dr_who@umcp-cs.UUCP (08/14/83)
...regardless of whether that use of the word is correct standard English. As Byron Howes (and I myself, I might add) has pointed out, quibbling over words is pointless. Still, for anyone who is interested to understand what I meant when I used the word "altruism", here is some clarification. By the way, I still think that the dictionaries, on the whole, bear me out. "Altruism," as I use the word, means simply "caring for others; having their good at heart." It does not mean caring ONLY about others (not about oneself), nor does it mean believing anything about moral requirements. All of this should sound familiar. But note that I said "it does not *mean* caring ONLY about others, nor ... believing ...". I did not say -- what is another thing -- that it (altruism) is *excluded* by these things. I have been entirely consistent, although one who did not read or think very carefully could easily have been misled. Altruism does not *imply* these things; however, it may well be implied *by* them. As I used the word "altruism", therefore, the set of morally-motivated carings for others, the set of carings exclusively for others, and the intersection of these sets, are all proper subsets of the set of altruisms. Now for benevolence. Benevolence is (or so I thought) a helpful response to others which is motivated by the enjoyment or suffering of the other person. In other words, if a person is automatically motivated to help others by the sight of situations where they can use it, then that person is benevolent. Whether a person can be induced by her moral beliefs to be benevolent, I don't know, but suppose not. In that case, benevolent actions are a proper subset of altruistic actions (as I understand "altruism"). On the other hand, suppose so -- in that case, benevolence is identical to altruism (same parenthetical remark). I just can't resist throwing in the following. I realized that since we were talking about the relationships between benevolence, altruism, and moral beliefs, a thesaurus might be more helpful than a dictionary. The Merriam-Webster Thesaurus (1978) gave benevolent as a *synonym* for "altruistic". (Under altruistic it said "syn see CHARITABLE 1", and under charitable 1 it listed as synonyms (among others) "altruistic, benevolent, ..."). I then looked for "self-sacrifice" and they had an entry for "self-sacrificing" (they usually list only the adjective form). Altruistic was *not* given as a synonym, but merely as a "related word". --Paul Torek, U of MD College Park p.s. This is my last waste of time on definitions.