Topic > Human actions and acts of kindness

IndexThe value of compassionAltruismkindReferencesIn this time when everyone in the country is in quarantine, everyone is doing their part to minimize the spread of the epidemic. In fact, there are some self-sacrificing people out there to help people, such as healthcare workers, grocery store workers, and delivery services. However, can we consider that their actions are done to help people or to survive? In this epidemic period, the economy has suffered greatly as most people cannot go to work due to the virus. Therefore, many people have no work and cannot make ends meet. While we can see many of those workers on the outside behaving noblely, perhaps others are forced into this situation just to make ends meet. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay Actions performed for the benefit of others are a noble action. You can consider this action altruistic, compassionate and kind. People commonly consider these traits as human, to help other people in suffering. However, some have seen these actions as a form of marketing, and celebrities and brands have been called out when they show support to a community solely as a form of promotion. An example of this was reported in an article written by Khatchatourian (2015) stating that Disney's promotion of the Star Wars film was changed based on the region it was shown in, where a certain character was shrunk in the poster to attract the audience's attention. demographic in China. However, compared to the posters of other countries, this character is more obvious. It can be argued that Disney removed the importance of the character to appeal to the Chinese demographic where morals are different than other countries. Therefore, we can see that the act of helping others in need can be exploited for personal gain. As such, it reflects on the question of what makes an action human. How do we determine whether a person performs an action simply to help or whether they have an ulterior motive behind a noble action? The reason I started asking this question is because I have consistently seen brands jump on the bandwagon, where they claim to support movements like Black Lives Matter and LGBTQ+, only after they have been accepted as mainstream. It's clear that these companies don't actually care about the cause, they only care about the popularity of the cause. This thought leads me to wonder why we want to perform human actions and what it truly means to be human. In this article, I aim to analyze what makes an action human, such as compassion, the act of altruism and the kindness we give to each other. My aim is to analyze multiple philosophical perspectives on what makes the act of helping genuine, in order to discover how to distinguish genuine help given to help people in need and help given to support popular movements. The value of compassionCompassion is the feeling that alludes to the act of kindness and sympathy since we closely associate the feeling of this emotion towards the suffering of others. Compassion is a topic that has been addressed for centuries, as books such as the Bible since compassion can be found in the Old Testament such as Isaiah 49:10 which says, "They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor the heat of the desert nor the the hot sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them to springs of water." Compassion can also be found in the New Testament as Matthew 9:35-38 states: allthe cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and infirmity. Seeing the crowds he felt compassion for them, because they were tired and exhausted, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples: «The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. So ask the master of the harvest to send workers into his harvest field.” These passages from the Bible show us that compassion is not a new concept, but rather one that has endured into the modern age. So, this shows us that compassion has been relevant in religion, or at least in Christianity. However, if we consider compassion from the perspective of Western philosophers, we see that the value of compassion varies differently with each philosopher. People like Friedrich Nietzsche, with an article written by Daniel Harris (2017) titled Compassion and Affirmation in Nietzsche. The article states that Nietzsche is critical of the concept of compassion as he considers the word “compassion” to be too broad a term as this implies that he condemns all forms of suffering without seeing what makes our nature susceptible to suffering. a noble thing, and therefore deprives us of importance. But despite this, Nietzsche does not see the act of compassion as inherently negative as he sees that if someone with superior morality has pity for something, then pity has value. The author of this article argues that compassion in itself is harmless, but the act of compassion while losing the upper hand may have a greater impact on suffering rather than helping. This basis of compassion is based on Nietzsche's view of master-slave morality, which in short implies that the master's morality is for the "strong-willed" and creates his own morality while the slave's morality is for the "weak", who are seen as pessimistic and try to convert others to the same morality. This means that the act of compassion, although understood as goodwill, can result in a form of weakness as it does not address the positive aspect of the struggle when it is based on master-slave morality. However, if we view compassion as a form of weakness, we fail to see its intrinsic value in creating value. Is it worth helping others? The way I interpret what Nietzsche meant about compassion is that our compassion must come from our morality, rather than pitying all forms of suffering, rather than placing more value on the feeling of pity towards others. noble trait. The act of putting oneself behind others was addressed in particular by a philosopher named August Comfe, who is commonly associated with the philosophy of altruism, the act of putting others above oneself. In an article written by Campbell (2006), he stated that Comfe believed that one should put others above oneself, in a form of collectivism where everyone helps each other. Essentially, altruism believes in the common good, and its method is that the common good is putting others above oneself. However, Comfe's vision is wrong when compared to the act of being human. If we perform actions for others for the greater good, we fail to recognize compassion for the situation. Comfe's view on how one should be altruistic considers the whole view rather than the individualistic one that compassion brings. This means that altruism may turn out to be a form of altruism, but the way Comfe sees the act of altruism, is not because one helps another because he feels compassion for another person's suffering, but rather feels that it is its duty to help others. And in a way, this devalues ​​the pity one feels for others, as it ignores the reason for helping. That isit also implies that there is no true