Altruism

The term altruism was coined, in French (altruisme), by Auguste Comte (1798–1857) in the first volume of his Système de politique positive (1851–1854; System of positive polity). The first uses in English followed in the 1850s and 1860s in works by British thinkers sympathetic to Comte, including George Eliot, G. H. Lewes, and John Stuart Mill (see Dixon, 2005). In the Comtean system, "altruism" stood for the totality of other-regarding sentiments. The new cerebral science of phrenology, Comte said, proved that altruistic sentiments were innate. He heralded this as one of the most important discoveries of modern science and contrasted it with what he presented as the Christian view, namely that human beings are, by nature, entirely selfish (because of the taint of original sin). Comte's hope was that through the institution of a new humanistic religion based on a scientific understanding of human nature and society, civilized nations would develop to a stage where altruistic sentiments prevailed over egoistic ones. Working out how to bring such a society about, Comte taught, was the greatest problem facing humanity. In his view, one of the keys to increased altruism was a recognition of the fact that women, because of their maternal instincts, were more altruistic than men. They therefore should have supreme moral and religious authority (although only within the domestic sphere). Thus the Religion of Humanity, as he called it, encouraged a particular emphasis on feminine moral virtues and the great sanctity of motherhood (see Wright).

Another important Comtean coinage with which altruism was initially closely associated was "sociology"—the new science of society. Two of the most significant nineteenth-century theoretical treatments of altruism, other than Comte's own, were also produced by pioneering sociologists, namely Herbert Spencer (1820–1903) and Émile Durkheim (1858–1917). Durkheim, who drew on the sociological theories of both Comte and Spencer while making much greater and more sophisticated use of empirical data than either of them, made a distinction between egoistic, altruistic, and anomic types of suicide in his 1897 study of the subject. Egoistic suicide was most widespread in developed, Western nations (especially strongly Protestant ones), Durkheim said, as a result of the highly developed sense of individual autonomy such nations encouraged. Altruistic suicide, on the other hand, was particularly prevalent among primitive peoples, who had an excessive sense of social integration. The main sorts of altruistic suicide with which Durkheim was concerned were the suicides of men on the threshold of old age or stricken with sickness, suicides of women on their husbands' deaths, and the suicides of followers or servants on the death of their chief (Durkheim, book 2, chapter 4).