Altruism. Does it exist and is it a true possibility in diaconal and social work?

• Main Author: Anne Birgitta Pessi
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht Verlage 2017-04-01
• Series: Diaconia
• Subjects: compassion; altruism; view of humans; helping; diaconia; social work; studies
• Online Access: https://vr-elibrary.de/doi/10.13109/diac.2017.8.1.69

This article focuses both on the theoretical analysis of altruism and on its empirical illustration on the individual level. The first part of the paper, the theoretical section, presents the core ideas of the altruism discussion in different fields as well as its historical turns in academia. The overall goal of the article is to inspire a discussion of altruism – the core question of human action – in diaconia and socialwork studies and research. The article also aims at questioning the overarching, easy, superficial view of humans being non-altruist in their core.