Think about any good act you have done and then why you did it?
Acts of kindness and charity make us feel good, even if we make sacrifices to do so. In other cases sometimes we expect something in return, eg in a relationship you help your partner subliminally expecting something in return.
If you "loved" a partner then they left you, you would probably be unhappy about it in someway. If you did something nice at your own inconvenience for that partner then they left you the same way, would you feel worse? is that because you expected something?
We do nice things to fit into society, be accepted, be admired, be rewarded or to release chemicals to make us feel better. Some people do "good" to get into some kind of heaven. Some will even brag about their generosity and kindness or do good in the hope that it will be reciprocated (give you seat to an elder on a bumpy bus, donate to cancer research in the hope it will someday be cured.)
We do things for a legacy or memory, a rich man donates his wealth to charities, his name will be remembered as a great philanthropist who cared for others more than himself, sometimes in life sometimes as their dying wish, the legacy is still there, to reassure them that they will be remembered as a great person. Great for the ego.
Sometimes we do good because we are coerced, chuggers (chairty muggers) pressure people into being charitable, if the person had not done that we might not have donated or helped.
Given all this do we do anything entirely non selfishly?
Expecting a lot of people saying they are non selfish with a bunch of nice things they have done. Please embellish your points and explain why it is not simply you just trying to get some moral superiority over a randomer on the internet.
Kudos for people who bring good and bad into this. If a good action is done selfishly with no real consideration for others is it still good?
A point: I believe I am selfish in doing nice things, it hasn't stopped me from doing so. I live by the "good turn everyday" more from habit and the hope that the world will be a better place for me to live in someday.
[editline]12th November 2013[/editline]
Followup for those who ask
"what stops you from killing people or vandalising randomly"
Guilt and fear of consequences.
Guilt is from the morals imposed on us by society. IF we grew up being taught killing is "good" then we would feel less guilty, we might still feel some empathy seeing another stuggle, this is biological, not "goodness"
Personally, I don't believe in religious guidelines, and have lived by my own set of basic rules.
Don't be a dick, Don't cheat, don't steal shit.
One of the main reasons for not going out of my way to kill someone would be the fear of consequences though.
What are your reasons though?
By cheat do you mean in a relationship, in a test or like a scam?
My reason for not cheating (respective of the 3 above are):
Have done (she didnt know, we broke up soon after it had been bad a while), kinda have in a test writing down a forumla before we were taught to derive it ourselves (if theyre testing mathematical ability why obfuscate it with a formula), I wouldnt scam a person because it would set them a bad example and they might then go on to do it to me or someone else who does it to me (i dont want the world to be shit with everyone scamming, mainly for my own quality of life)
reasons for not being a dick: social acceptance, why alienate someone for no reason. A friend of mine does this to people because he thinks its alpha, its not and everyone just mocks him behind his back for it. I have told him but he persists. Also biologically (chemicals n shit) nice to socialise pleasently, without having to argue and defend yourself constantly. You can also reply on friends to help you out.
Don't steal. Mainly because of the consequences or the better world thing. IF i steal from oneone they will either become paranoid and resentful, angry and unfriendly or think its ok and start stealing aswell. All 3 cases are pretty crappy outcomes for me. In the case when the above are the lesser of 2 evils, such as starving I could gladly steal, then just avoid the victim. As most people would do. I have stolen in the past, though not for the starving thing, it was pretty crappy of me morally.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;42839196]
By cheat do you mean in a relationship, in a test or like a scam?[/QUOTE]
Relationships and Scamming, not school tests though, especially if it's shit i don't care about.
On the other things though, I've always kept a mind set of: Treat people how you want to be treated.
I tend to offer to buy people (relatively) cheap things since I have plenty of money for uni and I know how to manage my finances. I don't tend to think anything of it, it's usually to look at their pleased expressions.
[QUOTE=lintz;42839255]I tend to offer to buy people (relatively) cheap things since I have plenty of money for uni and I know how to manage my finances. I don't tend to think anything of it, it's usually to look at their pleased expressions.[/QUOTE]
Generally i find making people's lives more interesting or easier on people is a pretty pleasing experience as well
If it wasn't pleasing would you still do it? considering buying/helping costs you time and money usually.
