Abstract
“Altruism” is one of many concepts for expressing the content of morals. The article presents and overviews the main concepts of “altruism” by evolutionary ethics and presents analysis of the questions: What kind of phenomenon is altruism and what kind of relations has it with egoism? Is altruism as well as egoism given to us by nature or do we acquire it in the course of bringing up? In what way have the regulations of altruism consolidated in human society and what is the significant of it for a person? The author argues that at present altruism is identified with self-renunciations and sacrifice and this is an extreme interpretation of the subject. H. Spencer, the other followers of evolutionary ethics and sociobiologist claims that altruism is “all the conscious and unconscious actions that aim to save lives for the other individuals and from which suffer the doer's individual life”. Altruistic and egoistic quality lies deep in nature of a modem person as inherited quality’s expression of in which depend on level of the society the individual lives. Sacrifice of modem people in any extreme situations is the reflection of ancient need to preserve species, population, community: only the groups, members of which sacrificed for the sake of the whole group, survived. The author comes to the conclusions: 1. “Biological altruism” that we can find in all living communities is the origin of our ethical (moral) and social altruism. 2. With evolution of human consciousness, instinctive and natural human desire to help somebody in misfortune is gradually decreasing with conceiving of a number of valid excuses until an edge abatement of one’s own responsibility: when all saving work is leaving for the official State services. 3. The role of society and education for the expression of altruistic behaviour of a concrete person is negative: all the qualities related with altruism (for example, compassion, rightness, spontaneity and other) are gradually decreasing. This process excites a depression in the man's mentality and causes an increasing of senses of loneliness, of great anxiety and nonsense.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Most read articles by the same author(s)
-
Vytis Silius,
Congruity (li) as ethical notion in Zhu Xi’s theory of renxing
,
Acta Orientalia Vilnensia: Vol. 11 No. 2 (2010): Acta Orientalia Vilnensia
-
Bożena Śliwczyńska,
Katrin Fischer. Yakṣagāna. Eine Einführung in eine südindische Theatertradition Mit übersetzung und Text von „Abhimanyu Kāḷaga“
,
Acta Orientalia Vilnensia: Vol. 8 No. 2 (2007): Acta Orientalia Vilnensia
-
Politologija 2014 2014 2 (74) tomas,
INFORMATION FOR AUTHORS
,
Politologija: Vol. 74 No. 2 (2014): Politologija
-
ILONA CESNIENE,
ALEKSANDRAS DOBRYNINAS,
VINCENTAS GIEDRAITIS,
Macroeconomic factors and the perception of criminal justice in society: the role of shadow economies1
,
Kriminologijos studijos: Vol. 1 (2014): Kriminologijos studijos
-
LARISA DOVNAR,
БЕЛОРУССКАЯ КНИГА КАК УНИВЕРСУМ НАЦИОНАЛЬНОЙ КУЛЬТУРЫ
,
Knygotyra: Vol. 54 (2010): Knygotyra
-
Diana Yuksel,
Moral norms and physical necessity: Zhu Xi on the concept of Li
,
Acta Orientalia Vilnensia: Vol. 8 No. 2 (2007): Acta Orientalia Vilnensia
-
Politologija 2014 2014 2 (74) tomas,
ŠIAME SPECIALIAJAME NUMERYJE VARTOJAMŲ SANTRUMPŲ SĄRAŠAS
,
Politologija: Vol. 74 No. 2 (2014): Politologija
-
Vaiva Daraškevičiūtė,
Notion of hermeneutics in the personalistic ontology of Luigi Pareyson
,
Religija ir kultūra: Vol. 12 (2013): Religija ir kultūra
-
Jekaterina Stepanova,
Travel records (游记 youji) for gardens as source for researching officials’ private lives in 11th-century China
,
Acta Orientalia Vilnensia: Vol. 8 No. 2 (2007): Acta Orientalia Vilnensia
-
REMIGIJUS MISIŪNAS,
BOOK PUBLISHING IN PREWAR AND MODERN LITHUANIA: COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF THE EXPERIENCE GAINED
,
Knygotyra: Vol. 62 (2014): Knygotyra