Pathological Altruism

[Togo]

Have we seen any reason to regard altruism as particularly prone to a negative downside, when compared against any other motive?

I mean, I get that actions sometimes have negative consequences. But surely those downsides depend on the action taken, not the motive. If in one country someone creates a new medical device because they want to save lives, while in the next door country someone creates a new medical device because they want to make a profit, is the potential downside not exactly the same in each case?

I'm just not seeing why altruism is any more suspicious or prone to downsides than other form of human motivation.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Have we seen any reason to regard altruism as particularly prone to a negative downside, when compared against any other motive?

I mean, I get that actions sometimes have negative consequences. But surely those downsides depend on the action taken, not the motive. If in one country someone creates a new medical device because they want to save lives, while in the next door country someone creates a new medical device because they want to make a profit, is the potential downside not exactly the same in each case?

I'm just not seeing why altruism is any more suspicious or prone to downsides than other form of human motivation.

It is merely an attempt to relabel an argument from an alleged compassionate side. You see, I do care, but it is because I care that we can't help them. Otherwise harm might result from the actions.

There simply has been no demonstration of "pathological altruism". From WSJ:

Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm." A crucial qualification is that while the altruistic actor fails to anticipate the harm, "an external observer would conclude [that it] was reasonably foreseeable." Thus, she explains, if you offer to help a friend move, then accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and you help him obtain them, it is.

In other words, it doesn't fucking mean "pathological"!

I think this is the right-wing turn on the phrase "compassionate conservatism", which was hardly ever compassionate.

 

[Sarpedon]

Altruism is suspicious because it makes selfish people look like dicks.

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Altruism is suspicious because it makes selfish people look like dicks.

QFT

 

[Canard DuJour]

It is merely an attempt to relabel an argument from an alleged compassionate side. You see, I do care, but it is because I care that we can't help them. Otherwise harm might result from the actions.

There simply has been no demonstration of "pathological altruism". From WSJ:

Oakley defines pathological altruism as "altruism in which attempts to promote the welfare of others instead result in unanticipated harm." A crucial qualification is that while the altruistic actor fails to anticipate the harm, "an external observer would conclude [that it] was reasonably foreseeable." Thus, she explains, if you offer to help a friend move, then accidentally break an expensive item, your altruism probably isn't pathological; whereas if your brother is addicted to painkillers and you help him obtain them, it is.

In other words, it doesn't fucking mean "pathological"!

I think this is the right-wing turn on the phrase "compassionate conservatism", which was hardly ever compassionate.

Nutshell.

 

[Sabine Grant]

Regarding the Affordable Heath Care Act, I have no idea why anyone would portray it as motivated by any form of "altruism". A health care reform motivated by altruism would have established an hybrid system with access to a Public option(single payer). Motivated by altruism would have meant a complete change of mentality where health care is not treated as an industry any longer and medically needy persons not viewed as "consumers". When it comes to the US health care system, as long as any reform pursues to support the notion or concept of "profit centered industry", we cannot speak of altruism motivated reforms.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Not necessarily. I don't believe that the title of the linked article is claiming that ALL altruism is bad. I believe it is claiming that some people are pathological in their approach to altruism, in that they discount and ignore the potential negative outcomes in their zeal for taking altruistic action.

Exactly. I'm not saying all altruism is bad. I'm saying that all too often the "help" does more harm than good.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

For example, with ACA, there were many people before hand warning that there would be substantial market disruption, and that there would be many people who would see their rates increase. Prior to implementation, many proponents of ACA insisted that either no body would be harmed, or that so few would be harmed that it didn't matter. After ACA, even though there were many people whose rates increased, it was dismissed as being unimportant, on the grounds that "a lot more" people benefited. The view seems to be that since the intention was altruistic - to help some people who needed help - then any harm caused didn't matter, it was subsumed by the "good intention" of the law. I've seen this argument repeated in various forms many times.

I think you're off target here.

The disruption caused by the ACA is almost all due to the requirement that polices be decent policies. A bunch of people lost "insurance" that would have left them hanging had anything bad happened. Of course they can't replace it with something of similar cost because the ACA prohibited selling crap and calling it insurance.

It's much better for them to lose their coverage that way than to have an emergency and find out how worthless their insurance is when it doesn't pay the bills.