[QUOTE=mdeceiver79;42839384]If it wasn't pleasing would you still do it? considering buying/helping costs you time and money usually.[/QUOTE]
One of the things that get on my nerves the most would be having my time wasted, Not so much money though. Chances are if it wasn't satisfactory i wouldn't do it.
I think there's a false dichotomy here. The fact that you get something out of doing something for someone doesn't mean you aren't also doing it because you genuinely want to help them and/or because you think it's the right thing to do. You can have several reasons for doing something, and your own gratification need not even be the top one.
From a personal standpoint, there have also been times when I've tried to make upset people feel better even though it often made me feel pretty awful, because I felt it was what I should do. So I think saying [I]every[/I] action must be selfish in some way is to hasty a generalization.
I think people are entirely selfish and hedonistic. It's just that we enjoy making or keeping others happy, so we have a sort of shared hedonism where it all works out because we just [I]like[/I] making others happy. See, when we do something because we [I]like[/I] doing it, it's [I]"selfish"[/I], something we do so that we ourselves feel good. But often our selfishness includes making others happy or at the very least, not making others feel bad. So selfishness and altruism, in my eyes, are non-issues. They don't make sense.
The reason it doesn't make sense is that you can always twist any decision to be a hedonistic act done only to make yourself feel good. As the post above me states, gratification might not be the top reason: "genuinely wanting to help" and "doing the right thing". Don't you see that when you value those two reasons, they [I]become[/I] your own selfish gratification.
The only way you can do something selflessly, is if you don't want to. And I mean really don't want to, as in you have not a single reason in you that could possibly make you do it. When that is the case - you don't. Every single thing you do, you do because you think it is best for you.
[editline]12th November 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42840104]because I felt it was what I should do.[/QUOTE]
And doing what you should do makes you feel better.
It's just pros and cons. Doing it makes you feel awful, but [I]doing what you should do[/I] outweighs the awful feeling. If it didn't, then doing what you should do wouldn't feel important to you, and you wouldn't have done what you did.
[editline]12th November 2013[/editline]
And by the way, there's nothing bad about being selfish in the sense that I'm talking about. As long as you include others in your considerations about what makes you feel good, you're a good person. But technically still selfish.
People are definitely selfish. Even when people do something to help others, they do it for their own reasons, albeit most of the time it's so deep inside them that they don't realize it.
Our main moral compass is our compassion. Compassion is great and helps people not be dicks to each other. But when you think about it, even our best moral quality is egoistical. Compassion works only because we imagine how we would feel in another person's boots. It's easier for us to think from our point of view, so we are by definition egoistical and selfish, which is not necessarily bad
yes
People are capable of a lot of things.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]I think people are entirely selfish and hedonistic. It's just that we enjoy making or keeping others happy, so we have a sort of shared hedonism where it all works out because we just like making others happy. See, when we do something because we like doing it, it's "selfish", something we do so that we ourselves feel good.[/QUOTE]
No it isn't. It's not self[I]less[/I], sure, because you're getting something out of it, but the mere fact that you get something out of it doesn't make it selfish, unless that's the primary reason you do it. When people help others they usually aren't thinking about the self gratification they'll get from making someone happy, they're empathising with the other person.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]The reason it doesn't make sense is that you can always twist any decision to be a hedonistic act done only to make yourself feel good.[/QUOTE]
Well yeah, you can twist anything you like, but that doesn't mean the action [I]is[/I] done solely to make oneself feel good.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]As the post above me states, gratification might not be the top reason: "genuinely wanting to help" and "doing the right thing". Don't you see that when you value those two reasons, they become your own selfish gratification.[/QUOTE]
No, I don't. What does valuing a reason to do something have to with selfish gratification? Please explain.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]The only way you can do something selflessly, is if you don't want to. And I mean really don't want to, as in you have not a single reason in you that could possibly make you do it. When that is the case - you don't.[/QUOTE]
Again, I there's a false dichotomy here between selfishness and selflessness. I agree that a truly selfless act would be very difficult to find, but I don't think that just because an action isn't a truly selfless one that makes it truly selfish. There's a massive grey area between the two.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]Every single thing you do, you do because you think it is best for you.[/QUOTE]
This is just wrong, people do plenty of things that they don't think are best for them in order to benefit other people. Some people suffer horribly out of a sense of duty to others.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42843335]And doing what you should do makes you feel better.[/QUOTE]
It didn't, though; that's the point. It made me feel a lot worse.
