impractical. They say it in a different way, though. They talk about the inherent corruptibility of human beings, and dismiss the possibility that members of society will ever live up to the ideal. They don't believe the ideal is flawed since it can't be practiced. They view the people as flawed, but continue to accept the ideal.

Since people will always act selfishly, despite knowing the moral ideal, conservatives believe that best we can do is to find ways to convert those selfish impulses into moral ends. This is a view found in Adam Smith's invisible hand idea. Smith pointed out that much of the good that is produced in the world is not done for altruistic reasons. It is done for selfish reasons. The individual producers may be seeking their own gains, but the free market guides those actions, as if by an invisible hand, to activities that benefit everyone.

This is one of the key ideas in the conservative view of the world. People can't be expected to act altruistically, but with the right institutions, their selfish actions can be channeled into productive ends (in this case productive means altruistic). We can call this political view the indirect approach to altruism. Conservatives focus on achieving altruistic goals through indirect methods.

The liberal view is different. Whether they recognize the difficulty in practicing altruism, they insist that altruism should be practiced anyway. For them, altruism demands actions to be taken for the right reasons. You can't act selfishly and get moral credit for the consequences. Those are unintended effects. To get moral credit, you have to do things for the right reasons. In fact, that is more important then the consequences themselves. If you try to do good and fail, it is better than to try to do evil and unintentionally do good.

The liberal view can best be described as the direct approach to altruism. Only actions taken for the sake of altruism count as being moral.

The consequences shed significant light on these two political views. Conservatives tend to focus on institutions that convert selfish activities into altruistic or selfless activities. The free-market is one such example. But they also support institutions like marriage as important, because once you are in a family you are acting to benefit all of the members in the family.

Conservatives focus on incentives. If you can't be expected to be altruistic on your own, then social forces can be brought into play to pressure you or rewards you for your altruism. They support religion as a means of encouraging altruistic behavior and thinking. They support tax policies that promote charity.

We can also see the things they don't agree with. They don't agree with government policies that promote irresponsibility, like welfare programs that encourage permanent dependence. They are against excessive taxation because it undermines the incentives to work, be responsible, and benefit others through the invisible hand. But they are also against things that undermine marriage, the church, or other moral values. They are against pornography, homosexuality, sex for fun, recreational drug use, etc. These are all viewed in terms of undermining institutions that promote moral behavior.

Liberals have wildly different views drawn from their idea of direct altruism. They don't like the idea of trying to achieve results indirectly by channeling incentives, as that is just another case of promoting selfish behavior. Instead, they want to directly make the improvements they envision. Are there poor people? Well we should just give everyone who is poor more money. Is there too much inequality? We should tax the rich and redistribute even more. Why spend effort trying to create incentives for people to be moral when you can just force them to, or better yet, act on their behalf.

Conservatives and liberals have different views of the proper means of government. Conservatives are not trusting of people to act morally, so they want checks and balances, literal interpretation of the Constitution, decentralization of power, term limits, balanced budget amendments, etc. If you can expect people to be moral, you can't expect politicians to be moral either. In both cases, you have to create a set of incentives or institutions that repress immoral activity and promote moral activity.

Liberals view these constrains on government as impediments. If direct action is desired to achieve altruistic goals, then putting up roadblocks prevents altruism. For them, centralization of power is desirable because it means more good can be done. So the Constitution is viewed as a 'living document', open to reinterpretation as you. Checks and balances should be invalidated. Constraints on government are a constraint on morality.

This also explains the interactions between liberals and conservatives. Liberals tend to think of conservatives as being immoral, selfish, and maybe outright evil. They view conservatives as trying to control people's lives by telling them who they can have sex with, which books they can read, and whether they can use birth control or not. They see them as defending selfish institutions, like corporations. And conservatives try to enforce a constraint on the government, the liberals believe it to be an excuse to block the particular action. If you think the poor should be helped, and we have this nice pretty new law that will help the poor, any talk about constraints on government is obviously an excuse to object to the law.

So liberals view conservatives as evil. But this is because the liberals think of direct action as the preferred moral choice. If you disagree with them, it must be because you disagree with the consequences they are trying to achieve.

Conservatives typically think of liberals as well-meaning, but short-sighted. This stems from the fact that liberals want to try to use a direct approach to achieving their altruistic goals, and that direct approach almost always leads to unintended consequences. If they raise tax rates, people will change their behaviors. If they demand producers sell at below market rate, they will just close shop or there will be shortages.

Liberals either don't know this, or don't care about it. Conservatives typically assume that liberals don't realize it. Conservatives assume that they share the same goals with the liberals, such as helping the poor. They think the policy that best achieves this consequence should be the preferred goal. Liberals don't, though. They think moral credit only happens when you do it for the right reasons. The consequences aren't as important as the intentions.

So conservatives think the liberals are just ignorant of the consequences, but that they mean well. They have the same opinion about the liberals attempts at centralizing power in the government. Liberals see the good that they can accomplish with that power, but never consider what would happen if the power were used for evil. Again, the view is that liberals are ignorant of the possible consequences, but mean well.

All of this, and more, is explained by these two different answers to the question of whether altruism is practical. Conservatives see it as impractical, but still noble, so they seek to achieve the results indirectly. Liberals view it as something that should be practiced directly, and scorn any attempts at indirect methods.

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