there is no such thing as a selfless act

[CoffeeDrinker]

^ I hear ya. I am coming from the Dharma standpoint myself. It's kind of funny arguing with Ayn Rand fans. I think it is possible to prove anything you want to prove if you frame the argument correctly for your purposes, hence the limitations on "philosophy" as a way to logically prove the "correct" way to live and behave.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ Indeed. This is why philosophy is more a verbal sport than a collaborative project towards irrefutable truth, to me.

 

[azzazza !?]

philosophy is not about proving or answering anything definitively. any such project is doomed to failure from the start. its about understanding the question.

 

[Shakti]

I think the divide between selfish and unselfish acts is unnecessary and misleading. I think in pursuing one's most innermost desires and motivations and coming to act and live upon them, one will find that the primary motivation and expression is LOVE. Ecstatic union with manifest reality. Fully committing to your own nature (Self) will lead to selfless action.

Rationalism can suck it. Who serves who here?

 

[Philoscybin]

I think it's a rare person who has lived any sort of life worth wanting, without the generous help of other people who went the extra mile for them. Altruistic acts, toward those capable of appreciating them, simply work -- they build connectivity between people, which is what allows individuals to not only live, but thrive. Seems pretty rational to me.

Then again, I do not start from the popular libertarian premise that I am the sole owner and determinant of me, which I think is preposterous. Nor do I espouse the view that my life is nought but a tooth and nail struggle to perpetuate my genes, which I see as buying into a sucker's game.

An act fails to be altruistic if it rationally contributes to ones self. Interaction and human connection doesn't fall under the category of being altruistic if it's supporting a rational means towards happiness. By participating on this forum, we are all sharing and spreading knowledge through such means without being altruistic per se. We are interacting and connecting in a positive way that betters ourselves, thus being selfish not altruistic.

As far as stating this as a libertarian premise, it really isn't. Objectivism may have influenced some libertarian ideology, but the two actually butt heads over several positions. Ayn Rand even stated that libertarians are even more detrimental to freedom than liberals and conservatives- which I totally disagree with.

I personally only take Rand's words so far, as with any great philosopher they can be contradictory and stubborn. It's funny how you see so many college students first discover her and just immediately jump onto that whole elitist bandwagon only to misrepresent her entire ideology. We can learn a lot from Rand however and I think she is absolutely essential for one to study, as opposed to developing some brief and misconstrued generalizations of her off of Wikipedia.

 

[azzazza !?]

an act may be directly altruistic, while its rational selfish dimension is indirect; a construct developed from hindsight. The moment of the act can be completely altruistic, without a positivistic rational knowing that it returns to you. it may be a hope, or something that usually does happen, but is doesn't have to happen. in fact, should others not commit to the altruistic act (which they might), the rational return collapses. so the individual act is altruistic; the rational return, a leap of faith, faith in the others doing the same thing. so from the collective view, it is rationalistic, but on the individual level it is not. infact, having this collective viewpoint, rationally, on the individual level when i would not contribute, my calculus is better: i have no investment, while enjoying full return (ie. freeriding). in turn, rationalizing this to the collective level, this would destroy the benificial system. thus, while having this system is rationally better for everyone, and can be individually rationalised by means of construct, on the strictly individual level the act is actually altruistic. the construct is a leap of faith, and thus, in itself, not rational. pure rationality would actually destroy the system. pure altruism on the other hand, would not. in these matters, we are, infact, rationalising altruism from a hindsight perpective.
[the problem of freeriding]

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ Well put.

Philocybin, I don't think there's as clear and consistent a connection between rational calculation of benefit to oneself and helping others, as you're suggesting. I'm not saying it never happens that people do good to others in order to help themselves. But arguing that someone later did benefit, or even just could have benefitted, from a favor they did for someone else, seems pretty post hoc to me. You have no way of proving that this actual or intended benefit was anticipated, either consciously or subconsciously. It could have been entirely coincidental.

If we're talking at the level of primal reward circuitry, one sees cases very frequently of people who do things with other people in mind that are not pleasant to the doer in the least, because the person is certain it's the right thing to do.

I frequently hear people say that we do good for others for the vicarious thrill of seeing others joy, and that therefore it's done for the doer's own selfish sake. This is pure semantics as far as I'm concerned. I could just as easily rephrase this by saying that our capacity for vicarious joy facilitates altruism, without doing a reductio ad absurdum on altruism.

 

[azzazza !?]

