What intrinsic value is there in altruism?
Only a negative value, which means it is bad, not good. That means it isn’t a value at all. The term was coined by Auguste Comte, and according to the Dictionary of Philosophy (Runes; 1942) meant “the discipline and eradication of self-centered desire” which IN BRIEF “involved the self-abnegating love of Catholic Christianity redirected towards Humanity” including “a conscious opposition [ ] to egoism”. http://www.ditext.com/runes/a.html As the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy makes clear, egoism and altruism are each the abnegation of the other. But as the IEP also makes clear, egoism is part of psyche and comes in two forms: Descriptive, and Normative. Descriptive merely describes an action as having been for the good of the individual–or else why would the individual have taken the action? This may have been what Comte despised about the species Homo sapiens. Normative egoism, however, first determines what is moral
