The Possibility of Altruism (Nagel)

For Thomas Nagel, altruism is a requirement of reason, not a feeling. Whoever understands themselves as one person among many cannot hold the reasons of others to be less valid than their own – and from this follows the willingness to take their interests into account.

This entry deals with this one thesis from Nagel’s book The Possibility of Altruism (1970), not with his work as a whole. For the term itself see Altruism; for its opposite, Egoism.

Translator’s note: Thomas Nagel wrote in English. This page quotes him verbatim from the German edition (Die Möglichkeit des Altruismus, 2nd ed. 2005), on which our reading is based. The English renderings in square brackets – “[our translation: …]” – are our own translations of that German text; they are not Nagel’s original English wording.

About the person. Thomas Nagel (born 1937) is an American philosopher who taught for many years at New York University. He is also known for the essay “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” and the book The View from Nowhere.

Is altruism a feeling?

No – that is Nagel’s starting point. His book opens with the sentence: „Nicht weniger als unser Denken unterliegt unser Handeln gewissen Anforderungen der Rationalität, und eine davon ist der Altruismus.“ [our translation: “No less than our thinking, our action is subject to certain requirements of rationality, and one of them is altruism.”] And straight afterwards: „Er ist alles andere als ein Gefühl.“ [our translation: “It is anything but a feeling.”]

Nagel examines the obvious explanation – that we help out of pity – and rejects it. Whoever helps only out of pity could just as well numb that pity instead of helping. What matters, he says, is „nicht um Mitleid, sondern schlicht um Konsequenz“ [our translation: “not pity, but simply consistency”]. Feelings can accompany and strengthen altruism – but it has to be carried by reasons.

Nor does altruism mean self-sacrifice for Nagel; it is „nichts weiter als die Bereitschaft, ohne jede Nebenabsicht auf die Interessen anderer Rücksicht zu nehmen“ [our translation: “nothing more than the willingness to take the interests of others into account without any ulterior motive”].

What does prudence have to do with altruism?

Nagel builds his argument in two steps. The first concerns prudence: whoever acts prudently takes their future as seriously as the present. „Die Gegenwart ist nichts anderes als bloß eine Zeit unter anderen“ [our translation: “The present is nothing other than merely one time among others”], Nagel writes – it has no special status. Imprudent is the person who overlooks future consequences or sacrifices them for an advantage in the moment.

The second step carries the same attitude over from time to persons: just as my future self counts no less than my present one, others count no less than I do. Nagel captures both in one sentence: ethics is „geradezu der Kampf gegen eine bestimmte Form der sogenannten ›egozentrischen Verlegenheit‹ – ganz so, wie Klugheitsüberlegungen der Aufstand gegen die Tyrannei der Gegenwart sind“ [our translation: “nothing less than the struggle against a certain form of the so-called ‘egocentric predicament’ – just as considerations of prudence are the revolt against the tyranny of the present”].

For Nagel, then, prudence is an attitude towards time – foresight – not intelligence.

What does objectivity mean for Nagel?

For Nagel, being objective means seeing oneself and one’s own reasons from an impersonal standpoint – the way one would see any other person. From this vantage point it becomes clear that my pain is no better reason to act than the pain of someone else. Most of us, Nagel concedes, are „mehr oder weniger blind“ [our translation: “more or less blind”] to this in everyday life – and he expressly includes himself.

In his later book The View from Nowhere, Nagel, following Derek Parfit, calls the two kinds of reasons relative (related to the person acting) and neutral (valid for everyone).

Is egoism impossible according to Nagel?

Not impossible, but costly. According to Nagel, a consistent egoist would have to give up every direct concern for others – and could not even feel resentment when he himself is wronged. For whoever feels resentment presupposes that others, too, have reasons to respect him. Whoever acknowledges this has already left pure egoism behind. Nagel does not conceal that in everyday life we pay tribute to our natural egoism.

He later qualified his own thesis. After a critique by Nicholas Sturgeon (1974), he wrote in a postscript in 1978 that his argument does not show that only impersonal reasons are valid, but that every personal reason has an impersonal counterpart. To us, that too is a sign of scholarly integrity.

What does Nagel say about competition and order?

Nagel holds that competition can be rationally justified – in sport, in court, in the economy – as long as it follows rules that everyone can accept. At the same time, his approach implies that one should refrain as far as possible from interfering with the aims of others and create an order in which people can pursue their aims. „Zwischen Staaten“ [our translation: “Between states”], he adds, „ist purer Egoismus keinen Deut annehmbarer als zwischen Individuen.“ [our translation: “pure egoism is not one whit more acceptable than between individuals.”]

Our reading: foresight, freedom and free exchange

This is how we read Nagel: foresight and consideration are one. Whoever thinks beyond the moment also sees beyond themselves. This matches an observation by D. Harald Alke in Mahatma: mistakes often arise from a “lack of foresight” and from not concentrating on the right things. What we call “discernment” (Differenzierungsvermögen) in our work means exactly this foresight – the capacity to see connections across time and persons – not intelligence. Where upbringing and order merely make people conform, they weaken this capacity.

For altruism, this means: it grows where people are allowed to judge freely. Free exchange is individualistic – and for us the foundation of altruism. What distorts it is not the market itself, but an order that regulates markets and steers them from above, replacing the dispersed knowledge of the many with a single plan – the knowledge problem that Friedrich August von Hayek described.

Hayek himself saw the relationship between market and altruism differently: for him, the extended order of society rests on learned rules such as property, contract and honesty, while altruistic feelings belong to the small group (The Fatal Conceit, 1988). On the critique of central steering we agree with him; on the role of altruism we do not.

And one more distinction is ours, not Nagel’s: we separate ethics – principles that stand above time – from morality as whatever happens to be valid at the moment. “Our ethics stands above the morality currently in force,” writes D. Harald Alke (Die Ethik des Neuen Menschen – The Ethics of the New Human). Nagel uses the two words interchangeably; the idea that altruism rests on reasons and not on changing feelings nevertheless unites us.

What we read differently in 2017

In Ausgewählte Perspektiven des Altruismus (Selected Perspectives on Altruism, 2017), we attributed more to Nagel in a few places than he actually says: that a lack of empathy diminishes altruism (Nagel says the opposite), that objectivity is something personal (for him it is the impersonal standpoint), and that he regards the market as the cause of egoism (he justifies competition). At one point the text said “reasons” (Gründe) where Nagel writes “feelings” (Gefühle) – this has been corrected in the new edition. Our high regard for his approach remains; it now rests on the more exact text.

Related terms

• Altruism – the term and its interpretations
• Egoism – the opposite term
• Empathy – compassion as a companion of altruism, not its ground
• Collectivism & individualism – order from above and order from freedom
• Fairness in economic decisions (Ockenfels) – fairness as part of preference

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By Tobias O. R. Alke