Sympathy as Evidence for Altruism and its Relation with Morality in the View of Daniel Batson

In recent centuries, scholars of various strands have found interest in finding about behavioral actions. The fact that human beings care for others and tend to help them has led some scholars to ask what the ultimate motivation and goal of these human behaviors are. Thus, two intellectual approaches emerged: “egoism” and “altruism.” Egoists trace motivations for philanthropist human behaviors to personal interests, while altruists think that humans are able to do actions the ultimate goal of which is to provide the well-being and comfort of others. In this paper, we deal with the views of Daniel C. Batson, an altruist psychologist. Batson offers an empirical thesis of altruism-sympathy to account for human philanthropist behaviors, challenges egoistic views, and supports a version of psychological altruism. Batson claims that a feeling of sympathetic concern or care for the other leads to an altruistic motivation for helping and providing the well-being of the other. Batson’s method is positivistic. He tries to substantiate his thesis via a rigorous empirical experiment. Batson’s altruism is a type of motivation, rather than an action, and it does not necessarily lead to a moral action, although it is a requirement of a good society. In this paper, we explain and analyze Batson’s view with a descriptive-analytic approach.