I personally do it to feel fulfillment in helping others. Even if they don't like me doing it sometimes, especially this is the case with family, I'm sure they'll thank me later. The thanking isn't what's important though, it's that they get through harsh times, even at the expense of my own comfort temporarily.
If I can sacrifice a little bit or even a lot to help someone else greatly, I'd probably do it. Sure, it's not binary, there are a lot of things affecting my decision, but at heart I've been raised to believe that a human being is selfless if given the right parenting and environment. I mean, look at Mazlow's motivational pyramid. Once your basic needs are in order, you start seeking higher goals such as safety, family, self-fulfillment and sometimes enlightment. I'm pretty sure anyone can find the feeling of helping someone out from trouble as fulfilling since we have this thing called empathy. If they feel joyous for being helped, that emotion leaks into you as well...unless you're a sociopath or something, idk.
Point is selflessness is just as much a trait of humans as selfishness. It's a matter of parenting and empirical experience which one the person leans towards.
And if people really are just selfish pricks, how come dying for a loved one is a reasonably common thing? It's definitely not beneficial for you since you die, in fact you pay for another person's life with your own. For a selfish person that's a terrible trade. All you get is a split second of self-gratification. That's a terrible deal for a selfish person. There's a higher motive behind that kind of act. That, in my opinion, proves that humans can truly be selfless, albeit it is an extreme case.
What people do shouldn't matter in this discussion at all. The thing that matters is WHY people do what they do and if it is logically consistent with their worldview.
For example, a person can hurt themselves to do good for others, but they might be doing it for completely illogical/misinformed reasons. So the fact that people sometimes DO hurt themselves in favor of others isn't an argument in favor of people not being selfish. In order to do that you need to provide a logical reason to hurt one's self in favor of others.
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42850371]This is just wrong, people do plenty of things that they don't think are best for them in order to benefit other people. Some people suffer horribly out of a sense of duty to others.[/QUOTE]
Yes. Because they think doing things to benefit other people, and following their own sense of duty... Is best for themselves. It's what makes them feel the best about the life they live. So sure, you may be sacrificing some time or some effort, [I](or even your life!)[/I] but overall you feel better about that sacrifice than you would have felt not making it. See how I can still 'twist' it into being 'selfish'? That's because it is - but it doesn't make a difference because I totally agree with what you're saying, it's just that technically every action is 'selfish' following this logic.
To be honest I think talking about selfishness at all is useless because of this. Selflessness doesn't exist and that's okay because compassion, empathy, duty and sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others are still things that happen and exist. They're just not selfless. Good, yes, valuable, yes. But not selfless because that's not a thing.
[editline]13th November 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42850371]No, I don't. What does valuing a reason to do something have to with selfish gratification? Please explain.[/QUOTE]
Sure. Although I'm not sure if I can find a good way to word it... Valuing something means you care about that thing, you gain something from upholding it, whether it be your wealth, your freedom, the health of others or the happiness of others. What ever it is you value, that thing will make you happy.
If you didn't value something at all, you'd abandon it. Valuing something should be the same as caring about something. If you don't care, or value, other people's feelings, then you will never do something to make other people happy, because you don't care.
Okay look, here's the assumption of my argument: Things you value bring you happiness. So when you remove valuing, you remove that happiness. You never do something to protect something you don't value. Ergo, you never do something that doesn't make you happy.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851361]Yes. Because they think doing things to benefit other people, and following their own sense of duty... Is best for themselves. It's what makes them feel the best about the life they live. So sure, you may be sacrificing some time or some effort, [I](or even your life!)[/I] but overall you feel better about that sacrifice than you would have felt not making it. See how I can still 'twist' it into being 'selfish'? That's because it is - but it doesn't make a difference because I totally agree with what you're saying, it's just that technically every action is 'selfish'.[/QUOTE]
I don't think that's always the case, though. People can do things out of a sense of duty that don't really make them feel better in any way, and perhaps resent the fact that they feel compelled to do it, but they still do it. People can know that they'll feel happier if they do a certain thing but do something else because it'll benefit another person, so even if they get some small thing out of it's still relatively bad for them. I think it's an oversimplification of human motivations and actions to say that everyone always does what they think is best for them, because people aren't always logically consistent.
