%0 Journal Article
%A Smilansky, Saul Smilansky
%D 2021
%J Journal of Controversial Ideas

%@ 2694-5991

%V 1
%N 1
%P 7

%T A Puzzle about Self-Sacrificing Altruism
%M doi:10.35995/jci01010007
%U https://journalofcontroversialideas.org/article/1/1/135
%X I present a puzzle concerning individual self-sacrificing altruism (SSA) that, to the best of my knowledge, has not been considered before. I develop an argument that challenges the common sense attitudes towards self-sacrificial altruism in typical, paradigmatic cases. I consider SSA involving sacrificing one’s life for other human beings, focusing, for the sake of simplicity, on saving a single person. We have reasons to think that many paradigmatic acts of SSA may, on reflection, be irrational, that typical moral heroes are mistaken, that dispositional self-sacrificers should perhaps resist their good urges to keep saving people, and that the enchantments of heroism should regularly be resisted.