An analysis of Sympathy

Tonight I was reading and excerpt from James Q. Wilson's The Moral Sense. In It I read over this section which wilson explained "Psychologists debate whether feeling distress at the plight of another means that the sympathetic person "really wants" to help the distressed person or whether the former gets some pyschic benefit (such as avoiding shame or relieving stress) from helping the latter." He used the example of "Suppose you confront a person who has collapsed on a bus. You feel distressed. If your distress it truly sympathic your only course of action is to help the person, unless of course, someone else helps him first. But if all you want is to relieve your sense of distress, you get off the bus at the next stop, Out of sight, out of mind..." He also goes on to say, "we praise only motives that have defeated self interest; we reserve our greatest praise for those motives that have the greatest difficulty in overcoming self-interest." I just thought that was such a great example when looking at sympathy. I think it is a rare instance today that you would encounter someone who is genuinely interested in your well being and not their own in order to help out when one is distressed. I beleive those people are truly selfless and worthy of praise, Rather than those who seek to help, expecting something in return. But in all i think in serious situations such as the example above you find atleast one person in a situation such as that who is not thinking of themselves but rather the goo of all.