And again, I don't think doing something that benefits yourself is necessarily selfish in and of itself - that has to be the primary reason for doing it.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851361]To be honest I think talking about selfishness at all is useless because of this. Selflessness doesn't exist and that's okay because compassion, empathy, duty, sharing and sacrificing yourself for the benefit of others are still things that happen and exist. They're just not selfless. Good, yes, valuable, yes. But not selfless because that's not a thing.[/QUOTE]
Pure selflessness may not be a thing to any notable degree, but selfishness is still a thing because that's specifically being chiefly concerned with your own gratification. If you're doing things for other people because you're being empathetic rather than being concerned with making yourself feel good, I don't think I'd call that selfish even if it benefits you in some way as well. If you're doing things that will gratify yourself at the expense of other people, that's clearly selfish and is very distinct from helping people while getting some benefit from it too.
[QUOTE=sgman91;42850983]What people do shouldn't matter in this discussion at all. The thing that matters is WHY people do what they do and if it is logically consistent with their worldview.
For example, a person can hurt themselves to do good for others, but they might be doing it for completely illogical/misinformed reasons. So the fact that people sometimes DO hurt themselves in favor of others isn't an argument in favor of people not being selfish. In order to do that you need to provide a logical reason to hurt one's self in favor of others.[/QUOTE]
This discussion isn't about whether people [I]ought[/I] to be selfish or not, though, it's about how people currently are at this point in time, and whether what they do is ever for non-selfish reasons. Whether they have a logical reason for doing so is kinda irrelevant here, as long as they are doing it.
[editline]13th November 2013[/editline]
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851361]
Okay look, here's the assumption of my argument: Things you value bring you happiness. So when you remove valuing, you remove that happiness. You never do something to protect something you don't value. Ergo, you never do something that doesn't make you happy.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, I don't necessarily accept that assumption. Often people can value things that don't bring them happiness at all, sometimes quite the opposite. There's no guarantee that by making a sacrifice for the benefit of another person you'll receive equal or greater rewards in return, yet people still do it. Yes, you might feel a bit better for making someone else happy, but you might not even manage to do that, and would that feeling better be equivalent to the suffering you've endured in order to help that person? Not necessarily.
I usually do nice things so that people like me.
I don't think that makes me selfish, though.
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42851469]I don't think that's always the case, though. People can do things out of a sense of duty that don't really make them feel better in any way, and perhaps resent the fact that they feel compelled to do it, but they still do it. People can know that they'll feel happier if they do a certain thing but do something else because it'll benefit another person, so even if they get some small thing out of it's still relatively bad for them. I think it's an oversimplification of human motivations and actions to say that everyone always does what they think is best for them, because people aren't always logically consistent.[/QUOTE]
I agree completely, and I actually think that's the huge point that creates confusion. I'm not saying people are always completely clear about what it is they think is best for them - most people are usually confused about what they want and what decisions they make. But even when there's a plethora of different choices a person can make and all of them seem rather terrible, they'll still always choose the one they feel is best for them. So sure, in many real life scenarios you'll end up doing a thing that a part of you didn't want to do, and even though you knew it would hurt a large part of you and would make you feel bad. But you'd never make that decision if you didn't think the good that would come of it would somehow outweigh the bad.
[QUOTE]And again, I don't think doing something that benefits yourself is necessarily selfish in and of itself - that has to be the primary reason for doing it.[/QUOTE]
That's what I'm saying it always is, though. You'd never, ever help anyone if you didn't care.
[QUOTE]Pure selflessness may not be a thing to any notable degree[/QUOTE]
Then we agree. Maybe you're talking about selfishness and selflessness in a more everyday manner, whereas I'm talking about it and being super pedantic about the semantics and logic behind it. If you don't think pure selflessness exists, then we agree basically, and the only difference between us is that we want to use different words: While you would say [I]"that guy is unusually selfless!"[/I], I would just call that person a person who is unusually compassionate about other people.