(Yes, there are also technical issues. We're a poster boy for those, our exchange is so messed up that the state didn't even give Xerox a chance to fix it, just fired them. That's not an ACA problem, that's typical government contracting--do it cheap and get paid to fix it.)

 

[AthenaAwakened]

Not necessarily. I don't believe that the title of the linked article is claiming that ALL altruism is bad. I believe it is claiming that some people are pathological in their approach to altruism, in that they discount and ignore the potential negative outcomes in their zeal for taking altruistic action.

Exactly. I'm not saying all altruism is bad. I'm saying that all too often the "help" does more harm than good.

Prove it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Not necessarily. I don't believe that the title of the linked article is claiming that ALL altruism is bad. I believe it is claiming that some people are pathological in their approach to altruism, in that they discount and ignore the potential negative outcomes in their zeal for taking altruistic action.

Exactly. I'm not saying all altruism is bad. I'm saying that all too often the "help" does more harm than good.

"All too often" sounds a lot like weasel talk for, the majority of the time. That seems to be quite a hard case to make, but please feel free to ignore that comment.

 

[laughing dog]

Not necessarily. I don't believe that the title of the linked article is claiming that ALL altruism is bad. I believe it is claiming that some people are pathological in their approach to altruism, in that they discount and ignore the potential negative outcomes in their zeal for taking altruistic action.

Exactly. I'm not saying all altruism is bad. I'm saying that all too often the "help" does more harm than good.

Does that mean you think "libertarian" proposals are examples of pathological altruism?

 

[Emily Lake]

I suppose I should thank you for demonstrating my point so perfectly. The harm that some suffered is of no consequence to you, since others were helped. You dismiss any collateral damage as inconsequential, and without consideration for the impact on those people.

Actually, the point was not that the harm is qualitatively inconsequential... but rather it is quantifiably inconsequential both on its own merit and when positioned against the gain.

Please provide evidence and support for your claim that it is inconsequential to the people affected.

The fact that you insist on positioning it against what you perceive to be the gain demonstrates that you have not grasped my point.

 

[Emily Lake]

Have we seen any reason to regard altruism as particularly prone to a negative downside, when compared against any other motive?

I mean, I get that actions sometimes have negative consequences. But surely those downsides depend on the action taken, not the motive. If in one country someone creates a new medical device because they want to save lives, while in the next door country someone creates a new medical device because they want to make a profit, is the potential downside not exactly the same in each case?

I'm just not seeing why altruism is any more suspicious or prone to downsides than other form of human motivation.

My understanding, and the position that I am arguing from, is that the motivation is irrelevant. It is the outcomes that matter. Specifically, it is the foreseeable and predictable outcomes.

One of the challenges is that I am generally not good at coming up with these sorts of examples.

Consider, however, a situation in which someone invents a medical treatment that is supposed to cure cancer by inhibiting cell reproduction. Now imagine if they lauded this invention as a wonderful solution to cancer, and charged forward with it, with no thought to the consequences. Anyone with any biological background would pause for a moment and note that inhibiting cell reproduction is going to have massive side effects for many anatomical systems - the skin cells of the mouth and nose, hair follicles, fingernails, and many others are fast-reproducing cells that would also be affected by this. It is easily foreseeable. If the inventor of that treatment did NOT call out those dangers and risks, then we would deem him to be negligent, would we not?

It is incumbent on the person seeking to undertake the altruistic action to objectively and honestly consider the potential negative effects, as well as the likelihoods, of the proposed action. Pressing an action based solely on the potential positive outcomes, while ignoring or downplaying the negative consequences is negligent.

While it's my impression, and not necessarily fact, it seems that in political discussions more than any other topic, people err in this way. People choose sides based on their ideological predisposition and their political beliefs... and then they dismiss or devalue any risks and concerns raised by their opponents.

Of course, it's not so one-sided. The opponents make the same error; they highlight the negative consequences and belittle the positive outcomes. Each side to the political argument tends to unobjectively and prejudicially bias their arguments, with little concern for reality.

I tend to fall slightly on the side of not actively taking steps that cause harm, as opposed to failing to take steps that might help. It's a very close line... but "First, do no harm". From that principle, I would argue that it is paramount that those seeking altruistic policies, especially political actions, address the likelihood of negative outcomes in an objective and honest fashion.

