Why do people do good deeds??
A question that have puzzled, philosophers, psychologists and scientists
From a Darwinian scientific point of view people exist only to replicate and carry their genes to the next generation, they are basically selfish beings, altruism from a Darwinian supportive does not make any sense. For them helping others would make sense if they were related to them (kin selection), namely; carrying the same genes as we are, since they will help us survive, but helping complete strangers for them is extraordinary! (Taylor, 2013)
On the other hand, Immanuel Kant, the German philosopher believed that altruism is a “universal rule”, he stated that “to be helpful to people in need according to one’s means, for the sake of their HAPPINESS and without hoping for anything in return”. He believed that everyone should be beneficent. Immanuel Kant talked about pure altruism and that it’s a duty of every human being (altruism, 2001).
But, does pure altruism really exists?
In order to answer this question I would like to address first the reasons why do people become beneficence?
I realized that many of us do good deeds for religious purposes. All religions urge on altruistic behavior, helping others, treating your neighbor’s good, smile to everyone, and give charity. Especially charity that I thought most about, it’s like we are paying the financially unfortunate people to get our ticket to heaven!
Really people get charity the wrong way and sometimes we all even fall in this trap, why did God tell us to give charity, can we be that selfish to think that paying some money would get us to heave and that’s it. Reciprocity; but this time with God, we pay the poor in life and God will pay us back with our ticket to heaven in the afterlife! I don’t think that’s very altruistic, at least we want something out of it. Unfortunately, a lot of people think of charity this way, the superficial, selfish, evil way, human beings look at moral deeds. Were the whole point of giving charity from a religious point of view is to search for our humanity and accept the other, to stop looking for superficial characteristics (color, occupation, class, nationality) and look at each other’s core.
Below is a picture of “Ma’edat Rahman”, it’s a place with tables and chairs offering financially unfortunate people Iftar meals in Ramadan. I really think that this act of charity is very relevant to our topic. Why do people feed the poor only in Ramadan? If they were really altruistic then why don’t they do “Ma’edat Rahaman” for the whole year? 
Religious people tend to raise money for charity and participate in volunteer work to help others. People are more likely to help in situations which are known to everyone, in order for them to feel good about themselves (self-esteem). They, however, do not necessarily help in private situations when no one will know that they have helped. So religious people help others either to feel good about themselves or to look good in front of others, in both cases according to empathy altruism theory; they do not help out of empathy because there is something in it for them. Conformity is also really related to altruistic behaviors like charity for example, how if someone joins a new religious community, most of the people in this religious community would give start giving charity if they were not giving before, for instance, they change their behavior due to the influence of their new community.
Empathy altruism theory explains a lot of how people would help in groups and not out group’s members. This reminded me very much of a similar situation I had when I was studying in Abu Dhabi. So, my friend Lubna who is Egyptian when she asked me for my calculus class notes, since the final was close and the professor said that he would rely heavily on the class notes on the exam, I automatically felt empathy for Lubna because I didn’t want her to flunk the exam, she’s one of my in groups I can identify with her since we are both Egyptians. So I gave her the notes because I can relate to her I only wanted to help her there was nothing in it for me, I helped her purely out of empathy (empathy altruism theory). On the other hand, when my other Palestinian friend; Dania asked me for the same notes, I also gave her the notes, thinking that I only wanted to help her! After discussing altruism in class though, and while writing this blog entry I thought for a while about the situation and realized that I helped her for different reasons than empathy. I helped her because I wanted to fit in, and to be liked as I was a new comer at school. Dania was Palestinian, so she was a member of out groups, and according to empathy altruism theory, I only helped her because there was something in it for me; I wanted to fit in.
We tend to automatically put people who do good deeds in a schema that involves traits like, altruistic, selfless, kind hearted and the list goes on, but often times we unfortunately fall in the trap of fundamental attribution error, in which we base their good behavior on inter personal traits, where it could very possibly be the case, but it actually is most of the time due to social influence. Sometimes people do good deeds only to be accepted by society. In some religious communities, for instance, people give charity because this is the norm everyone in the community gives charity so I don’t want to be an outsider, for example.
Pro social behavior is greatly increased in a group social roles plays a very important role here since, people would have certain standard of how they will behave, so if the group gives charity, the other group members would probably give charity as well. In a group that promotes bullying, for instance, it’s more likely to find the group members bullying others as well. As a result of social influence, group members are greatly influenced by other members. Social impact theory also argues that the extent of conforming to social influence depends highly on the group’s importance to the person.
References:
Altruism. (2001). In Encyclopedia of Ethics. London: Routledge. (2013, November 6). Retrieved December 10, 2013, from Credo Reference.
Aronson, E., Wilson, T., & Akert, R. (2013). Social psychology. (8th ed.). Pearson.
Taylor, S. (2013, October 18). Why do human beings do good things? the puzzle of altruism. Psychology Today, Retrieved from http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/out-the-darkness/201310/why-do-human-beings-do-good-things-the-puzzle-altruism
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