Slain Navy Seal receives Medal of Honor

Last week, President Bush posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor to Petty Officer Michael A. Monsoor, who died in Iraq in September 2006. Petty Officer Monsoor, a member of the Navy Seals, was killed when he threw his body on a live grenade in order to save his comrades. Monsoor was on a rooftop with a sniper team that included two other members of the Navy Seals and three Iraqi Army solders. When the insurgents below began to attack, a grenade was lobbed onto the roof and struck Monsoor in the chest before falling at his feet. Monsoor threw himself on the grenade and absorbed the blast with his body, saving the lives of his five comrades.

Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions are a perfect example of prosocial behavior. Prosocial behavior is defined as behavior that benefits others but has no obvious benefit to the individual that carries it out. Monsoor’s actions were certainly beneficial to the people around him, yet had no apparent benefit to Monsoor himself. In this case, not only was the behavior not beneficial to the person who carried it out, but it also carried with it enormous costs.

One could make the argument that Petty Officer Monsoor’s actions were motivated by pure altruism. While some believe that there is no such thing as true altruism, and that all actions are egoistic at their core, one would be hard-pressed to make that argument here. Monsoor did not dive on the grenade for his own benefit—to feel better about himself, for an adrenaline rush, or anything of that nature. The only benefiters in this situation were the five people whose lives Monsoor saved.

Batson would likely say that empathy was a key factor in Monsoor’s split-second decision. Batson’s empathy-altruism hypothesis maintains that the motivation behind some actions is truly altruistic, and that empathy is necessary for such an action to be carried out. On the battlefield, it could be assumed that each soldier has very high levels of empathy towards his fellow comrades. They have trained together and worked in unison, and are now united against a common enemy. Petty Officer Monsoor’s empathy likely played a role in triggering his truly altruistic actions. His sacrifice was an example of prosocial behavior in its rawest form.

Source: The New York Times, 4/9/08