A Selfless Act?

[Showmeproof]

Is there truly such a thing as a selfless act? It seems as though when a person performs an act, they always have themselves in mind first. The act can be done for a variety of reasons, such as: relieve you of discomfort/displeasure, protect yourself, make yourself feel good, etc. The actual doing for another person has no intrinsic pleasure in itself, only the pleasure derived you gain from doing the act. In essence, patting yourself on the back for doing something good toward another person (hopefully a good one).

Now, if an act is done firstly for selfish reason, we can assume that the act has become tainted by selfish motives. For example, if a person performs an act for some type of pleasure or reward, the act itself becomes impure. With this said, can we really hold cops and fireman in high regards due to their seemingly "selfless acts." I mean if you really think about it, they are receiving rewards (pay, pension, health insurance, etc) for their acts. Has not the act become tainted due to selfish motives, that is, receiving all the above benefits.

Also, the works of Ghandi and Mother Theresa. If we assume that any act is done out of selfish reasons first, than the above two figures reputation should be tarnished due to selfish motive. IMO, I am certain that they received some sort of pleasure in doing what they did. Perhaps, that is why they did what they did, to secure positive feelings within themselves first.

Any thoughts?

[Tiktaalik]

I think that sometimes people in emergency situations act without regard for their own danger. Possibly it's not selfless in that they may not have stopped to consider that they may die or be hurt. But I think they don't have time to consider whether what they're doing is advantgeous to themselves before they go ahead and act. And sometimes they actually don't get anything out of it. Sometimes people have walked away from a scene after saving someone's life without telling anybody who they are.

I guess you could consider all "selfless" acts "selfish" if you're speaking from a survival standpoint; that is, selflessness probably evolved because those that performed acts that saved the lives of others tended to leave more genetic descendents, even if not very closely related, because people lived in small, related groups (and thus you were saving a relative with some component of your own genes). Thus the tendency to save lives (altruism) was perpetuated in the gene pool & may be triggered by seeing someone in danger - after all, we're all pretty closely related when it comes down to it...

[bokonon]

I reject the notion that selfish motives necessarily taint or tarnish generosity.

[Showmeproof]

I think that sometimes people in emergency situations act without regard for their own danger. Possibly it's not selfless in that they may not have stopped to consider that they may die or be hurt. But I think they don't have time to consider whether what they're doing is advantgeous to themselves before they go ahead and act. And sometimes they actually don't get anything out of it. Sometimes people have walked away from a scene after saving someone's life without telling anybody who they are.

I guess you could consider all "selfless" acts "selfish" if you're speaking from a survival standpoint; that is, selflessness probably evolved because those that performed acts that saved the lives of others tended to leave more genetic descendents, even if not very closely related, because people lived in small, related groups (and thus you were saving a relative with some component of your own genes). Thus the tendency to save lives (altruism) was perpetuated in the gene pool & may be triggered by seeing someone in danger - after all, we're all pretty closely related when it comes down to it...

Great respons, but I have to disagree on this point:

"Sometimes people have walked away from a scene after saving someone's life without telling anybody who they are."

Just because no one knew who they were and did not recieve any type of external praise or rewards, does not mean that internally they are not feeling something. Perhaps, they did a specific act to feel good or proud about themselves. If that is the case, they were looking out for their own motives first. For instance, if said person did not rescue that kid, he would of felt guilty and sad about that. To avoid feeling these emotions, he saves the kid to secure that he does not feel any negative emotions. In essence, he was looking out for his own interests first. That is, to secure positive emotions and avoid negative ones.

[Showmeproof]

I reject the notion that selfish motives necessarily taint or tarnish generosity.


And you are definitely allowed to :D

[Loss Leader]

This debate is over nothing but the definition of "selfless." One can define it to include or exclude any or all acts one wishes.

[PAC]

If anyone would care to give me a substantial amount of money to make themselves feel good then I am ready to be used. Please let me know.

[Showmeproof]

This debate is over nothing but the definition of "selfless." One can define it to include or exclude any or all acts one wishes.

Well, yeah lol. The rest of the post was just examples...

[Giraffe107]

Would giving your life to save another count? Especially if you didn't know that person? It's not like you can feel good about yourself afterwards.

[Showmeproof]

Would giving your life to save another count? Especially if you didn't know that person? It's not like you can feel good about yourself afterwards.


Well, if you were psychic and knew you were going to die while saving this persons life, then yes, I would say it is a selfless act. Considering that when you try to save someones life, you do not know for a 100% fact that your life will be terminated in the process. In essence, you chose to save the persons life for own selfish motives, and if you live, you get to reap the rewards. If you die, well then you die.

[quarky]

Being selfless, in its truest sense, is pretty heady stuff for the ego.

There's no escape from this paradox. Not even the cross.

[Beerina]

Well, if you were psychic and knew you were going to die while saving this persons life, then yes, I would say it is a selfless act.

I would claim that is a stupid act. If you were truly psychic, you could save a lot more lives by letting this unfortunate soul die, but you live on to predict major disasters and murders and so on. :)

And if this were a movie, you'd risk the 99% chance of death anyway, save the guy and yourself, then go on to psychically save people after all. Yey movies!

[Pope130]

This debate is over nothing but the definition of "selfless." One can define it to include or exclude any or all acts one wishes.

I agree with Loss Leader on this. If you choose a definition of selfish that can include throwing yourself on a grenade, or running into a burning building, or stepping back so a lady can take the last place in the lifeboat, OK.

To me these seem like selfless acts, in that you have chosen to place the welfare of others ahead of your own. The could only be selfish if you say that doing things that support the good image you aspire to is selfish.

"We can't all be John Wayne, but we can all try to be John Wayne."



