Altruism

So the other day I was attending a Mandarin class and was surprised to find that the newly-bought Mandarin textbook that I had acquired earlier had some writings on it. It was no doubt very feminine and hearing about a girl who lost her book the other day, we can only safely assume it belonged to her. How the book came into my possession is a complicated story I do not wish to delve into. Long story short; she was missing her book which was now lying within my hands. Looking over at her, I saw that she was using a photocopied version of the book that she was now using to write notes in. I had known this girl for a long time; long enough to know that she is wearing a 'metaphorical' mask for the past two years ever since she had got a boyfriend and it is because of this mask that I had grown to dislike her. At that point it felt as if I had the devil and the angel of both sides of my shoulders; not dissimilar to the ones you see in Tom and Jerry.

It was contemplation time. Weigh the pros and cons. Being very left brained, I automatically put the whole situation into my head in exactly the same format. 

• Pros
• I would be able to keep the textbook that I had acquired without any disadvantage for the person who has already the photocopied version.
• If I returned the book, another problem would come up: Where is my book?
• A photocopied version for her would be better for she would thus be able to write in the book, preventing her from writing in the textbook (vandalising it) that I would otherwise be using.
• At the end of the year I would be able to return the book without her knowing to the school (for all the books loaned out are traceable back to the person who sent it) and she would thus be able to walk away without the fine.
• Cons
• I would have to live with the remorse of thinking that I would technically be 'stealing' the book from her. Even at this point I would not be really stealing the book, for I would give it back to the school at the end of the year.

Somehow, against all logic, the cons managed to outweigh the benefits, and I gave it to her at the end of the day. Although thanking me for it, I can imagine her being completely furious about how I took it by mistake in the first place, which is what she probably felt inside. 

This then got me thinking; why does emotion (in this case guilt) defy all sense of logic? Although I can use logic to prove that what I was doing is not wrong, something inside told me otherwise and even though it is a person I disliked, the guilt I felt from possibly depriving her of the book made me feel guilty, even if she would vandalise it again. So would this be complete stupidity or would this be... altruism?

All my life I never understood altruism, even do I do submit and do engage in things people would refer to as "acts of altruism". Why? For my the answer would be God and the fact that 'if I do good deeds I would go to heaven'. That kind of usual jazz. But then why wouldn't atheist people do bad things/not even do good things in the first place? I do know of atheist who are good and kindhearted. But what keeps them going if there is no incentive available in the first place? A recent study has shown that 'reward chemicals' get released in your brain (which of course make you feel good) when you do something good for a third party. So biologically the body wants you to do altruistic deeds. But why?

One more thing: if I were to be developed in a situation where I was told that doing a bad deed was good. Would I still feel bad about doing the bad deed, or feel bad about doing the good deed? For example if I was a suicide bomber, being grown up into hating infidels and brainwashed into following the rules of my terrorist leader (walking on eggshells here). Would I feel bad about blowing up the target area, or feel bad about not blowing it up?

Of course, there is no answer. Which is why I leave it up to you to decide. 

Fruit for thought.

Cheers,

Matthew Tan