Self-love and morality: Beyond egoism and altruism

Pitrim Sorokin, one of the twentieth century's pioneer social scientists of altruism, defined the key problematic in altruism as "the tragedy of tribal altruism,'' or the fact that "in-group altruism" inevitably implies "out-group egoism." Sorokin believes that an exclusive group solidarity, group loyalty or tribal altruism has mercilessly set man against man, and group against group. It has killed more human beings, destroyed more cities and brought upon mankind more suffering than any other catastrophe. The need to move from tribal egoism to universal altruism remains as urgent in our era as it did before. If in-group altruism necessarily means out-group egoism, can human altruism ever extend beyond in-groups to embrace the entire human race? As to this point, it is worth noting that the concepts of in-group and out-group are relative, that it is possible to take the entire human race, even all sentient beings, as one group...