Judaism, Christianity, and Islam are instances of monotheism, while ancient Greece and Rome were polytheistic.
But what about these quasi-religious secular Panics we’ve been looking at, over harms like racism, misogyny, LGBT-phobia, warming, abortion, etc? (See here). What manner of thing are they? They’re certainly not theistic: God is down in Locke’s Private chamber, while these are up at our major league, public tier.
Here’s a suggestion: Propositional Polymaltruism.
Altruism (latin Alter = other) is focused on the Other. An altruist says to an injured Other: “Let me give you all the money in my wallet because you need it.”
Maltruism, to coin a term, is focused on the Bad Other (mal + Alter). A maltruist helps injured people indirectly, by opposing the Bad Other who keeps harming them: abortionists, racists, etc.
Polymaltruism is where adherents agree on the same set of Bad Others. For our Establishment today (universities, media platforms, Fortune 500 companies, etc), this would include racists, misogynists, LGBT-phobes, and warming deniers. This is a default bundle that’s usually opposed in toto.
Propositional Maltruism is where opposing the Bad Other is primarily in form of mental agreement with a proposition, like “abortion is murder”, or (on the other side) “abortion bans are misogynist”.
The mental agreement seems trivial since it’s not really doing anything in itself, but it’s key because it defines which side you’re on. As one abolitionist put it: “Are you a Slavery Man, or an anti-Slavery Man?” The issue becomes a litmus test of character, your mental position being the most important defining thing.
As propositional maltruists see it, these giant issues are systemic, and in our democracy we can’t fix the system til we flip a critical mass of people to our side. If they mentally flip they’ll vote the right way and voila, we can finally stop the atrocity. It’s mostly voting, but it also includes “changing the culture” inside institutions: we need a critical mass of people who “get it” inside Google or Princeton or Paramount before the institution can improve. And “getting it” is primarily propositional: do they take the right mental positions on these divisive issues?
As a religion substitute, propositional polymaltruism seems clearly evident in the US by around 1850, when you could see the same Unitarian opposing slavery, female inequality, war in general, and Big Alcohol (temperance): all grand secular harms, all requiring systemic political change, and hence all primarily requiring the flipping of mental positions. Rebuking sinners into flipping their mental positions was certainly in the comfort zone of preachers at the time, so the transition was a smooth one.
Calvinism had streamlined away the more supernatural functions of Catholic priests like granting absolution after confession, and mystically transforming the bread and wine into Christ’s body and blood. What Calvinist pastors were left with was largely a teaching role: leading parishioners to the correct mental positions on various religious topics through sermons and writings. In Calvinism especially, one’s mental position on propositions like “Do you rely on Christ’s grace alone for your personal salvation?” could seem ultra-important: the key divider of sheep vs goats, elect vs non-elect, saved vs unsaved. And so I suppose this propositional nature of Protestantism eased the path to modernity’s propositional polymaltruism.
Why Propositional Maltruism and not, say, Altruism?
Altruism as a concept was also coming to the fore around this time. Comte coined the term in 1853. What impressed people about altruism was how disinterested it was. This was possibly a reaction against Enlightenment thinkers like Hobbes and Locke, who’d argued all humans naturally seek their own pleasure and power. (See here). If that’s the natural law, then truly disinterested generosity seems almost supernatural: “Wow, you’re giving all this to a stranger with no advantage to yourself!”
Even in a secularizing world that found it increasingly difficult to believe in heaven or in saints performing miracles, we could still agree it’s pretty damn saintly and pretty darn admirable to disinterestedly give away your stuff to those in need.
So it would seem like Altruism could have filled the void being left by privatizing religion. Give secular boons to strangers in need. Don’t pray for them, build them a house. Maybe that could have been our new major league morality? We could have started transitioning into that around 1840 and been done by 1900. Random Acts of Kindness Nation.
That didn’t happen, obviously, and we went with propositional maltruism instead. In hindsight, I think the issue was mainly this:
Altruism is optional because it’s hard and not systemic
Propositional maltruism is mandatory because it’s easy and systemic
We can’t morally demand that people give away lots of their stuff. Altruism is impressive because it’s extreme, but by the same token we can’t demand it of the average person. It’s too hard; it requires too much sacrifice. The other problem with altruism is it’s not systemic: “Yeah, this one incredibly generous guy built this poor person a house, but we can’t depend on random spasms like that to the solve the systemic problem of poverty. Poverty afflicts millions, and to fix it we need better schools and penal reform and bla bla bla, all of which must be rationally funded by small involuntary tax burdens on everyone. It will not be solved by uncoordinated and undependable acts of voluntary generosity.” And likewise with all maltruist targets today: abortion, racism, warming, etc. Altruism won’t work: flipping mental positions on propositional issues is what’s needed.
We can morally demand that people pick the right mental position on propositional issues, precisely because it’s so easy. We can’t demand you physically adopt a fetus about to be aborted yourself. You just have to mentally adopt the right position (“abortion is murder”): then you’ll be on the right side of the issue, you’ll pass the litmus test of character, you’ll vote the right way, and a system will be put in place to curb those 600,000 deaths a year. This is propositional maltruism, and it’s mandatory because it’s easy and systemic. It costs you almost nothing: just recognize atrocity when you see it, and pick the right side.
For a belief to be part of what I call your “major league morality”, you have to think denial of it is indecent. (See here). Such major league beliefs sit in the Panics chamber on the right, and Altruism will never sit in that chamber because we don’t think the failure to be altruistic is indecent. Altruism is something admirable you’re free to pursue in the Private chamber where you can’t impose it by force on your neighbors, and they’re still rational and decent people if they opt out.
(I keep bringing things back to diagrams like this because it’s all one connected model I’m trying to describe).
CLOSING ASIDE on word “maltruism”: The term has been around since 2017 at least, but with a different meaning. The two prior uses I’ve found meant “bad Altruism”: i.e., something that is clearly altruism like charitable donations, but done with bad motives like pride or spite. See this by Thomas Buckley (2023): “Infective Maltruism: Is charity still charity when it’s performed for uncharitable reasons?” And this in Urban Dictionary:
Maltruism: Giving to charity to spite someone
Whenever I see protests in front of Planned Parenthood, I give to Planned Parenthood out of maltruism.
by Stefonfan September 4, 2017
I’m using it here to mean something different: “focus on a Bad Other”, paralleling how altruism is “focus on an Other”. I don’t mind overloading the term with a new meaning since I think the new meaning is generally more helpful and applicable. “Bad Altruism” seems like a relatively niche concern, while “focus on a Bad Other” surrounds us constantly. Indeed, Stefonfan’s own example includes propositional maltruism, the pro-lifers being his Bad Others, while his donation is Bad Altruism.
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