^besides that, there are altruistic acts that do not involve seeing other peoples joy. even the exact opposite. you might do something for someone that said person will not take in gratitude at all, even to the point of hating you for it; yet he or she may come to see, after a while, that it was the best thing to do, and only thank you for it lateron. in this case, neiter the doer or the reciever of the altruistic act has an immediate, direct gratification, besides just knowing for oneself it is the right thing to do. in such cases it will actually hurt both the doer and the reciever of the act at the time. said person may also never come to thank you at all, due to external circumstances, stubbornness, etc...

-edit: o wait, you actually already said something to that extent. oh well, elaboration-

 

[Philoscybin]

an act may be directly altruistic, while its rational selfish dimension is indirect; a construct developed from hindsight. The moment of the act can be completely altruistic, without a positivistic rational knowing that it returns to you. it may be a hope, or something that usually does happen, but is doesn't have to happen. in fact, should others not commit to the altruistic act (which they might), the rational return collapses. so the individual act is altruistic; the rational return, a leap of faith, faith in the others doing the same thing. so from the collective view, it is rationalistic, but on the individual level it is not. infact, having this collective viewpoint, rationally, on the individual level when i would not contribute, my calculus is better: i have no investment, while enjoying full return (ie. freeriding). in turn, rationalizing this to the collective level, this would destroy the benificial system. thus, while having this system is rationally better for everyone, and can be individually rationalised by means of construct, on the strictly individual level the act is actually altruistic. the construct is a leap of faith, and thus, in itself, not rational. pure rationality would actually destroy the system. pure altruism on the other hand, would not. in these matters, we are, infact, rationalising altruism from a hindsight perpective.
[the problem of freeriding]

Well this would apply to an altruistic act between a stranger. Obviously if you give X amount of money to a complete stranger, there is no guaranty or promise through some mystical force (i.e. karma) that you will be compensated in any way. It's up to the individual to rationally ensure the probability of receiving a reward to which they're expecting through a mutually beneficial trade.

If you invest your trust in someone, you're making a rational judgement that they are worthy of your trust. If you were giving something to a friend and expecting something in return, you'd tell them what you expect, and chances are they'll give it to you. If they don't seem to respect the give and take concept, you're probably going to discontinue trusting them.

Altruism from the perspective of giving something to a stranger completely free then expecting that philanthropy to be returned by arcane means is irrational. If you give to a charity, your philanthropy should be rationally based on the idea of valuing whatever that charity is for. You should be okay with sinking money into the charity and seeing absolutely no material gain for you. The payment would be emotional. That's why charity should be chosen on an individual level and not mandated by law or other sociological factors.

 

[azzazza !?]

If you invest your trust in someone, you're making a rational judgement that they are worthy of your trust. If you were giving something to a friend and expecting something in return, you'd tell them what you expect, and chances are they'll give it to you. If they don't seem to respect the give and take concept, you're probably going to discontinue trusting them.

investing trust in someone is never completely rational. (on a side note; many, if not all times, irrational emotions usually play a more or less significant role. these emotions are oftentimes (disease of our times) rationalised a posteroiri). while this investment may indeed be a well-weighed decision, there is no strict garantee of return. the probability may be 99%, but your friend will always have a free will, and with it, may possibly betray that trust. trust is in se an irrational act. what you trust him with is something you unconditionally surrender to the others will. a forwarding without any real, closed circuit guarantee. yes, there may be a history that makes return very likely. but never certain. yes there may be pressure from consequences of betrayal. but the point is, that what he is entrusted with, is completely in his hands, and there is nothing you can do pertaining the entrusted itself should he decide to betray that trust. it is, and will always be, a leap of faith, faith in the other. only upon the moment of return, has that trust proven to be correct.

so in short, the weighing may indeed play an important role, but will never provide total guarantee. rational weighing plays a quantitative role. more or less trustable. the act of trusting itself, qualitatively speaking, as a whole, remains irrational.

 

[Philoscybin]

Of course nothing can be proven to be full-proof. However, given all that we individually perceive and know, being our true reality, we are apt to make judgements and decisions. Rationalism is based upon our best ability to differentiate what is right from wrong. To be completely rational, is to be able to evaluate and differentiate a situation. We are not gods who can predict the future, so this is as far as rationalism can take us.

 

[Captain.Heroin]

Great topic for discussion. I'm glad there's another Ayn Rand fan on this forum! In terms of her philosophy, objectivism, she declares that the most ethical man is one who lives for himself, as an individual, above all other things. This means that selfishness is man's highest virtue. Selfishness, in its true sense, is practiced as a means towards one's ultimate happiness via rationalism. It's not based on, as it usually is confused with hedonistic acts such as instant gratification, self-indulgence, and short-term pleasures (bingeing on drugs/alcohol, food, and meaningless & unsafe sex, etc.). Nor does it promote any other narcissistic acts, such as aggressiveness, bullying, or carelessly stomping over and endangering other people and things.

