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Abstract

This article reviews findings from a study on philanthropy among the wealthy, with a special emphasis on adoption philanthropy. Attempts to define altruism from deductive philosophical or theoretical reason ing are destined to disappoint, and a positive understanding of altru ism must be gleaned from an inductive examination of adoption philanthropy. Recent considerations on altruism have shifted the de bate from the rational dismissal of altruism to an exploration of its existence as part of human nature (Piliavin and Charng, 1990). This change in analytic perspective implies that the study of altruism can now be moved further into the sociological arena by constructing it in terms of emotion, taste, moral sentiment, and normative orientation. That is, altruism can be viewed not just as a part of human nature (as anthropology and sociobiology have indicated) but as part of moral biography and identity.

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Adoption and Altruism: Those with Whom I Want to Share a Dream

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