 

[Emily Lake]

Regarding the Affordable Heath Care Act, I have no idea why anyone would portray it as motivated by any form of "altruism". A health care reform motivated by altruism would have established an hybrid system with access to a Public option(single payer). Motivated by altruism would have meant a complete change of mentality where health care is not treated as an industry any longer and medically needy persons not viewed as "consumers". When it comes to the US health care system, as long as any reform pursues to support the notion or concept of "profit centered industry", we cannot speak of altruism motivated reforms.

For clarity, I did not intend to imply that it was motivated by altruism. I merely held it up as an example of a policy with reasonably foreseeable negative consequences that proponents vociferously ignored or dismissed.

I personally believe that its impetus was to help (and could thus be cast as altruistic) but its final form was far from it.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Actually, the point was not that the harm is qualitatively inconsequential... but rather it is quantifiably inconsequential both on its own merit and when positioned against the gain.

Please provide evidence and support for your claim that it is inconsequential to the people affected.

Interesting. You seem to be complaining about it, but don't have anything to back up that the harm created amounts to much. Interesting.

The fact that you insist on positioning it against what you perceive to be the gain demonstrates that you have not grasped my point.

Actually seeing that I positioned it both on its own and verses the gain actually does show I get what you are trying to imply.

Harm for those who lost their skeletal insurance plans comes in the lost money that their new insurance costs them. This harm is offset by some unknown quantity based on the actual savings they would see by having that higher insurance level. Harm could also be measured based on loss of access to health care. That would be looking at it merely as it owns thing. So we are talking about 2.5 million people.

If you were to look at the benefit, you'd need to look at people who are paying less for insurance than they were due to the ACA plans or state exchanges. You'd need to see how many people now have insurance that couldn't afford it originally. And people that couldn't get it because of pre-existing conditions. You would also need to factor in the number of services now available to people that did not have it. You'd also need to factor in the cost savings to medical providers for not having to offer free health care to those who couldn't pay at all. About 20 million people are enrolled in state and federal exchanges.

So just looking at the numbers we see one group that has to pay more for health insurance (harm is loss of capital) verses people who couldn't get health care because of financial or worse even pre-existing conditions which implies that they really really need it, gain access to health care coverage (about 3 to 4 million people).

Are you arguing that 2.5 million people having to pay 20% more for better insurance creates a harm worth comparing to 3 to 4 million people being able to gain access to insurance for the first time, plus the benefit of insurance savings for another possibly 16 million?

Here is a link to an awful terrible left wing site. Forbes

If you want, we can go deep into the numbers, but that would require an actual commitment from you.

 

[Emily Lake]

Please provide evidence and support for your claim that it is inconsequential to the people affected.

Interesting. You seem to be complaining about it, but don't have anything to back up that the harm created amounts to much. Interesting.

The fact that you insist on positioning it against what you perceive to be the gain demonstrates that you have not grasped my point.

Actually seeing that I positioned it both on its own and verses the gain actually does show I get what you are trying to imply.

Harm for those who lost their skeletal insurance plans comes in the lost money that their new insurance costs them. This harm is offset by some unknown quantity based on the actual savings they would see by having that higher insurance level. Harm could also be measured based on loss of access to health care. That would be looking at it merely as it owns thing. So we are talking about 2.5 million people.

If you were to look at the benefit, you'd need to look at people who are paying less for insurance than they were due to the ACA plans or state exchanges. You'd need to see how many people now have insurance that couldn't afford it originally. And people that couldn't get it because of pre-existing conditions. You would also need to factor in the number of services now available to people that did not have it. You'd also need to factor in the cost savings to medical providers for not having to offer free health care to those who couldn't pay at all. About 20 million people are enrolled in state and federal exchanges.

So just looking at the numbers we see one group that has to pay more for health insurance (harm is loss of capital) verses people who couldn't get health care because of financial or worse even pre-existing conditions which implies that they really really need it, gain access to health care coverage (about 3 to 4 million people).

Are you arguing that 2.5 million people having to pay 20% more for better insurance creates a harm worth comparing to 3 to 4 million people being able to gain access to insurance for the first time, plus the benefit of insurance savings for another possibly 16 million?

