“Longitudinal or serial altruism, that is, altruism toward the generations in future time, arises, like lateral or space altruism, thru sympathy, that is, thru the imagination. The living sustain a vital relation to the unborn. Every one who recognizes and shows any regard for this relation, and there are very few who do, does so by putting himself in the place of the unborn billions, and by anticipation sharing their welfare and ill-fare.”

Source: Better-World Philosophy: A Sociological Synthesis (1899), Egoism and Altruism, p. 120

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Longitudinal or serial altruism, that is, altruism toward the generations in future time, arises, like lateral or space…" by J. Howard Moore?
J. Howard Moore photo
J. Howard Moore 183
1862–1916

Related quotes

J. Howard Moore photo
Peter Singer photo
J. Howard Moore photo
Margaret Sanger photo
African Spir photo
J. Howard Moore photo

“Act toward others as you would act toward a part of your own self is, it seems to me, the plainest and truest and the most comprehensive and useful rule of conduct ever formulated on this earth. It is the expression of balanced egoism and altruism. It is the soul of sympathy and oneness. It may be called the Law of the Larger Self.”

J. Howard Moore (1862–1916)

It is the extension of the regard which we have for ourselves to those below, above, and around us. It is simply the law of the individual organism widened to apply to the Sentient Organism. It is the message which is destined in time to come to redeem this world from the primal curse of selfishness. It is the dream which has been dreamed by the great teachers of the past independently of each other, merely by observing the actions of men and thinking what rule if followed would cure the wrongs and sufferings of this world.
Source: Ethics and Education (1912), The Larger Self, pp. 58–59

Aneurin Bevan photo

“Although I am not myself a devotee of bigness for bigness sake, I would rather be kept alive in the efficient if cold altruism of a large hospital than expire in a gush of warm sympathy in a small one.”

Aneurin Bevan (1897–1960) Welsh politician

speaking in the House of Commons during the reading of the NHS Bill http://www.sochealth.co.uk/resources/national-health-service/the-sma-and-the-foundation-of-the-national-health-service-dr-leslie-hilliard-1980/aneurin-bevan-and-the-foundation-of-the-nhs/bevans-speech-on-the-second-reading-of-the-nhs-bill-30-april-1946/. (30 April 1946)
1940s

Peter Singer photo

“We do not have to make self- sacrifice a necessary element of altruism. We can regard people as altruists because of the kind of interests they have rather than because they are sacrificing their interests.”

Source: The Most Good You Can Do: How Effective Altruism Is Changing Ideas About Living Ethically (2015), Chapter 9: Altruism and Happiness (p. 103)

Andy Andrews photo
Walter Raleigh photo

“Better were it to be unborn than ill-bred.”

Walter Raleigh (1554–1618) English aristocrat, writer, poet, soldier, courtier, spy, and explorer

Source: Instructions to his Son and to Posterity (published 1632), Chapter II

Related topics