no he made lenny imagine bunnies then blew his fuckin brains out
Right, still alleviation of guilt.
Wasn’t there talk of some kind of bunny farm, though? Bunnies on a farm? Didn’t Lenny seem a little skeptical at the end that everything was going to be all right?
I’m just asking as best as I remember the book, I must have read that no less than a decade ago.
Hmm; examples, not one of my strengths, really. Maybe something will turn up in response below…
Dear finishedman,
I am glad you asked, for above, I was not referring to the not-looking-to-gain-anything aspect of altruism, but speculating upon whether altruistic behaviour - unconsciously/subconsciously (?) to agent - could be related to him/her having a different outlook on life (or at least on particular situation) than the one described in OP.
Whether we think of our actions as personal and free-willed or not, in “choosing” what to do, we normally consider the causal effects of different actions and often perhaps, mainly focus on what these imply for us personally. Decision-making then, is much associated with the idea of self [bodily, mentally - here, I’m not sure it matters] and that of causally related sequences of events.
I’m late for bus. There’s a young girl sitting alone on pavement, sobbing, while people keeps rushing by, pretending they’ve not seen her. I don’t know what is wrong and I don’t know if I can help or if she even wants me to try to, but because it is obvious that she is in pain, I approach her regardless and offer her my attention and the time which in truth, I do not have.
And, what about when we are so focused on what is going on and on the immediate needs (in the exact here and now) of someone else, that we no longer are conscious of our “self” and do not in fact include its needs/wants in situation? Surely PavlovianModel146, there can be no doubt of such situations existing! Though perhaps it could be argued that our actions in such circumstances are instinctive and therefore, do not qualify as altruistic - but then again, why would they not?
Then suddenly, it occurs to me that no specific situation is necessary for altruistic behaviour! We know that there are people who do not think of themselves as individuals; we know too, that some of them dedicate their entire consciousness/awareness to there only existing a here and now, in which the needs of others are what is in focus. Because of their choice of perspective [an ego-less existence] - which can hardly and, certainly not unquestionably, be considered instinctive - the actions of such people are quite likely to be purely altruistic, I think.
Hermit
hahaha really?! wow you must be waat older than me lol. but no lenny wasnt skeptical he always believed george. he thought he was gonna be alright like the several other times. i see what your saying about guilt but im sure george’s motive was nothing more than loyalty to his dear friend.
I do doubt the existence of such situations. Any action that a person can take that explicitly has an impact on another person requires consideration of the self because it is the self committing the action. I can’t hand a starving homeless guy some food without handing it to him, can I?
Three Things:
1.) I’m only 26, we read it in High School.
2.) Loyalty is an impulse we feel towards others, but to betray a person (be disloyal to them) would cause us to experience vast amounts of guilt. In the above example, a sense of loyalty and alleviation of guilt are effectively the same thing.
3.) Even if they are not, then loyalty is the primary Motivator and alleviation of guilt the Secondary Motivator. An action with a self-serving Secondary Motivator is still a self-serving action, it’s just not the explicit purpose of that action.
I stumbled upon this site and looked up this thread.
Your conclusions are consistent with your definitions, but your definitions are not consistent with commonly understood meanings of the words.
In ordinary usage if the expected benefit to the actor is in the higher order and the recipient a lower order one while it entails a cost in lower order to the actor, it is termed an altruistic act. Of course some forms, like parental altruism, are widespread across the animal kingdom and they are seldom treated as altruistic acts, simply as obligations or genetic drives being fulfilled.
It is certainly possible to make the word altruism redundant, but only by admitting to a ‘self’ that extends to other bodies or even concepts. So an act of a parent sacrificing his/her welfare for a better welfare for the child is a self-serving act if we agree that the ‘self’ of the parent includes the children. Sacrificing one’s life for a concept (like a nation) is also self-serving act but only when the ‘self’ is expanded to include the concept.