Robert

[Marquis de Carabas]

Is there truly such a thing as a selfless act? It seems as though when a person performs an act, they always have themselves in mind first. The act can be done for a variety of reasons, such as: relieve you of discomfort/displeasure, protect yourself, make yourself feel good, etc. The actual doing for another person has no intrinsic pleasure in itself, only the pleasure derived you gain from doing the act. In essence, patting yourself on the back for doing something good toward another person (hopefully a good one).

Any thoughts?
I used to espouse the same (I believe even here on these boards somewhere), but one thing always bugged me about this view: it is pure tautology. It is, so far as I can tell, unfalsifiable. Given this view, what would a "purely selfless" motive be? Even if someone says I just like helping others, you can pounce with Aha! You like to do it, so really, you're still just following your own selfish desires.

I think what we have here is the confusion of ultimate and proximate causes. Ultimately, we are good and kind and generous (to the extent that we are, at least) because good and kind and generous acts lead to a reputation as a good and kind and generous person, which carries fairly obvious benefits in a community of reciprocal altruists. There is no reason to think, however, that any individual "selfless" act is committed with the goal of building or maintaining such a reputation in mind. Compare to the sexual urge, which obviously exists ultimately to make babies. Proximately, though, not every act of boinking is undertaken to reproduce.

The reasons we have for doing what we do are not equivalent to the reasons we have those reasons.

[westprog]

Would giving your life to save another count? Especially if you didn't know that person? It's not like you can feel good about yourself afterwards.

People commit suicide for entirely selfish reasons all the time. It's quite possible that someone would be driven by an impulse for self-gratification to save someone's life at the cost of his own.

I don't think that there is any objective test for an entirely selfless act. Even if someone is acting without feeling good about the act, he might feel good about the fact that he did something good without any reward, and so on recursively.

That doesn't mean that we should regard the fireman who saves our child from certain death with suspicion just because he has a pension plan. When someone does something good for you, it's reasonable to assume that they did it for good motives.

It's also quite possible for motives to be mixed. An act might not be totally selfless, but it might have a strong selfless component.

[dglas]

I used to espouse the same (I believe even here on these boards somewhere), but one thing always bugged me about this view: it is pure tautology. It is, so far as I can tell, unfalsifiable. Given this view, what would a "purely selfless" motive be? Even if someone says I just like helping others, you can pounce with Aha! You like to do it, so really, you're still just following your own selfish desires.

I think what we have here is the confusion of ultimate and proximate causes. Ultimately, we are good and kind and generous (to the extent that we are, at least) because good and kind and generous acts lead to a reputation as a good and kind and generous person, which carries fairly obvious benefits in a community of reciprocal altruists. There is no reason to think, however, that any individual "selfless" act is committed with the goal of building or maintaining such a reputation in mind. Compare to the sexual urge, which obviously exists ultimately to make babies. Proximately, though, not every act of boinking is undertaken to reproduce.

The reasons we have for doing what we do are not equivalent to the reasons we have those reasons.

I think the Marquis is bang-on here. I have expressed the same idea in other threads very recently as "Self-Interest being a God-concept. It is defined such that it "explains" everything, but prohibits nothing. It really has been defined into meaninglessness - it no longer has any explanatory power at all.

Given a series of alternatives, we can claim that for any result, it is in compliance with our definition of self-interest. We can also say of any result that it is not in contradiction with our definition of self-interest. This means that self-interest really has no bearing whatsoever on any of the outcomes under this definition.

However, we know that self-interest can be defined such that it provides us with predictive power. This suggests that we need to reconsider our definition. Unless we define it such that it prohibits some alternatives, all we are really doing is expressing cynicism (which, interestingly enough, is based on the desire to see non-self-interested behaviour).

[Veleria]

Acts of charity isn't limited to the human race: Dolphins are known to protect each other from sharks, and I believe there is a species of bats, that has been observed giving away food, to members of their group who were less successful in their hunt.
Now assuming this information is correct (I got it from TV so I won't presume it to be fact), we can also assume that this is another way for nature to increase the chances of survival for these animals, and that this also applies to humans.
So if this is true, then the good feeling we get from doing something charitable, is natures way of rewarding us, in much the same way it does when we're "boinking".

From this, I would conclude that there is no such thing as a selfless act. Since we know we're getting a reward.

But maybe that's not what we should be asking.
If there was no reward, then an act of charity, such as giving away food, would be truly selfless. But if there wasn't a reward would we still do it?

[Fnord]

The only true selfless act - an act performed without any concern for the self - is an act performed without knowing that it is being done.

An unplanned posthumous organ donation is an example. Dropping a 20-dollar banknote where some poor sod can find it, and never knowing that the money is missing is another.

Unintentional charity is the only truly selfless act.

[Mobyseven]

Step 1: Define all acts as selfish.
Step 2: Ask if there can ever be a selfless act.
Step 3: Conclude that all people are selfish.

Anybody see a problem with the above train of thought? Anybody? Bueller?

[athon]

Put another tick in Marquis' box for me. I agree whole heartedly that it becomes a tautologous statement.

Think about how we make decisions - we base it on what outcome has the greatest value for us in the end. If the greater value in a given situation is for another to come away healthy, alive, happy etc. while we risk suffering a consequence, then this is the decision we will make. Is it selfless? It can be argued that having achieving that value is something which feeds back into our neurological reward centre - biologically, that's how operate.

That said, I can't say it is impossible for somebody to act in a way which achieves a value sufficiently low enough down their hierarchy that it doesn't benefit them in any way. However I don't know of any way this could possibly be evaluated, either.

Athon

[Macoy]

Empathy probably plays a part.

You might think "If I was in that situation, I would wish that someone would help me."