Unposted response. Egoism/altruism

My response to B**, who argued that it was moral to expect and receive payment in return for saving a drowning victim's life, and that anything less would constitute a concession to altruism:

As far as the drowner scenario goes for me personally, insisting on receiving payment for saving his life would eliminate the ego-gratifying benefits that saving his life for free conferred upon me, unless I was in a profession in which life-saving was literally a part of my job. In the first place, it would be an admission that a human life was not a thing of value worthy of being preserved for its own sake. I would be embarrassed and ashamed as a human being to ever make such an admission, and it would also be self-damning, since I would be admitting that my own life was not of sufficient value to merit being preserved for its own sake, which would be crushing to my ego and sense of self-worth. In the second place, by reducing the heroic act of saving a life to a mere transaction of goods and services, I am denying myself the honor that would be associated with saving a human life out of little more than an extremely high regard for the value of that life. In one fell swoop I would confess to having no regard for a human life beyond some arbitrary monetary value and simultaneously strip myself of any and all chance to feel that I had acted heroically and valorously.

In other words, the act of saving a human life should confer a great many personal benefits to the person doing the saving, not to gloss over, of course, the enormous benefit received by the person being saved. I agree with you insofar as I think it's plain wrong to stick to the old idea that the greatest act of goodwill or charity is one which entails the least amount of benefit to the doer. Even if such an ideal were possible, which I suppose it may be given an infinity of hypothetical scenarios, why should we strive for it? If in such a scenario the receiver of the act of goodwill or charity were no better off, what possible good can come of the doer depriving himself of all benefits? Seems to me if we can have two that benefit from one act at no greater cost to either party then that should be the most desireable outcome.

Lastly, if you honestly wouldn't save a life (assuming for the sake of argument that the drowner is neither a loved one nor someone you know of in any way that might prejudice your action) unless you were paid in some way, I'd venture to say there could be something missing in you. I would never suggest that you should feel morally compelled to risk your life to save a total stranger; but if the act of rescuing someone, assuming of course that you were able to do so without putting yourself at too great a risk, failed to give you any reward whatsoever simply for the sake of having acted heroically and preserving a thing of value due to your ability to act with courage, skill, and physical prowess, then I guess I never understood a thing about egoism.