That being said. To answer your question about helping someone in danger whether you even want to or not, it is very much circumstantial. It is only natural and very much rational to value human life, seeing as you value your own. In a situation where someone's life is endangered, you must take into consideration many factors. For one, seeing as you value human life, this makes up a part of who you are, and therefore you would be contradicting and negating your values and furthermore yourself if you were to neglect this person (even if you do not care for them). However, if you are putting yourself at an equal amount of risk by saving them, you would be succumbing to altruism. There may be an exception to this rule for someone serving in the military or as a police officer, as they live for the safety of other people. But above all, your life is the first thing to consider.

I am so glad that somebody gets it.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I think that in this proposition which I've encountered many times altruism gets annihilated because altruism is required to be pure while acting in one's own interest doesn't have such a handicap. Self interest has a changing scope. Community minded is not narrowly self interested but will always have a strong component of self interest.

Situations where personal interests are completely unrelated to the interests of others don't happen in pure abstract ways. I know of people who made marrow donations to people unrelated to themselves. A person who doesn't believe in altruism would likely argue that couldn't be altruism because they got a good feeling out of doing it and they got strokes and attention for doing it.

The other part of this that self interest works, is honest, and real; I accept. Self interest is legitimate and when tempered with an enlightened understanding that it is the primary basis for cooperation, conflict, and progress it is a good thing. Some Ayn Rand enthusiasts I have known have tried to treat near every instance of "atruism" as dishonest and deviant. Altruism while maybe never pure is neither total illusion or depravity imo.

 

[MyDoorsAreOpen]

^ That's one of the most fair and balanced assessments of the issue I've come across, Enki.

I've always felt that this "pure altruism" of which you speak is a straw man. It's kind of similar to Heidenberg's uncertainty principle -- one can't do a deed without being involved in it, and doing any deed inherently involves both affecting the recipients of the deed AND being affected by them. Those who argue that it isn't 'real' altruism unless the doer stands to gain absolutely nothing of benefit, are setting the bar impossibly high. And the point is, even when the doer does stand to gain something, tangible or intangible, that doesn't debase the nobility of putting the needs and wishes of others before one's own. (This is why, in this debate, I've always called into question the motivations of people who clearly want, i.e. have an interest in, seeing altruism written off; it makes me suspicious of what they'd be willing to justify doing.)

 

[being]

Years back I came to this conclusion, that every action can be traced to some selfish gain and that there exists no true altruism. But after delving deeply into spiritual teachings & practices my opinion has changed.

Imho the truly altruistic deeds arise from the understanding that we are all the same in the sense that we all suffer and strive for positive emotions (often through unwise means, tho).
If one sees no barrier between oneself and others or to say that one has no strong attachment in the view of 'me', it's easy to be equally nice to everyone including this 'me'.
'Spiritually advanced people' give a very good example of this in action.
The reason I believe in true altruism, is that I have experienced these states of mind myself, but nothing 'permanent' so far. This becomes kind of an automatic behavior, not something you think about, but something that's just natural.
And the reason I am answering to this, is that I really want to show others, that true altruism does exist and how.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I'm merging "On selfishness, kindness, empathy... " with "there is no such thing as a selfless act" at least in part to bump "no such thing" for the prune.

 

[L2R]

i still don't buy it. a pleasant consequence is not essential for altruism. there are many acts of kindness that i have done which have a cause no further than memories of my mum telling me to "be good" as a kid. i never consider a pleasant after-feeling or a better community, ever. also the pleasant after-feeling only comes if i consciously dwell on my act. if i am busy, i'd just as soon forget it as anything else.

 

[jabbajosh]

You can look at this statement in reverse...
If helping others in turn helps you. Then that is surely good cause for everyone to help others.
If the statement 'There is no selfless act' is real then why isn't everyone helping everyone all the time. Surely we'd be aware that it works by now?

 

[Egzoset]

Salutations AlasDAirM,

...that there is no such thing as a completely selfless act. ... ...i now agree. What do you think?

I wish to concur with this statement as well, judging from what i've seen since i've started corresponding on electronic media: the No-Strings-Attached attitude(s) rarely last forever in any case... That's my personal opinion.

 

[-=SS=-]

Well in order to do a selfless act one would surely need to be, selfless? Impossibility I think. One can do positive things for the community knowing they personally stand to gain nothing except maybe a smile of recognition, but even then doing some good will ultimately benefit the individual if enough people do the same.. we just don't see the direct reciprocal nature of this because it's usually drowned out by all the negative stuff coming back at us.

The question is inherently loaded. Only angels could possibly be selfless.. even the saints were only human.