Your definition of selfishness seems to be, when you specifically do things for yourself at the expense of others or at least at the disregard of others - whereas my definition of selfishness is when you do anything at all that makes you feel better. Your definition of selflessness seems to be when you do something for others, whereas mine is when you do something without [I]at all[/I] having yourself in it. That doesn't just mean that you don't get huge piles of cash, it means you don't even give one single flying fuck about it. That, to me, makes selflessness a paradox because nobody ever does something they truly don't care about. Even if they do a thing after being threatened to do it at gunpoint, they'd still be doing it because they care about not being shot to death. If they truly didn't care, even about being shot to death, they would not do the thing they were being threatened to do.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851595]I agree completely, and I actually think that's the huge point that creates confusion. I'm not saying people are always completely clear about what it is they think is best for them - most people are usually confused about what they want and what decisions they make. But even when there's a plethora of different choices a person can make and all of them seem rather terrible, they'll still always choose the one they feel is best for them. So sure, in many real life scenarios you'll end up doing a thing that a part of you didn't want to do, and even though you knew it would hurt a large part of you and would make you feel bad. But you'd never make that decision if you didn't think the good that would come of it would somehow outweigh the bad.[/QUOTE]
I don't think that's true, though, I think people [I]do[/I] do things that they're reasonably certain will make them feel worse than they would otherwise in order to help others, not just out of ignorance as to what is best for them. This may not make sense, but people don't always make sense.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851595]That's what I'm saying it always is, though. You'd never, ever help anyone if you didn't care.[/QUOTE]
I don't think caring is necessarily selfish, though.
[QUOTE=Sherow_Xx;42851595]Then we agree. Maybe you're talking about selfishness and selflessness in a more everyday manner, whereas I'm talking about it and being super pedantic about the semantics and logic behind it. If you don't think pure selflessness exists, then we agree basically, and the only difference between us is that we want to use different words: While you would say [I]"that guy is unusually selfless!"[/I], I would just call that person a person who is unusually compassionate about other people.
Your definition of selfishness seems to be, when you specifically do things for yourself at the expense of others or at least at the disregard of others - whereas my definition of selfishness is when you do anything at all that makes you feel better. Your definition of selflessness seems to be when you do something for others, whereas mine is when you do something without [I]at all[/I] having yourself in it. That doesn't just mean that you don't get huge piles of cash, it means you don't even give one single flying fuck about it. That, to me, makes selflessness a paradox because nobody ever does something they truly don't care about. Even if they do a thing after being threatened to do it at gunpoint, they'd still be doing it because they care about not being shot to death. If they truly didn't care, even about being shot to death, they would not do the thing they were being threatened to do.[/QUOTE]
Not exactly how I'd define them - I'd define selfishness as when your primary reason for doing something is for your own gratification, and whether it benefits someone else is secondary to your decision, if at all. Defining it as anything that benefits you in any way seems way too broad, for me.
I'd say selflessness is doing something that you're reasonably certain will cause you more suffering than happiness for the benefit of someone else, so even if you do get something out of it (and so it balances out slightly but not completely) you wouldn't be better off than you were otherwise, and perhaps worse off. "Pure" selflessness would be an extreme example where you didn't get any benefit whatsoever to balance it out, and while I wouldn't go as far as to say that can't happen, it does seem unlikely.
So yeah, I guess it comes down to semantics - I think the difference is that you define selfishness as everything that isn't "pure" selflessness by my definition, which I guess is logically consistent but I don't really think is a useful way of defining it because then the terms cease to be meaningful (and the whole point of words is to convey meaning, otherwise there's no point in having them).
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42851469]This discussion isn't about whether people [I]ought[/I] to be selfish or not, though, it's about how people currently are at this point in time, and whether what they do is ever for non-selfish reasons. Whether they have a logical reason for doing so is kinda irrelevant here, as long as they are doing it.[/QUOTE]
Then the question is pointless. There are some people that do basically everything.