altruism, that one cannot be truly motivated to help others only for their own good, because if we see it this way, we ignore the reason why we are trying to help, which in a certain sense is a form of self-satisfaction, since we find satisfaction in helping others. In a study conducted by Szuster (2016), he studied the different dimensions of altruism in detail. In the study, he found that altruism can be rooted in our social lives, through the formation of bonds, familiarity and a form of dependence on others to create a sense of belonging and affection. We learn that helping others is important for building a relationship and therefore altruism and the act of altruism are formed through our social interactions with others, which are entirely subjective and cannot be truly altruistic. This shows that while we cannot be truly altruistic and that our reason for helping is somehow for our own benefit, the reason why we develop the will to help others can be seen in our relationships with other people and in the new feeling of compassion for them. And from this I understand that altruism in Comfe's eyes is not true altruism, since he does not see why we should help them but rather sees that we must help them, falling into the slave morality that Nietzsche implies, and from this, I believe that true altruism is formed from a subjective view that is more in line with a "master morality", where one should help others because they believe it is right, where it comes from one's own sense of compassion, which in turn forms a genuine desire to put others above of themselves because, although it is in line with their goals, the action is performed for the good of other people because they believe it is the right thing to do to help them. Kindness Kindness has always been appreciated. It has been shown on every show and people generally appreciate acts of kindness. The act of kindness shows parts of compassion and a sense of selflessness. We can think of it as the part where we act out of said compassion and altruism. Kindness has always been valued as something that everyone should learn, so much so that even ancient texts such as the Bible show an example of kindness, in the parable of the Good Samaritan found in the book of Luke. The act of kindness is shown more explicitly in the passage from Luke 10:33-35 which says: «But a Samaritan, while he was traveling, came to where the man was; and when he saw him, he had pity on him. He approached and bandaged his wounds, pouring oil and wine on them. Then he put the man on his donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. “Take care of him,” she said, “and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expenses you may have.” “This part of the Good Samaritan shows the extent to which kindness can help people and shows his compassion as he ignores the man's status and only tries to help him, which shows a certain sense of altruism. I interpret the parable as one of the best biblical examples of an act of kindness and what can be compared to a human act. Kindness is a difficult term to define. We know kindness when we see it happen, but when we try to define it, we often end up thinking it means any good deed. However, we cannot say that all acts of kindness are positive. As previously stated, companies will try to act kindly by supporting movements like LGBTQ+ and BLM. However, these companies have been shown to support these movements for advertising purposes only. A recent example of this came from Activision Blizzard, as reported in an article by Victor (2019), in which a Chinese player named ChungNg Wai was a member of their tournament because he had shown support for the protests that took place in Hong Kong, which led to him being kicked out of the tournament, losing all the prize money he earned and suspending the two commentators at the time. The result was that many fans internationally showed support for Chung and the Hong Kong protests, which caused an immediate backlash in the community against Activision Blizzard as it was leaked that their Chinese social media account on Weibo apologized with China over Chung's behavior. This shows that companies like Disney and Activision Blizzard actually don't care about supporting movements for a good cause if it hurts their profits since these are the same companies that show "support" for popular movements in the West and feign kindness solely for the their gain. . So if kindness can be manipulated for personal gain, what makes kindness genuine? regarding the parable of the Good Samaritan, Nietzsche's vision of compassion, and the philosophy of altruism, I understand that most of these show forms of this which people commonly see as human. The Good Samaritan shows a Samaritan helping another because he wants to help, Nietzsche sees people with a "master morality" who show pity for others receiving actual recognition, and Comfe's collectivist view on altruism shares a common factor. The ability to care. The word “human” can apply to many things, most of which center around ethics. Thus, the act of doing something considered humane shows a form of genuine care. Whether it's caring for others, caring for animals, caring for nature, or caring for anything, recognize the value and act accordingly. We may consider tests on laboratory rats as a bit "inhumane" because we do not consider the lives of rats, but we can say that the reason why these rats are used is due to their similarity to our DNA, so it can be argued that it is for the common good. We can feel pity for a criminal for his motives and still consider him deserving of a sentence. We can help people who have hurt others in the past if we believe it is the right thing to do. Based on these actions done by companies, we cannot say that their support of the movements is humane and considered an act of kindness as we can see that it is used to gain their own profit. I see that the act of being human is not just to feel pity, to act selflessly and kindly. But rather, I see that the act, in some way, embodies them all, with a sense of care involved. We commonly view charities as something human. We commonly view animal testing under appropriate conditions as something humane. So, what prevents the act of being human as a form of seeking the common good through the means of adequate care? I have learned that the act of being human cannot be determined solely by the act or where it comes from. It depends on the reason and the method. In the end, I learned that human, like all words, cannot be given a concrete definition. We all see ethics in different ways. What matters in human acts is not the action, but rather the method. Returning to the parable of the Good Samaritan, why did the Samaritan help the boy? Because he saw that he needed help. But did he help the man recklessly, without considering other factors? First he patched him up, then he gave him a ride on his donkey. He considered how to deal with the situation, rather than blindly helping the man. He even promised the innkeeper to repay any extra expenses he had. He simply could have:+9:35-38