Beyond The Dichotomy Between Altruism And Egoism

The birth of the social sciences and specifically of sociology begets some open questions, among which the debate on altruism and the concept of social solidarity. The term altruism was firstly used by Auguste Comte. It is one of the few terms born within the scientific field that will enter the common language roughly maintaining the same meaning. For the positivist Comte, altruism represented the powerful impulse to the intellectual and moral development of humanity to which we must strive as a future state. The term commonly means all those actions whose benefits fall on others and not on the agent (actor). In short, for Comte, altruism means "to live for others" (vivre pour autrui). The centrality of altruism as part of the reflections of social sciences can be found in many classic authors. Durkheim, for example, explains the foundations of social solidarity in modern society precisely through the opposition between altruism and egoism and defines its implications in the book Le Suicide in 1897, also identifying what will later become the main typology of suicide by contrasting altruistic suicide with egoistic suicide. Likewise, both Weber and Marx, while not using the term altruism as such, refer to it indirectly. The former, when describing the ethics of love for the charismatic authority as opposed to legal and rational authority, the latter, when corroborating his polemics against Christian charity. The interest in altruism as an object of study of social sciences, however, is progressively waning - especially in Europe. From the second half of the last century, theoretical and empirical studies show the indifference of social scientists towards this object, except for the Russian-American sociologist Sorokin, who in 1949 founded the Harvard Research Center in Creative Altruism. In recent years, however, the topic seems to take renewed vigor, especially in the United States with the birth in 2012 of the section "Altruism, Morality & Social Solidarity" within the American Sociological Association. It considered these three aspects as a single field of disciplinary specialization, since they are significantly dependent on socio-cultural reality. This is the situation in the United States. In Europe, there is a renewed interest in studies on altruism, especially in French-language sociology, above all starting from the numerous contributions to reading and re-reading work on Marcel Mauss's on gift of 1925, and in following the anti-utilitarian movement and studies of the school of social representations of Moscovici, which leads to the definition of the elementary forms of altruism. The book aims to analyze the concept of altruism starting from classical philosophy up to the systems of ideas of contemporaneity, considering the approaches and authors of reference in an interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary way. The representations of altruism and egoism in contemporary society are constantly changing, following the transformations of society itself. Having abandoned the idea that the factors leading to altruism or egoism lay only in human nature, we find them in people’s conduct, freedom, relationships, their associative forms and society. The attention is thus turned to two elements of the daily life of individuals: culture and social relations. The book tries, therefore, through the meso-theories developed in recent decades, which study the relationships between life-world and social system, to describe the links between altruism, egoism, culture and social relations. We will pay particular attention to the relationality of individuals, in an attempt to overcome the dichotomy altruism/egoism by reading some aspects little considered by previous studies - or contemplated only indirectly or marginally. The ultimate goal is to highlight how positive actions are necessary for the contemporary society and how social sciences must go back and study positive socio-cultural actions and phenomena, not only negative, as a way to promote them for the well-being of the society.

The study of altruism, morality, and social solidarity is an emerging field of scholarship and research in sociology. This handbook will function as a foundational source for this subject matter and field, and as an impetus to its further development.

Hobbes, T. Self-love and society.--Butler, J. Upon the love of our neighbour.--Hume, D. Morality, self-love, and benevolence.--Kant, I. Morality and the duty of love toward other men.--Schlick, M. Hedonism and egoism.--Broad, C.D. Egoism as a theory of human motives.--Slote, M.A. An empirical basis for psychological egoism.--Aronfreed, J. Altruistic behavior.--Nagel, T. The possibility of altruism.--Bibliography (p. 131-133).

Pitirim A. Sorokin is a controversial figure in the history of sociology, of which he remains one of the masters. Those who read Sorokin today must, however, frame the historical reality experienced by the scholar (his Russian and American experiences) because the evolution of his thought had several phases that correspond to his personal, family, and professional lives (he founded and directed the Department of Sociology at Harvard University for many years). This Russian-American sociologist argued that socio-cultural phenomena must be studied following their dynamism (in space and time) since the constituent elements (personality, society, and culture) are constantly changing and cannot be studied separately. Reviving his thought is not a form of celebration but a moment to reflect on how some sociology classics still have their relevance and how, all too often, they are forgotten. This is why this book takes up his main conceptualizations by anchoring them to contemporary society, whose transformations are often difficult to read, and above all to highlight how the role of sociology as a science has, in part, lost sight of its ontological foundation as a service to humanity or public service. The theoretical paths taken by Sorokin range from Social and Cultural Dynamics to Social Mobility and to many other topics, such as man and society in calamities or love and altruism - one of Sorokin's latest topics. All these topics can revive the idea of a sociology that holds together the micro, meso, and macro dimensions and allows us to predict changes in society.