Those who are impressed with what are commonly seen as altruistic acts are those who perceive the self as being capable of evolving in depth and breadth and desire that.
Welcome to ILP!
I respectfully disagree. The definition for Altruism is consistent with the dictionary, and the definitions for selfish and self-interested I consider pretty cut and dry. I think the only definition with room for interpretation is Altruism, bus as I stated, an Altruistic act (as described) is not something that could realistically happen, so the word needs redefined.
I’d have a hard time disagreeing with what you have to say in terms of common usage. With respect to this, I think the only thing that needs to be more clearly defined is to what extent must the action benefit the person being acted upon as opposed to the actor for it to be considered altruistic. Going back to that farm example, do you think it would be fair to say it was altruistic for the farm owner to hire the bum to work on his farm when it is the farm owner that gets more out of it in terms of revenue?
I don’t think that the self necessarily extends to these people or concepts, but I think that these people or concepts play such a significant factor in what makes up the self (mentally and emotionally) that any act that benefits those people or concepts is also inherently self-serving.
I’m certain that people can evolve in these regards, and by extension must evolve in these regards to continue as a civilization. With respect to the Ik people, we have seen what happens when the majority of a group of people pursue only selfish Motivators, it does not entail long-term survival. At the same time, though, having recognized this fact, it is difficult to argue against the position that behaving in a social and harmonious way is self serving.
Thank you!
Your definition of altruism is actually not consistent with the dictionary. You imposed a constraint ‘only’ when looking at who the beneficiary is, something that neither the dictionary nor common usage make and thus come to the conclusion that altruism is impossible.
When we look outside our species it is very easy. It would be considered an altruistic act if it did not increase the welfare of the actor while enhancing the welfare of the recipient. It gets muddy when we apply it to human actions since we recognise other kinds of welfare than physiological as necessary for survival and the impact of an action on non-physiological welfare varies from indivdual to individual. But one thing that is undisputed for the most people is that physiological welfare trumps emotional welfare and emotional welfare trumps intellectual welfare. So it is not uncommon to call an act altruistic when the act involves a reduction in physiological welfare for the actor while enhancing the same for the recipient even if it enhances the emotional welfare of the actor if the gain for the actor is not obvious. However most would fail to see an act of altruism on the part of a celebrity allotting some time for a charity fundraiser event since the benefit to the emotional welfare is obvious. Act of a very wealthy man, who generated a lot of ill-will making his wealth, donating a major part of his wealth to charitable causes can be called an altruistic act only by a person who suffers no pain because of such an ill-will.
It is an altruistic act only if the farmer could not have expected to benefit from employing the unemployed person or the other options available to him would have yielded a greater financial benefit. Otherwise it is a symbiotic action, that increases the welfare of both the actor and recipient.
If the self did not extend to these individuals or concepts, all actions of extreme sacrifice, like giving up one’s life for another or a concept, would have to be instances of absolute altruism (or irrational), since what happens after one’s self dies doesn’t serve the self in any way. However if the beneficiaries of this sacrifice are part of the expanded ‘self’, it is a self-serving action since the ‘self’ did not end with the death of that person but continues through the life of the beneficiaries of the action.
It is self-serving only if the ‘self’ extends beyond one’s body and life time. Otherwise there would be no particular reason to wish for or invest in anything that doesn’t impact one directly and in one’s expected life time.
Anyway, I doubt self-expansion will solve more problems than it creates. ‘Self’ requires the ‘other’. It exists only in relation to the other. A ‘self’ that perceives itself to be in constant conflict with the ‘other’ when expanded perceives a bigger conflict with the other. Wealth and prosperity made some nations more and not less belligerent. Expansion beyond national boundaries into “civilisations” did not make certain “civilisations” less belligerent either. An expanded ‘self’ will commit on a larger scale actions that it would have committed on a smaller scale before expansion. If perception of being in conflict with the ‘other’ is in the nature of ‘self’ itself, self-expansion is simply a matter of increasing the scale of the conflict with the ‘other’. Self-dissolution advocated by some eastern religions, on the other hand, seems counter-intuitive, since the ‘self’ is essential for survival. Perhaps it is possible for the ‘self’ not to see itself as being in perpetual conflict with the ‘other’ and then the primary motivators will be neither selfish nor altruistic but symbiotic actions whatever the size of the ‘self’
Whoa, Gani said exactly what I opened with: your definitions are off, but if we were to accept your definitions, your conclusions are completely accurate.
