Happy Atheist Forum

Before I turned away from Christianity I would often day-dream of rescuing people in danger or dying to save other people.
My day-dreams would always consist of me being the hero and after I died, or narrowly lived I would be celebrated as a great person and a hero.

Pretty corny I know. But now that I have become an Atheist I find no pleasure from these scenarios.
As I have searched my feelings on the matter I see no reason to risk my life for anyone now, even my own family.
If death is it and there is nothing to gain from dying then why risk it for someone else if I am not going to live to see them carry on?

I also realized the only reason I used to want to be in those scenarios is because I would be remembered as a hero and not to actually save someone's life.

So that brought up a bigger question. Are there any real self-less acts?
Everything I do, I do because it benefits me in someway.
Even if I were to go to homeless shelter and help serve food I would be doing it for the feeling it gives me.
If I were to give a hobo money it would be to think I am helping somebody in need.

So, are there no self-less acts?  Are we all just a bunch of selfish a-holes?

The act of giving one's life becomes a great deal more meaningful when one doesn't believe in an afterlife, from my own perspective. I would sacrifice my life for a family member, friend, or a cause I found to be noble. Why? It would please me to know in my dying moment that my death has met with my own subjective understanding of meaning. It's not necessarily done for the moment after I die, but for that moment as I die.

Also, if I give my life at 25 I'll never ever have to have a proctology appointment, so that's a bonus.

Selfishness is sometimes given a bad rap. If you're being selfish but not harming others it's fine. I'm selfish all the time, as are all people pretty much all the time. What matters is that while being selfish you still adhere to laws and the social contract. You can't selfishly murder your jerk boss because you'll be arrested and put in prison or sentenced to death. Besides, you know that killing your boss isn't the proper way to deal with your feelings toward him or her. If you selfishly stand up to your boss so that your work environment improves, you're doing the most constructive thing. You see my point?

Everybody acts for a reason thus every act is selfish. Sometimes people desire the tangible or more obviously selfish things, other times it's to fulfill a personal virtue. No one can escape selfishness, it's just how we are. Even if you're considerate of others or not, you're still selfish. Ayn Rand wrote about Selfishness As A Virtue if you're interested. Some of her sayings:

Before one can learn to say, "I love you," one must first learn how to say the "I."

I swear by my life, and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.

I agree so much.

Praise the Lord!  

Quote from: "ilovegodalot"I agree so much.

Praise the Lord!  :hide2:

No, it means people need to improve on their life.

Most people who have put themselves into danger to help someone else will tell you they didn't stop to think about it, they just started moving. From experience I can say that's true.

Quote from: "Rooker"Most people who have put themselves into danger to help someone else will tell you they didn't stop to think about it, they just started moving. From experience I can say that's true.

Even that would be done from will though. Noble, yes. Selfless, no. There's nothing wrong with selfishness, it just has a bad reputation.

I've been thinking some about this recently. I think it's pride. We do selfless things because we want respect, perhaps even if it kills us. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

Quote from: "AIP"I've been thinking some about this recently. I think it's pride. We do selfless things because we want respect, perhaps even if it kills us. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

True. In more general terms I would say we're all in a pursuit for power (ha ha, can you tell I'm a Nietzsche fanatic yet?). Some pursue it through virtue, others pursue it via happiness (power over the undesirable aspects of life). Whether it be love, righteousness, wealth, pride or humility: those who seek it claim their is power in their will.

I think we do selfless things for what we don't want, too.  Such as, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know you'd hate yourself if you stood by and watched someone die when you could have prevented it.  I think some of it is instinct, too.

Quote from: "Sophus"

Quote from: "AIP"I've been thinking some about this recently. I think it's pride. We do selfless things because we want respect, perhaps even if it kills us. The more I think about it the more it makes sense.

True. In more general terms I would say we're all in a pursuit for power (ha ha, can you tell I'm a Nietzsche fanatic yet?). Some pursue it through virtue, others pursue it via happiness (power over the undesirable aspects of life). Whether it be love, righteousness, wealth, pride or humility: those who seek it claim their is power in their will.

