 These reflections lead to a peculiar result: each act undertaken by such an individual could be altruistically motivated, and yet we are reluctant, and reasonably so, to say that he is an altruistic person. The best way to accommodate both ideas, which seem to be in tension, would be to make a distinction between two uses of the word “altruism”. An act is altruistic in the strong sense if is undertaken in spite of the perception that it involves some loss of one’s well-being. An act is altruistic in the weak sense if it is motivated, at least in part, by the fact that it benefits someone else or the fact that it will not injure anyone else. The individual described two paragraphs above is someone who never acts altruistically in the strong sense. That policy seems objectionable to many people—even though he may act altruistically in the weak sense on many occasions.