Welcome to ILP.
It doesn’t matter who the beneficiary is, just that there is a beneficiary. For an act to even approach being considered altruistic, there must be at least one beneficiary. On the first page, my definition of Altruistic Act is also compared to the dictionary’s definition for Altruism, as you can see, my definition is effectively a paraphrase.
I would argue that the exact opposite is the case. I agree to the extent that physiological welfare is a more primarily needed type of welfare than either emotional or intellectual, but the reason that the latter two trump the former is because they are higher order types of welfare than physiological. In fact, physiological welfare is a base component (i.e. necessary) for any other type of welfare to be had. It’s very difficult to say that Physiological welfare trumps something of which physiological welfare is merely a component.
I would agree with that, except the last act described is still not purely altruistic because there still must be a secondary, self-interested, motivator. In the first couple acts described, one is merely making oneself feel better by partially making amends, so to speak.
The fact that it increases the welfare of the actor prevents it from being wholly altruistic.
I agree with that, but would also refer you to the earlier example of a man sacrificing himself to save his child. He feels no pain anymore, even the immediate pain of being shot is debatable whether or not he feels that. However, the kid suffers the experience of witnessing his Dad die every day for the rest of his life.
I look at it more in terms of how it relates with the other than how it conflicts with the other. Of course, a conflict is a type of relation, but obviously it does not constitute all types of relations.
It sure is and applies well to animals outside our species which is what I admitted. A “soldier” insect dying for the colony is a “wholly” altruistic act looked at from the point of view of the individual, since we do not associate empathetic emotions or intellect with insects.
But a similar action in human beings ceases to be “wholly” altruistic since humans have developed emotions and intellect?
I guess we are looking at trumping in different contexts, I in the context of which needs to be satisfied first and you in the context of which we attempt to fulfil most. One way out would be to define them as primary (physiological), secondary (empathetic emotional) and tertiary (intellectual) welfares. Then any act that potentially reduces the lower order welfare of the actor and enhances the higher order welfare for the actor and a lower order welfare for the recipient can be defined as altruistic. This would be the same as the dictionary definition you quoted since we do not know of higher order welfare amongst animals. Such a definition allows us to differentiate between the self-interested action like murder from the self-interested action such as feeding the hungry.
Unless you associate no value with being alive, the child certaily benefitted from the action (with guilt, trauma and everything) while the parent lost.
Of course, conflict is not the only possible relation and that was my point too. But a ‘self’ which perceives itself to be in eternal conflict with the ‘other’ enhances the conflict when it expands. Self-expansion thus doesn’t bring an end to conflicts. So I am not too impressed when people suggest empathetic self-expansion. What could change things is not self-expansion, but the relation of the self to the other.
Not for that reason, many animals can be said to have both emotions and intellect. The reason is because every action that can be committed by a human is, in some way, self-serving.
I can agree with you for the most part, except I might suggest that when an actor is able to fulfill a higher order (Secondary or Tertiary) need/want due to the fact that their primary needs/wants have already been fulfilled by way of fulfilling a primary need/want of another that the action actually advances the satisfaction for the actor than it does for the person being acted upon.
The parent associated value with his child’s life, and probably made the decision primarily for that reason. He simply acted according to his beliefs and morals.
That is a circular argument.
