Altruism does not have so much to do with the phenomenon of economic inequality but with an evolution of moral sensitivity through the use of new symbolic cognitive instruments throughout the civilizational process. It is not inequality that becomes morally intolerable, but empathic sensitization that makes the suffering of others emotionally intolerable.
Economic inequality has often been called “systemic violence” and that is the dimension in which altruism has to be addressed: as an element of development of the control of aggression, which is in reality the authentic human problem par excellence.
Altruism does not have so much to do with the phenomenon of economic inequality but with an evolution of moral sensitivity through the use of new symbolic cognitive instruments throughout the civilizational process. It is not inequality that becomes morally intolerable, but empathic sensitization that makes the suffering of others emotionally intolerable. Economic inequality has often been called “systemic violence” and that is the dimension in which altruism has to be addressed: as an element of development of the control of aggression, which is in reality the authentic human problem par excellence.