[QUOTE=Tweevle;42851896]I don't think that's true, though, I think people [I]do[/I] do things that they're reasonably certain will make them feel worse than they would otherwise in order to help others, not just out of ignorance as to what is best for them. This may not make sense, but people don't always make sense.[/QUOTE]
But helping others does make sense though... If you have compassion in you, you'll want to help others. Then it just becomes a task of weighing pros against cons. Do I care about my compassion for this person in need, to make the sacrifices that I think I will have to make to?
[QUOTE]I don't think caring is necessarily selfish, though.[/QUOTE]
The way I see it, caring about x can't happen if x doesn't also make you feel good. In fact I think caring about a thing and feeling good about a thing is the same thing. So again, it just seems that it has everything to do with how x makes [I]you[/I] feel.
[QUOTE]Defining it as anything that benefits you in any way seems way too broad, for me.[/QUOTE]
I guess it's more like [I]"Doing something because you want to."[/I], that seems logically selfish to me. When it's about your own wants, which it is when you do something because you want to, then it is about your own self, and thus is selfish.
[QUOTE]I'd say selflessness is doing something that you're reasonably certain will cause you more suffering than happiness for the benefit of someone else, so even if you do get something out of it (and so it balances out slightly but not completely) you wouldn't be better off than you were otherwise, and perhaps worse off.[/QUOTE]
I don't think that's possible. If you ask someone who sacrificed a lot to help someone else, if they were happy that they did it, they'd most likely say yes. If they're happy with what they did, that would mean that they more than balanced out - otherwise they'd be regretting it.
You do realize that when I talk about 'gaining' something from an action, I don't just mean things like money or excitement and so on, right? - I also mean broader things such as happiness, fulfillment, a feeling of being an honorable person, confidence, a feeling of being meaningful.
[QUOTE]So yeah, I guess it comes down to semantics - I think the difference is that you define selfishness as everything that isn't "pure" selflessness by my definition, which I guess is logically consistent but I don't really think is a useful way of defining it because then the terms cease to be meaningful (and the whole point of words is to convey meaning, otherwise there's no point in having them).[/QUOTE]
Well that's what my opinion is about those two words, [I]"selfish"[/I] and [I]"selfless"[/I]. I don't think they are meaningful.
snippity snap
I help people cause I like to see them smile and I feel bad when people around me are feeling down, but I don’t volunteer for almost anything I wait for them to ask cause I’m lazy. I am selfish cause if I wasn’t I wouldn’t wait till they ask to help them even if the chances of me saying no are like 1/100.
As with morality, selfishness is entirely subjective, but the hope is that with our improving ability to communicate with other people we will understand them better and as a result we will find reasons not to act selfishly.
The only thing that puts me off of this theory is explaining life sacrifices which obviously don't benefit you in anyway (cause you're dead and can't feel good about it) yet they still occur
[QUOTE=Venezuelan;42869194]The only thing that puts me off of this theory is explaining life sacrifices which obviously don't benefit you in anyway (cause you're dead and can't feel good about it) yet they still occur[/QUOTE]
You feel your legacy/memory of you is worth more than you being alive. Or being irrational. "im tired of this cruel world" or accidental.
[QUOTE=Venezuelan;42869194]The only thing that puts me off of this theory is explaining life sacrifices which obviously don't benefit you in anyway (cause you're dead and can't feel good about it) yet they still occur[/QUOTE]
While it may not benefit yourself, it's not hard to imagine someone doing this if they've decided that the life of whoever they've saved is more important than their own (again, down to subjective reasoning). That said, I'd rather not sacrifice my own life to save someone else's if I can avoid it at all.
What about people who do good because they know that's the way you're supposed to live? Because if we all united and worked together peacefully, we'd all be better off.
Also, some people actually do feel for the next person. They don't want them suffering, and so they will do whatever they can to relieve that suffering. And they don't do this because it makes them feel good.
It's not selfish to take care of yourself. It's not selfish to take care of yourself first before helping others. You can't help others if you can't help yourself, and you can't help others when you're in bad health.
[editline]30th November 2013[/editline]
So do you pretty much think that if we didn't need to rely on each other, then we wouldn't be peaceful, non-violent, kind, generous, etc.?
Sorry, you need to Log In to post a reply to this thread.