Here is a link to an awful terrible left wing site. Forbes

If you want, we can go deep into the numbers, but that would require an actual commitment from you.

First, you ignored part of my response, and continue to come back to your claim of "skeleton plans"

Although, you've also decided that it's only "skeleton" plans that saw rates increase, when such is not the case. Many people saw their rates increase, especially younger people. Most of them didn't, however, do much in the way of complaining. And many people would have had their plans discontinued had Obama not changed his mind at the eleventh hour and continued coverage of existing plans for 2014. And many with employer sponsored coverage would have seen their rates increase more if the administration had not delayed implementation of the minimum value requirements until 2015.

Second, I will not go deep in to the numbers with you. I value my anonymity, and I am not willing to provide the credentials necessary to validate my expertise. Given that choice, I will leave you with whatever opinion you wish to hold, based on whichever source of reporting you choose to confirm your bias with.

 

[arkirk]

When you approach a problem anew, altruism is a good starting point. What ever so often is taken as pathological altruism might be characterized as intellectual laziness. It is the assumption that "whatever I do is good." I am here now, and I will fix everything. That also goes by the name of narcissism. If you don't investigate how some plan to do good would actually work out in real time, then it is the plan and your sticking to it that is pathological and not the altruistic intent. That clearly is abandoned once one assumes "whatever I do will be fore everybody's good and I will take no backtalk or questioning."

An example I will give you is famine relief. Powdered milk companies in the 60's donated a lot of this stuff to relief efforts. They failed to take into account that powdered milk plus contaminated water (used to constitute it) could be real trouble. In famine conditions, it usually is due to water shortages. The only water available in a lot of locations where there is famine is apt to be contaminated with bacteria. This milk becomes an infusion of bacteria into a young body...sometimes killing it.

The intent of the contributors was to look good and "responsible." They simply had no idea of the conditions that prevailed in many locations where their donations turned up. It was a bad plan with an ulterior motive (to look good and seek public approval). The effort started out with altruistic intent. It simply became plan driven and was not corrected immediately. If they actually knew the conditions where their product would go, then their intent could very will be malicious intent. That is not altruism. There are a lot of shades of gray here, but I still think the original intent should be altruism, and at every point should remain altruism...like stop sending the milk or give the people something to sterilize the water. It is a matter of losing focus on the intent and being willing to alter your plans for the best result.

 

[bilby]

It seems to me that the only examples of problems being presented here are examples of recklessness.

We have the word 'reckless'; it has nothing to do with altruism, and renaming it "pathological altruism" appears to be a rather tasteless attempt to excuse people for acting selfishly where altruism would be more acceptable.

Sure, recklessness can cause an act with altruistic intent to lead to disaster. But as recklessness can cause any act to lead to disaster regardless of intent, there seems to be zero reason to single out altruism as 'pathological'.

If you don't think things through, you are likely to fail, altruism or not.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Although, you've also decided that it's only "skeleton" plans that saw rates increase, when such is not the case. Many people saw their rates increase, especially younger people.

Everyone has seen their rates increase. The rates have been increasing every year for a while now. Would you care to demonstrate its connection with the ACA?

Most of them didn't, however, do much in the way of complaining. And many people would have had their plans discontinued had Obama not changed his mind at the eleventh hour and continued coverage of existing plans for 2014. And many with employer sponsored coverage would have seen their rates increase more if the administration had not delayed implementation of the minimum value requirements until 2015.

So now we need to justify increases that haven't happened yet?

Second, I will not go deep in to the numbers with you. I value my anonymity, and I am not willing to provide the credentials necessary to validate my expertise.

Yeah, "anonymous". I can pretend that.

Given that choice, I will leave you with whatever opinion you wish to hold, based on whichever source of reporting you choose to confirm your bias with.

Yeah, Forbes is known for its liberal bias. That said, despite your protesting here, you have actually not demonstrated that the harm was more than superficial. Having to pay more money for a better product isn't exactly the end of the world when it comes to harm. Certainly not the same scale of harm say not having a doctor even though you need one but you can't get insurance because of a pre-existing condition. But if you aren't willing to dive into the numbers here you can pretend that liberals are pathological with their altruism.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

My rates are actually dropping for the second year in a row.