Against Unselfishness

Last updated on: February 29, 2008 at 3:12 am by Edward Blackadder

Against Unselfishness 2008-02-29T03:12:02-05:00 Edward Blackadder

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John Zmirak, co-author of the wonderful Bad Catholic’s Guides, offers some interesting reflections on the idea that Christianity somehow involves a rejection of the legitimacy of self-interest:

If man is to reject all self-interest, this must include every sphere of life—including the realm of eros. On a radically altruistic analysis such as this, none of us should seek out the company of people whose conversation we enjoy, or wed those to whom we are attracted. Instead, we ought to mortify such selfish inclinations, and seek out the loneliest person we can find. We should mortify biology, and find a spouse among the ugliest and least marriageable—lest the taint of selfishness attach itself to the sacrament.

Equally, I cannot see why we should prefer the interests of our own children or family members over those of strangers, or of our countrymen over foreigners. Strictly applied, such a standard would dynamite the Christian notion of subsidiarity, which ranks our obligations as proceeding outward from the self, with the greatest claims upon us made by those who are nearest (relatives and neighbors). Perhaps one could make a case that in strict justice we owe our own children nutrition before we owe it to strangers, but in dispensing it we would always have to be careful to disentangle any motives of personal affection or attachment, and strive not to take undue pleasure in it.

Does it sound like I’m addressing a problem that doesn’t exist, knocking down a straw man in a forest where no one will hear it fall? I wish I were. The first time I discussed this issue with a friend, she confirmed that she too had been troubled by the question of selfishness: “I’ve always wanted to adopt, and I still intend to. But for a long time I wondered if it was even moral to have my own children, when there are so many unwanted children out there whom I could raise instead.”

To which I responded: “That’s kind of creepy and sick, don’t you think?” She allowed that it probably was. Not everyone would agree. A decade ago I wrote an article addressing a book which literally argued that Westerners did not have the right to reproduce themselves in a world troubled by hunger, and I coined a word to describe the book’s position: “demographic masochism.” The whole discussion reminded me of the words of a wise Christian psychologist, who inquired, “Jesus said to love your neighbor as you love yourself. But what if you hate yourself?”

Let me carry this reductio just one step farther—into the absolute ethical contradiction to which it leads. If all self-interest is evil, then what does it mean when I perform an act of kindness to someone (let’s say, I volunteer to shovel out his driveway)? Whose interests am I serving? His. If he accepts that offer, whose interests is he serving? His own. In other words, he is being selfish. Which is evil. Indeed, by even offering him this service, I am in essence serving as a near occasion of sin, a temptation to self-interest on his part. In which case, the kindest thing I could do—thinking of his eternal salvation—would be not to make the offer. Unless, of course, I was sure he would be virtuous enough to refuse. (Of course, continuing the regress, he might reluctantly accept, if only to allow me the chance to do something virtuous–just as the woman I did not want and who did not want me might unselfishly accept my marriage proposal, the better to let each of us make a lifelong sacrifice.) In such a world, everyone would be holding the door for others, who would smile but refuse to walk through them. And no one would get anywhere.

Instead of such a frankly hopeless standard, Christians are better off accepting the fact that they have selves with legitimate interests, which they should pursue—but keeping a skeptical eye, informed by justice and charity, on the excesses of selfishness which tempt us constantly. We need not make some universal moral calculus which determines if each of our actions is motivated by “the greatest good” (and for whom? the greatest number?). Instead we must walk through the thicket of mixed and conflicting motives, asking always for the Grace which perfects, but does not abolish, nature.

Blackadder

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