Alice+Ahn+(Altruism)

1. Are we, as some might say, motivated by a desire to save our off-spring? 2. Must there always be some sort of intrinsic reward for doing good? 3. Mr. Otis once said, "That having integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching." If this is so, and no one knows when we have done good, would you still do good? 4. "Delayed reciprocal altruism", seems like a gamble - back to game theory, any way. Does this seem to make sense to you. That is that we act out of a desire to have what we have done being done to us? 5. Are we ever being truly "selfless" when committing an act of altruism?

- The idea of 'Altruism' can be viewed as two different points: the self-less caring, and the self-centered caring. People do good things to others because they want to do it out of no greed or they want to do it because they know some day that that person would do the same thing for me. The first idea that I had before reading the article was that human often do things without wanting anything from it; they offer help to others because they feel proud and good about it and that they have no desire for it, however after reading the article, the whole idea of altruism changed. Most of the time, we do think that if I do this to someone else, then that person would someday return that service in some way. The reason they want the others to return is to provide a help resource for their off-spring. If I maintain a good relation with my friends, and when my daughter or a son is going through a difficulty, then my friends would be helping them, just like I helped my friends before. One of the desires coming from helping others is to make off-spring have a stable, and comfortable life. Another desire is to earn a good impression from others. If I behave in front of others, then the others would be getting good impression about me then they would be able to return the favor someday. If, however, I was trying to do something good to others, and no one was watching, some will still do it and others would not because without anyone watching there won't be any favors that I will receive in the future because no one would know it. Maintaining a good relation with others is very important in the society; the relation with a person might determine the future later on. If the article is true, that every human being in this world is self-centered, and selfish, then this world would be corrupted and very sad for everyone is doing goods to others out of their desire. The existence of altruism is very hard to determine however, people would not get rid of the belief because getting rid of altruism is admitting that the idea altruism does not exist in this world, and that would take away all the hope from this world and people.