It is quite uncommon to see someone sacrifice their primary welfare to serve someone else’s primary welfare if their own primary welfare is not sufficiently assured or is worse than that of the potential recipient. So we are not likely to see many situations where a starving man with a piece of cake gives it up for a reasonably fed man. Yes. But the reverse is likely to happen and is an instance of altruism even though the actor benefits himself through a satisfaction of having fed a starving man.
To declare that such an act is not different from an act where a reasonably fed person steals from a hungry person and both are “self-interested” is to declare there is no difference between someone who loots those that have less than himself for his material gratification and someone who shares what he has with someone who has less for personal emotional gratification.
It is not as if anyone is trying to introduce a new word called ‘altruism’ into the language for someone to argue against it. It already exists and exists to differentiate such scenarios. If you want it removed, you better suggest how you may differentiate the two scenarios presented and whether they possess no difference for you.
How can a self-serving person have beliefs or morals that place higher value upon something than his own self? All his beliefs and morals have to place his self at the highest and the cumulative value of everything else has to be less than his self. Unless the person believes in post-mortem continuity (afterlife, rebirth, reincarnation etc) sacrificing one’s life cannot be a rational action for any ‘self-interested’ person unless the ‘self’ is larger than the body of the person. In which case it would be the equivalent of giving up a part of the body in order that the rest may continue to live, definitely a rational action.
I’m not declaring that there is no difference. I’m declaring that the action of someone with more giving to someone with less is Secondarily self-interested, whereas someone with more taking from someone with less would be outright selfish. I would not argue that there is no distinction between an act that is selfish and an act that is merely self-interested, I’m arguing that there is no difference between a self-interested and a purely Altruistic act because a purely Altruistic act can’t actually happen.
I don’t want it removed, I want it re-defined to only take degrees into consideration. I want the definition to basically make one ask the question, to what extent must an act serve the other as opposed to the self to be considered Altruistic? The definition from which I paraphrased implicitly argues that there can be a purely selfless act, I argue that there can not.
Since it is the self that commits an action, it’s impossible to commit the action without the self being interested, ergo, every action is self-interested. Some actions are self-interested to the extent of being selfish, but I think the distinction between what is merely self-interested and what is selfish is already drawn well-enough.
This argument gets into metaphysics which I prefer to avoid as a rule. I will get into a discussion of this vein if it becomes necessary, though. Briefly, I’ll just say that it seems that many people consider the, “Survival,” of their Moral Set to be greater than the survival of their physical being.
Why are you obsessed with this adjective “purely” or “wholly” before altruistic and then deny such things exist?
Someone eating his food is a self-interested act that is not altruistic.
Someone sharing his food with a hungry and needy person is a “self-intersted” act that is altruistic.
Unless, of course, there is no fundamental difference between those two actions for you. The word altruistic exists for the rest of us who do see a fundamental difference between those two actions.
Why would you pick a definition that has been intended explicitly to define animal behaviour? For example this online dictionary offers the following definition first “unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others”, which makes no claim about whether or not the actor receives any secondary benefits. Why would you use a definition specifically intended to describe animal behaviour when a perfectly clear definition applying to human actions has been defined before?
It is also perfectly easy to define altruistic acts as those whose intended primary beneficiary is someone other than the actor and then you could have “wholly” altruistic acts that don’t contradict the dictionary defition.
I am not sure how you can avoid it, if you want to see self-interest in every action. Dying for someone else or a concept is necessarily self-sacrifice, a “wholly” altruistic act, (the self-ceases to exist to draw any benefits) unless the ‘self’ can be defined to extend to the others or concepts. Those who are not interested in proving every action as motivated by self-interest, on the otherhand, don’t have to do that.
I’m just qualifying the Altruistic Act. You’re clearly of the opinion that Altruistic Acts can exist, so I am using the word, “Wholly,” to differentiate my meaning of Altruistic Act from your meaning of Altruistic Act. I don’t deny that any of the acts you have described are Altruistic pursuant to your definition of Altruism, so I use purely or wholly to indicate we are working with my definition.