Yeah I agree with much of Nietzsche's thinking in that regard, though I think he was often guilty of rhetoric and there is a danger of being carried away by that. Example: "God is dead!" He didn't mean God died. He meant there are no objective values. Here God is just a metaphor for objective values. I know you know that already Sophus =). I just feel a need to qualify my statement that I agree with much of Nietzsche's thinking. Read Sartre and we'll see how the will to power holds up =).

Quote from: "Kylyssa"I think we do selfless things for what we don't want, too. Such as, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know you'd hate yourself if you stood by and watched someone die when you could have prevented it. I think some of it is instinct, too.

I agree. I call that pride =). Somebody just posted a video on youtube that explains the idea much better than I could.

[youtube:19tf9cj9]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD5JCNCBrFk[/youtube:19tf9cj9]

Quote from: "AIP"Yeah I agree with much of Nietzsche's thinking in that regard, though I think he was often guilty of rhetoric and there is a danger of being carried away by that. Example: "God is dead!" He didn't mean God died. He meant there are no objective values. Here God is just a metaphor for objective values. I know you know that already Sophus =). I just feel a need to qualify my statement that I agree with much of Nietzsche's thinking. Read Sartre and we'll see how the will to power holds up =).

Right. Nietzsche was more of a prose writer and a poet. He often spoke in metaphors and parables. In fact he said he was "ashamed" that he became a poet. In other words, he felt the need to write only because of the richness and fresh quality of his thoughts. I don't think his style invalidates his thoughts at all, but rather I prefer it as it requires us to think more about them, thus gain a greater comprehension that goes beyond words.... if that makes sense  

Quote from: "AIP"

Quote from: "Kylyssa"I think we do selfless things for what we don't want, too. Such as, somewhere in the back of your mind, you know you'd hate yourself if you stood by and watched someone die when you could have prevented it. I think some of it is instinct, too.

I agree. I call that pride =). Somebody just posted a video on youtube that explains the idea much better than I could.

I actually don't. Acts such as that I would call "considerate" or an act to avoid an undesirable outcome, but not selfless. You can never do something selfless because you willed it. If someone holds a gun to your head and tells you to do something, you'll still want to do that something over being shot. There's still something in it for you. If you take the bullet then you do so to die with your virtue or dignity.

So you consider conforming to your code of ethics as providing a benefit for yourself?  If someone sacrifices their life for another person, I don't care what excuses you give, aside from the person thinking that they will be rewarded in the afterlife, they have committed a self-less act.

In terms of demonstrable benefits the only one who benefits would be the person whose life was saved.

They have put another person's needs above their own.

I'm not a philosopher, I haven't studied philosophy either, so unfortunately I can't look to prior philosophical giants for all the retorts to my response, but it seems that just because you gain "something" that doesn't make it a selfish act so long as the reason you are performing the act is to help another person at a cost to yourself (or at least so long as the intent isn't to gain some type of benefit for yourself).

Self-less acts are a result of human imagination and a sense of the romantic.

Also, two points to Will for seeing the silver lining.  

Quote from: "Will"Also, if I give my life at 25 I'll never ever have to have a proctology appointment, so that's a bonus.

Shhhhh!  Not so loud!  My partner feels the same way and he's pushing 40 - the dreaded year of the proctological exam. He's even stated it as the small upside of not having insurance - not having to have a 40 year-old-man-physical.

Quote from: "Invidy"So you consider conforming to your code of ethics as providing a benefit for yourself?  If someone sacrifices their life for another person, I don't care what excuses you give, aside from the person thinking that they will be rewarded in the afterlife, they have committed a self-less act.

In terms of demonstrable benefits the only one who benefits would be the person whose life was saved.

They have put another person's needs above their own.

I'm not a philosopher, I haven't studied philosophy either, so unfortunately I can't look to prior philosophical giants for all the retorts to my response, but it seems that just because you gain "something" that doesn't make it a selfish act so long as the reason you are performing the act is to help another person at a cost to yourself (or at least so long as the intent isn't to gain some type of benefit for yourself).

