No Self-less acts?

[zandurian]

Giving a bum the rest of my doughnut holes doesn't make me feel any better.

Maybe you should analyze your motives a little better.  After all, since every act has a motive, there is no such thing as a "random act".  

Why give the donuts to the bum instead of throwing them away?  Because it makes you feel better.

The question then would be - why does it make him feel better?

A robot that functions purely on logic (and has no ego to gratify) would not see the distinction.  He would either keep the donuts for further use or dispose of them in the most convenient manner.

Unless the robot's program included the info that it's system was interconnected to all other systems and so to nourish the other would be beneficial for all. A robot with faulty programming which denied it this information may destroy the homeless robot and steal it's shirt, not realizing it's destroying and stealing part of itself in the process. Crazy damned robot.  

[Ultima22689]

Good point, I do get positive feelings from helping people but I never got why it makes me feel good, most of the time I don't even get a thank you, I don't particularly care for the acknowledgment, i'm pretty sure i'm not some evil person who does something nice every once in awhile to enable myself to continue or anything like that, I seem to just be pleased with helping others, if someone would like to explain why I could possibly enjoy helping others and a better explanation other than it makes me feel good would appreciated because while it does make me feel good it doesn't give me a reason why, I can make myself feel good without an act of charity or kindness so there has to be more to something that feels more like instinct than a thought.

[zandurian]

Good point, I do get positive feelings from helping people but I never got why it makes me feel good, most of the time I don't even get a thank you, I don't particularly care for the acknowledgment, i'm pretty sure i'm not some evil person who does something nice every once in awhile to enable myself to continue or anything like that, I seem to just be pleased with helping others, if someone would like to explain why I could possibly enjoy helping others and a better explanation other than it makes me feel good would appreciated because while it does make me feel good it doesn't give me a reason why, I can make myself feel good without an act of charity or kindness so there has to be more to something that feels more like instinct than a thought.

I would say empathy and compassion are (in general) natural human traits. Some argue that they only exist because we are taught that they are virtuous by parents or society (or whoever). Although I concur that nurturing plays a vital role in the development of these traits, observation and personal experience shows me that as soon as we are old enough to develop friendships and relationships then we (most of us) also develop the ability to care and have empathy for others.

What is the evidence that it is an inherent ability as opposed to just a learned response? I know personally (and have heard of) some very compassionate people who were raised in a cold, abusive manner. Some (at a very young age) rejected what was modeled to them and embraced a concept foreign to their upbringing. Conversely, a quick study of extreme sociopathic behavior (serial killers for example) will show that many of them grew up in caring nurturing environments, but somehow lacked the capacity for compassion or empathy - like a birth defect of the mind/soul.  

From what little knowledge we have gleaned from the few genuine ferrell children cases we know of - human contact IS needed to raise these traits from their seed form.

I'm liking this forum a lot - you folks REALLY make me think. Are there any self-less acts? Before reading the OP and contemplating all the responses I would have answered "Yes - absolutely" but upon further analysis I would say, technically - no - unless someone is being remote controlled from another source or forced to do something against their will. For example - if I care about someone so much that I sacrifice my physical life for them I am acting upon MY love and so acting on the part of what is in me ME for them. The same can be said of compassion to a stranger. It's MY compassion I'm acting on if I help someone in need with no apparent benefit to my 'self'

I still think LARA's breakdown is good to understand the moral quality of motives even though (looking at it from my new perspective) I may have worded the titles differently. Just a technicality though as we ALL know exactly what she means, right?

Selfish- Unnecessary actions that are harmful to others and beneficial to the self.
Self-preserving- Necessary actions that preserve the self.  These actions may be null such as sleeping, breathing, drinking, mildly harmful to others (granted that animals and plants are granted "other" status) or very harmful to others such as self-defense.
Altruistic- Actions that are positive to others and positive to the self.
Selflessness-Actions that are detrimental to the self and positive for others.  Examples include sacrificing life or food for others in times of need. Selfless acts can result in species preservation, such as the selflessness of a parent to a child or a sick person to a healthy one, but create the illusion of selfishness in the beneficiary of the action.  The key is free will, was the selfless individual forced, etc.

Comments?

[Renegnicat]

Good post, Zandurian. I'd like to add that what we commonly think of as the "good feeling" we get from transference is not actually a benefit to whoever experiences it. That good feeling is the brain's way of getting us to be "unselfish". Consider this, if you were mother nature and you were killing off everybody who didn't protect their own kind or do traditionally "unselfish acts" what kind of animals would survive? The ones who thought that by benefitting others, they were benefiting themselves(because of a "good feeling" maybe), but that "good feeling" doesn't actually perform an actual benefit outside of itself, so in what sense can it be called beneficial? If something is good because it's called "good", is it really good? Of course not. In effect, it's simply neutral.

So are humans perfectly selfish? Well, As I pointed out earlier, there seems to be some kind of expectation for good people to do acts that are not propagated by some fictional self. What? If the self is doing it, then in what sense could it "not be the driving force"? People expect selfless behavor to be not motivated and motivated by the self at the same time. Which is, quite frankly, the epitome of absurd.

But I don't like this idea of calling everyone selfish, because that word connotates a whole bunch of associative meanings that are just as stupid. Saying that everyone is selfish conjures up the image that everyone is essentially, an A-hole in some way or form. But that is completely stupid.

It makes much more sense to decide that all actions are explainable, and not build this false dichotomy of "Selfish" versus "holy".  

[Forseti]

prevent a suicide attempt, like pulling someone out off the bridge's edge = pretty selfish to me.

he/she has different values, i.e "life = sucks"
meanwhile the person pulling him/her, i.e "life = precious"
you cant just shove your values to someone else's throat .. selfishness at its best.

but then again, selfishness saves someone's life.