The recent spate of books and articles reflecting on the question of evil might make one forget that the question of just what constitutes goodness is no less urgent or perplexing. Everyone wants to think of him- or herself as good. But what does a good life look like? And how do people become good? Are there multiple, competing possibilities for what counts as a good life, all equally worthy? Or, is there a unified and transcendent conception of the good that should guide our judgment of the possibilities? What does a good life look like when it is guided by God? How is a good life involved with the lives of others? And, finally, how good is good enough? These questions are the focus of In Search of Goodness, the product of a year-long conversation about goodness. The eight essays in this volume challenge the dichotomies that usually govern how goodness has been discussed in the past: altruism versus egoism; reason versus emotion; or moral choice versus moral character. Instead, the contributors seek to expand the terms of the discussion by coming at goodness from a variety of perspectives: psychological, philosophic, literary, religious, and political. In each case, they emphasize the lived realities and particulars of moral phenomena, taking up examples and illustrations from life, literature, and film. From Achilles and Billy Budd, to Oskar Schindler and Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, to Iris Murdoch and the citizens of Flagstaff, Arizona, readers will find a wealth of thought-provoking insights to help them better understand this most basic, but complex, element of human life and happiness.

Starting from the central importance of memory in contemporary societies, this book encourages a transdisciplinary reflection on how the “presentification of the past” is never a simple reenactment but corresponds to the interaction between memory and cultural sensitiveness, present beliefs and needs, expectations, and forecasts for the future. It studies cultural (re)construction through collective stories, including academic debates, media narratives, collective mobilizations, state narratives of history, architectural reconstructions, and artistic expressions. It looks at how technological innovations have profoundly changed the practices of conservation and dissemination of collective memory, with particular reference to cultural digitization. Finally, it shows that the relevance and selection of events, the organization of connections and cross-references between past, present, and future, as well as the importance of diversified collective imaginaries are the keys to narrative constructions of memory that prove to be sensitive and decisive for its continuity and its intergenerational transmission. This interdisciplinary collection is for students and scholars of the social sciences, cultural studies, and the humanities interested in memory studies.

Doing research is an ever-changing challenge for social scientists. This challenge is harder than ever today as current societies are changing quickly and in many, sometimes conflicting, directions. Social phenomena, personal interactions, and formal and informal relationships are becoming more borderless and disconnected from the anchors of the offline “reality.” These dynamics are heavily marking our time and are suggesting evolutionary challenges in the ways we know, interpret, and analyze the world. Internet and computer-mediated communication (CMC) is being incorporated into every aspect of daily life, and social life has been deeply penetrated by the internet. This is due to recent technological developments that increase the scope and range of online social spaces and the forms and time of participation such as Web 2.0, which widened the opportunities for user-generated content, the emergence of an “internet of things,” and of ubiquitous mobile devices that make it possible to always be connected. This implies an adjustment to epistemological and methodological stances for conducting social research and an adaption of traditional social research methods to the specificities of online interactions in the digital society. The Handbook of Research on Advanced Research Methodologies for a Digital Society covers the different strands of methods most affected by the change in a digital society and develops a broader theoretical reflection on the future of social research in its challenge to always be fitting, suitable, adaptable, and pertinent to the society to be studied. The chapters are geared towards unlocking the future frontiers and potential for social research in the digital society. They include theoretical, epistemological, and ontological reflections about the digital research methods as well as innovative methods and tools to collect, analyze, and interpret data. This book is ideal for social scientists, practitioners, librarians, researchers, academicians, and students interested in social research methodology and its developments in the digital scenario.

This book promotes constructive and nuanced transdisciplinary understandings of some of the critical problems that we face on a global scale today by thinking with and from the Global South. It is engaged in transmodernising, pluriversalising, decolonising, queering, and/or posthumanising thinking and practice. The book aims to contribute to and challenge current debates regarding knowledge, diversity, and change. This is achieved through the application of transdisciplinary and indisciplined perspectives to the Himalayan Anthropocene; transport services in Mexico City; the EU-Turkey border regimes and policy; egoism and the decolonisation of whiteness; the Witch and the decolonisation of the gender binary; Nepalese students in Denmark; and the decolonisation of global health promotion. The book thereby provides the reader a multiplicity of pathways of knowledges and practices that address current problems co-produced by the dominant Western colonial onto-epistemic outset, giving way to ‘other’ knowledge-practices, towards a pluriversal approach. This book will be of interest to upper-level undergraduate and graduate students in disciplines such as human geography, development studies, politics, international relations, sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, planning, and philosophy. It is also relevant to researchers, development workers and human rights/environmental activists, and other intellectual practitioners.