I used to be under this impression too. It's probably because our tendancy is to associate a sort of snobbish behavior to selfishness. It has really gotten a bad reputation. My thoughts are: You always benefit in some way from everything you do. Even when you die for someone you may be avoiding guilt of not saving the person or your satisfaction is dieing knowing your loved one will live on. There's considerate people and inconsiderate people, but we're all selfish. If you're interested in taking the topic further Ayn Rand wrote quite a bit on the issue, saying that selfishness is a virtue because through it all other virtues become possible. Actually one of her books is currently being turned into a movie.

[quote="Hollownucleus"
So that brought up a bigger question. Are there any real self-less acts?
Everything I do, I do because it benefits me in someway.
Even if I were to go to homeless shelter and help serve food I would be doing it for the feeling it gives me.
If I were to give a hobo money it would be to think I am helping somebody in need.

So, are there no self-less acts?[/quote]

I concur with your conclusion

Are there selfless acts or is this all just selfishness?


This is a false dichotomy.


There is a spectrum of actions and characteristics that can be labelled from selfish to selfless. Let's start with four.

These are:

Selfishness
Self-preserving
Altruistic
Selflessness

Now I'm going to give some descriptions.

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.

Well, it's impossible to do a self-less act, as that implies an action done, but not directed by the self, which is physically impossible. I think, however, that a lot of us forget that it is perfectly possible, and even common, for humans to directly care about another person's welfare just as much as their own, even when that person's welfare is not related to the self.

For a perfect example, what do you do every time you read a good book where the protagonist feels danger? Even though you care about him, you will get absolutely no tangible benefit from the protagonist living. Keep in mind, that there's a difference between having a good feelilng because you benefited, and having a good feeling because someone else benefited. In one case you are actually benefiting, while in another case you are using your imagination to understand how the other person is feeling and then using transference to feel the same thing.

But even then, a protagonist in a book narrowly escaping danger doesn't give us any benefit. Why do we love good books where the protagonist dies a horrific death? In that scenario, there's absolutely no benefit, and even some pain.

I really hate how people say that everyone is perfectly selfish but that that's all right. So often what we really should be saying is that actions are perfectly explainable, but the typical connotations of the word "selfish" hardly measure up to what's really going on.  

"selfless act" is an oxymoron.

All actions, in the context being discussed here (i.e. they are not instinctual or reflexive) require a motive

Motivation requires the selfish expectation of either a reward or of the witholding/withdrawal of punishment.

Quote from: "cyniclaus""selfless act" is an oxymoron.

All actions, in the context being discussed here (i.e. they are not instictual or reflexive) require a motive

Motivation requires the selfish expectation of either a reward or of the witholding/withdrawal of punishment.

Welcome to the forum. Care to elaborate?

Quote from: "cyniclaus""selfless act" is an oxymoron.

All actions, in the context being discussed here (i.e. they are not instictual or reflexive) require a motive

Motivation requires the selfish expectation of either a reward or of the witholding/withdrawal of punishment.

So what happens if I do something on impulse? When I lived in Chicago I saw a kid on the train tracks in the subway. I didn't even give it a thought and hopped down to grab the kid despite the rumbling of a train incoming. Fortunately I just hid us inbetween the space that leads to the train going in the opposite direction and I simply walked back and casually hopped up ensured there was no train coming for 5-10 minutes.

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "cyniclaus""selfless act" is an oxymoron.

All actions, in the context being discussed here (i.e. they are not instictual or reflexive) require a motive

Motivation requires the selfish expectation of either a reward or of the witholding/withdrawal of punishment.

Welcome to the forum. Care to elaborate?

Thanks; I came across this topic and felt I should comment since I have held this point of view my whole life.  I was about to just spit out a whole essay about it, but instead I took the extra time to be concise  

Quote from: "Ultima22689"So what happens if I do something on impulse? ....I didn't even give it a thought and hopped down to grab the kid despite the rumbling of a train incoming....

An impulsive action still requires a motive.  The only difference is the amount of forethought

The action you describe is the expected one...we are socially conditioned to react in that way.  We are taught that such an action is heroic and to not act in such a way is cowardly.  Therefore, the anticipated reward is dualfold; 1. earning heroism and 2. avoiding shame (external) and guilt (internal).  

