Nine years ago, an 18 year old version of myself was driving to work in my beastly, red, Ford Telstar when much to my horror the engine overheated and my not so trust worthy car died a smoky death on the middle of a bridge in bumper-to-bumper, peak hour traffic. My first reaction was to lock the doors of my corpse of a car and bawl my eyes out but my common sense prevailed and instead I got out began trying to push and steer the car over the bridge while numerous, disgruntled drivers manoeuvred around me. Whilst I'm sure the lifetime of pushing I felt I undertook was probably more like a couple of minutes in reality it was no doubt magnified by the large amount of cars which overtook me and just kept on going. By the time somebody finally came to my aid I had almost given up on anybody helping me and the generous soul who offered me the kindness of getting me and my beast off that bridge was met with a complete breakdown on my part. I could barely get the words "thank you" out through the flood of tears that ensued his kind offer to push while I steered. He was a middle aged man, also on his way to work and not only did he get me off that bridge but also offered to help me call a tow truck and following making those arrangements and waiting with me, drove me the rest of the way to work (which was a massive detour from his destination).
This particular story came to mind this morning while I was pondering the question "what motivates us to be good?". Why did that man stop and help me when so many others drove right on by? Moral philosophy (see previous post: Foundations for the "greater good": moral philosophy) attempts to answer this question in exploring the psychological issues within metaethics which motivate us to be moral. Within this area of metaethics they explore both psychological egoism and psychological altruism as drivers for our moral actions (or inaction as the case may be). According to psychological egoism, the man that stopped to help me did so because it served his own self-interest (eg. seeking the praise of onlookers, gratitude from said damsel in distress or the self satisfaction of knowing he did a good deed). However, psychological altruism asserts that whilst factors of egoism may provide some motivation, that we as humans also have an inherent psychological capacity to show compassion and kindness to others. In my saviour's case I would tend to lead towards altruism but unfortunately I was too traumatised by the whole event to ask that question at that time or even exchange details so I guess I will never really know.
What I do know is that not everybody that passed me that day was motivated to help. Whether it's egoism or altruism that moves us morally to perform an act of kindness there are still those that do not seem to be moved at all. Whilst these musings interest me immensely, personally I don't think it matters what a person's motivation is for helping another, as long as they're helping what's the difference? I know my personal motivations vary and whilst I would love to advocate being a pure altruist, the truth is that helping also makes me happy, undoubtedly providing added incentive! And what's wrong with that? When I "feel good" I'm more motivated to "do good" and in a way I think it can act as a beautiful circle, happy people are more helpful people and helpful people are more happy people. For proof see "Making Australia Happy" an amazing documentary and social experiment into the art of happiness. Of particular interest is Dr Tony Grant's "positive psychology" exercises, employing strategies of kindness to increase happiness levels.
"Good actions give strength to ourselves and inspire good actions in others." - Plato
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