ABSTRACT
There are altruists and there are non-altruists, though both may be just. The reason why altruists’ motives to help others will tend to be eroded when that help is institutionalised has, I think, something to do with individual freedom. Part of the value of altruism-certainly for the altruist, but perhaps not only for her-is that it is so often a voluntary choice. Non-altruists, of course, are at least as attached to their individual freedom-though they too can concede that it may be abridged for reasons of justice. But many non-altruistic people might go further: they might object to political arrangements that made non-altruistic behaviour more costly or that even encouraged it. Suppose, for example, that people who chose not to recycle or not to give blood, or young people who chose not to do civilian service all suffered some cost, financial or social. Or suppose that we were bombarded with state-sponsored television adverts extolling the virtues of charitable giving. Although non-altruists are not coerced, and in that sense remain free, their choice of how to live is preempted by political arrangements which seek explicitly to encourage a more altruistic way of life. ‘lf I comply with justice’, a non-altruist might say, ‘why should I be encouraged to have altruistic motives, and to bear costs I did not choose to bear? I may choose to help others if I wish, my family and friends above all, but that is a personal matter’. Thus it remains a powerful objection to political arrangements that encourage altruistic behaviour that they demand more of us than we are morally required to give. In a society where people value their freedom, this argument goes, the state has no business encouraging altruism.