The selfish nature of such acts is revealed in that people are much more likely to act "selflessly" (in the interest of others) when they know someone is watching.

Quote from: "cyniclaus"

Quote from: "McQ"

Quote from: "cyniclaus""selfless act" is an oxymoron.

All actions, in the context being discussed here (i.e. they are not instictual or reflexive) require a motive

Motivation requires the selfish expectation of either a reward or of the witholding/withdrawal of punishment.

Welcome to the forum. Care to elaborate?

Thanks; I came across this topic and felt I should comment since I have held this point of view my whole life.  I was about to just spit out a whole essay about it, but instead I took the extra time to be concise  

Quote from: "Ultima22689"So what happens if I do something on impulse? ....I didn't even give it a thought and hopped down to grab the kid despite the rumbling of a train incoming....

An impulsive action still requires a motive.  The only difference is the amount of forethought

The action you describe is the expected one...we are socially conditioned to react in that way.  We are taught that such an action is heroic and to not act in such a way is cowardly.  Therefore, the anticipated reward is dualfold; 1. earning heroism and 2. avoiding shame (external) and guilt (internal).  

The selfish nature of such acts is revealed in that people are much more likely to act "selflessly" (in the interest of others) when they know someone is watching.

So you're claiming that humans, no matter what, only do things if there is some form of gain on their part? I call BS. Giving a bum the rest of my doughnut holes doesn't make me feel any better. If humans can still be so illogical to believe in a man in the clouds then they can do illogical things like selfless acts, that's my take on it anyway.

Hey! Pay Attention to me!

Motives, yes. Allways required. But the thing that benefits does not have to be the self. If you care about someone else, then you can do something at great pain to yourself but benefit to them, because you care about them. The motive can be geared towards anything. It's called transference. Trust me, I know this stuff.  

Quote from: "Renegnicat"Hey! Pay Attention to me!

Motives, yes. Allways required. But the thing that benefits does not have to be the self. If you care about someone else, then you can do something at great pain to yourself but benefit to them, because you care about them. The motive can be geared towards anything. It's called transference. Trust me, I know this stuff.  

This makes sense.

Quote from: "Renegnicat"Hey! Pay Attention to me!

Motives, yes. Allways required. But the thing that benefits does not have to be the self. If you care about someone else, then you can do something at great pain to yourself but benefit to them, because you care about them. The motive can be geared towards anything. It's called transference. Trust me, I know this stuff.  

Thanks for making my point.  "Transference" implies you are benefitting.  It may be vicariously through someone else, but it is a benefit nonetheless.

If you "feel good about yourself" after commiting an act of charity, that's clearly a benefit.  That beggar in the subway is selling a service.  He boosts your self esteem for pocket change.

Even if you don't believe in charity, you can benefit from giving....through avoidance of perceived consequences to inaction.  For example, if you are being watched and giving is the socially expected thing to do, you may give when you otherwise wouldn't simply to avoid the scorn of your peers.  Why do you think they pass the collection plate openly in church (or at the office) instead of just asking people to make private donations to a collection box....you get a lot more money when people have the choice of giving or losing face.

Quote from: "Ultima22689"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.  

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.

Wow - interesting thread, the exact kind of discussion I hoped to find here. I found every post brilliant in it's own way.

I like this analysis:

Quote from: "LARA"Are there selfless acts or is this all just selfishness?
This is a false dichotomy.

There is a spectrum of actions and characteristics that can be labelled from selfish to selfless. Let's start with four.

These are:

Selfishness
Self-preserving
Altruistic
Selflessness

Now I'm going to give some descriptions.

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.

I do also see the point that everything is done for a reason, even if those reasons are unknown to the ones acting out.

From a Pantheistic (or my personal PanENtheistic view) an apparently 'selfless' act can actually be an act for the benefit of the bigger whole, which could include what we commonly call 'self' as well as all other 'selves'.

Quote from: "cyniclaus"

Quote from: "Ultima22689"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?

Quote from: "cyniclaus"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.  

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.

Quote from: "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.

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?

Quote from: "LARA"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?

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".  

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.