The Battle between Altruism and Self-Interest
Altruism and self-interest are inherent motivations in humans and will continue to be till
the end of dawn. Personally, whenever I hold the door open for someone it makes me feel
good about myself because I was making life easier for someone else. However, at the
same time thoughts drift across my mind that makes me think about why I held the door
open. Was it because I really was trying to help out another person or was it because I was
looking for the satisfaction from the thank you that I could receive from the individual. I
would think about it for a minute then I would come to the rationalization that I was just
being a nice person and trying to do the right thing. Call it altruistic or call it as me acting
out of self-interest, either way it is the right thing to do and I cannot think about it in depth.
This controversy between self-interest and altruism has gone through many people’s heads
at some points, and both Jenner and Vonnegut had to deal with this topic of discussion
within their own work. It is always nice to get a pat on the back and be recognized for
accomplishments one has achieved over a lifetime, but at the end of the day what are our
motives to do these charitable things and to help others?
Edward Jenner was surrounded by medical practices his whole life and eventually went
into a career of being a successful family doctor and surgeon. Any job in the medical field
requires at least a little bit of altruism since you are actually in the profession of helping
other people. Jenner did not just stick to practicing his professional job; he also started to
gain an interest into the origins of smallpox. Jenner came up with the initial theory of,
“The initial source of infection was a disease of horses, called “the grease”, which was
transferred to cows by farm workers, transformed, and then manifested as cowpox
“(Jenner). Although, later on he found out that cowpox did not come from “the grease” he
continued to test his theories through trial and error, until he came up with what he thought
to be immunization of smallpox. He did not need to take all this time and effort out of his
life to pursue this global outbreak that was killing thirty percent of whoever obtained it.
