GOD & ALTRUISM VS THE EGO

ONE: ARE ALTRUISM AND THE EGO COMPATIBLE?

to act altruistically is to act selflessly, detached from our own concerns and focusing on the objective morality of the situation, often prioritising the wellbeing of others over our own interests, especially if it involves sacrifice. the ego is the self, defined by our sense of self-worth and the priority we give to our own interest. to act egotistically is synonymous with acting selfishly: to reach our own goal with disregard to the interests of others.
in Singer's pond analogy, he makes an argument for effective altruism through the example of 'the life you can save'. the analogy goes:
on your journey to work, you walk through a park with a shallow pond. on your way to work one day, you see a child drowning in the pond. if you help then the child will live, you will not drown or be injured, but your clothes will be wet and you will be late for work. if you do not help the child will definitely die. should you help the child?

though Singer actually uses this as an analogy for wealth and suffering, here I'm using it to highlight the conflict between altruistic motivations and the ego.
most people say that yes, you have a moral responsibility to help the child. this could be considered altruistic, because they gain nothing from saving the child's life and are even disadvantaged by it, but they believe that the moral importance of saving the child from drowning outweighs this. the reasoning often given is that "i couldn't live with myself if i didn't help". however, this could still be considered egocentric, because the person asserts that they save the child to avoid feelings of guilt and regret. the inconvenience of helping is considered insignificant in comparison to the negative emotions produced by responsibility for the child's death, not in comparison to the value of the child's life. even if you believe the child's life has significantly greater value, you save them to fulfil what you believe to be your moral duty, so that you feel you have done the right thing, and so that you can consider yourself a morally good person. all of these are egocentric motivations based on producing a positive self-image and your own interests to act morally. this implies that we can never act wholly altruistically, as we are always going to have an element of egocentricity to our actions: you want to act altruistically because you feel it is the right thing to do.


TWO: IS ALTRUISM THE HIGHEST FORM OF GOOD?

so the influence of the ego is unavoidable. but this doesn't mean we should give up on acting to improve the lives of others, because the positive impact of our actions is still very real. leaving the abstract behind for a minute, you can see that when you are kind to people or put their needs before your own, they do benefit. here, i'm talking about ideals and principles.
one argument in favour of altruism is based on the principles of utilitarianism. utilitarianists believe that ethical actions are those which produce the most pleasure for the most people. this leads towards altruism, since the sum of society's pleasure outweighs the individual's, and society's pleasure is presumably worth the suffering of the individual. then according to the utilitarianist, we should at least be following effective altruism. as outlined in Singer's paper, the strong version of this theory requires us to give until the point of 'marginal utility' (where giving any more would cause us the same level of suffering as those we are helping), while the moderate version requires us to give as long as we aren't sacrificing something morally significant. in either version, the positive effects of the action will outweigh the possible detriment to the individual, suggesting that these forms of altruism are in line with the utilitarianist perspective.

another argument in favour of altruism is based on three claims: that helping others is good; acting selfishly is bad; and the best good is the purest good.
i won't go into the first claim in depth, since i don't think it's very controversial. philosopher John Rawls asserts that we have a responsibility to help others because inequality is based on luck, meaning that since we don't do anything to deserve it, it is unjust. therefore, we have a responsibility to help others whenever we can. helping others is also well valued in society, as through the expectation to 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you', and it's considered the ethical thing to do generally enough that it doesn't need much defence. even if it isn't obligatory, it's definitely a good and moral thing to do.
opinions can differ as to whether acting selfishly is bad when it doesn't harm others. but it's not controversial to say that selfish acts that do harm others are generally looked down on and considered immoral. from this, we can say that actions with the potential to do harm are bad: eg, if someone doesn't know they're being stalked they're technically not harmed by it, but we would still consider stalking wrong, in part because of the potential harm it can cause. even if someone is used to acting selfishly only when it has the potential to harm others, they will become a more selfish person. but there aren't so many types of selfish person, and to be selfish in any capacity means that they'll more readily excuse actions that harm others, because the motivations aren't that different from their own. therefore, acting selfishly is wrong in principle because of the harm it can cause by making the person selfish, making them more likely to act selfishly in all parts of their life and eventually cause harm.
if someone who is selfish is more likely to harm others, it follows that the less selfish an act is, the more ethical it is. since altruism is fundamentally incompatible with the ego, it becomes the least selfish type of good, and the most pure. this doesn't mean that other types of good are insignificant, since they still have a real impact, just that altruism is the 'ideal' good. then does being the purest good make it the best good? i would argue yes, because selfless acts are in principle better than selfish acts, as seen in the previous claim, and because the nature of ethics is our striving for the best and most ideal type of goodness.


THREE: HOW DOES THIS AFFECT OUR PERCEPTION OF GOD?

for God to be God, by definition, he must be the greatest, highest, and most perfect being- essentially, the 'ideal'. if we agree that altruism is the highest, purest and most ideal form of good, then God, by definition, must be altruistic. but if altruism and the ego are fundamentally incompatible, then for God to be perfect he cannot have an ego. although this is contrary to many depictions of God, i would argue that these depictions only give God ego because of the limits of human understanding: it's too difficult for us to imagine a being or force without ego that is still directly active within the universe. yet many religions do depict God as transcendent and above human understanding, often because we don't understand why God has made things the way they are. whether or not God exists, it's not a radical perspective to say that we can't fully understand him, and certain lines of reasoning (such as ego vs altruism) easily take us to the belief that God has no ego.

however, you might say that since God is omnipotent, he would be able to reconcile altruism and the ego. i would still argue that the two are fundamentally incompatible, and that for God to be able to separate himself from his ego enough to act altruistically, he would lose his omnipotence. this is because through detaching himself from his ego, God must then follow something else: some higher sense of good (such as altruism), or orders from a higher power (such as to do good). but for God to be God, there can be nothing higher, more good or more powerful than God. furthermore, if God had ego, he would only be following these things because they suited him. you could argue that God would still be able to reconcile altruism and the ego, and that this is just something beyond human understanding. i've also used this line of reasoning, so it's not something i can really argue against, and is why religion is only backed by logic until a certain point, the rest of it being faith.