There is a fundamental difference which is the degree to which the act is self-interested, with Pure Altruism being one extreme and Pure Selfishness being the other extreme.
Humans are animals.
I think that, “Unselfishly concerned for or devoted to the welfare of others,” is a border-line acceptable definition, but to what degree must self-interest not play a part for the act to be deemed, “Unselfish?”
This is my proposed definition:
[i]Altruistic Act-A voluntary act expressly intended to have greater material or immaterial benefit for the person(s) acted upon than it does for the actor.
Materially Altruistic Act-A voluntary act of exchanging material goods expressly intended to have greater utility for the person(s) acted upon than the exchange does for the actor, typically at a material cost but emotional gain to the actor.
Immaterially Altruistic Act-An immaterial act of kindness that is expressly intended to be of greater emotional benefit to the person(s) being acted upon as opposed to the actor.[/i]
I think that this definition clearly poses the question (when looking at a specific act): Did this act benefit the person beiung acted upon more than it benefitted the actor? Also, in this sense, you would no longer look at acts as, “Altruistic,” or, “Not Altruistic,” as the level of Altruism would largely be dependent on how much more the person acted upon is benefitted than the actor.
See proposed definition above, please.
Because the self ceases to exist it does not need to draw any benefits. If the person that sacrifices themselves would not want to live either:
A.) Knowing they could have sacrificed themselves and did not.
or
B.) Not wanting to live where living necessitates experiencing the results of the failure to sacrifice oneself.
It’s still also a self-serving act. The thing that you have to understand about self-sacrifice, unless it was unintended self-sacrifice, is that it is essentially a form of suicide. Granted, it’s not suicide in the sense that the person simply did not want to live anymore, but in the sense that the person did not want to live under certain conditions. (ex. if someone else had to die for them to live)
—If you happen to be on and reply today, I will respond. If you reply tomorrow, please know that I am off Wednesday and Thursday this week, so I will not be posting again (after 2:00a.m. my time (EST) tonight) until Friday. I did not want you to think that I am discontinuing our conversation, it’s been quite a pleasure thus far.
OK. Now we are getting somewhere. However the distinction into material and immaterial is not quite appropriate. You may qualify it using primary and secondary. Social approval/goodwill is immaterial, but primary. An act whose intent is the gain of social approval or goodwill for the actor and a material benefit to the recipient is not an altrustic act even in regular usage.
Well, since in the definitions it is the intent and not the consequences that are important you can still describe acts as altruistic or not based on the motivators, to the extent they can be discerned. Of course there can be disagreements, but they would be about differences in the perception of what the intent is.
Recently a very wealthy man (internationally known) donated large part of his wealth to a charitable organisation bearing his name (in part). Some may believe it to be an altruistic act, assessing his motivation to be enhancing the primary welfare of the recipients. Others may dispute it believing the motivation to be enhancing his own goodwill. Whatever the motivation, the consequences will not be different, he earns goodwill and the recipients of the charity benefit materially.
However you twist it, you are talking about attaching a higher value to something than the self and it is not a rational decision for a self-interested person. As long as the value of the thing that will be lost by the person not sacrificing himself is less than the self (which has to be for a rational self-intereted person, since all values flow from the usefulness to the self), voluntary self-sacrifice is an irrational act for a self-interested person.
No issues about when you reply.
out of curiosity if someone religiously lived to the ten commandments of god but not to serve god would that be altruism?
Exactly which of the commandments do you think is an action resulting in a loss for the actor and a benefit to the others, if any, to be considered an altruistic action?
Below is the list taken from a site called Bible Knowledge
1.You shall have no other gods before me.
2.You shall not make for yourself any carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.
3.You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not hold him guiltless who takes His name in vain.
4.Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the Lord your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your manservant, nor your maidservant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it.
5.Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you.
6.You shall not murder.
7.You shall not commit adultery.
8.You shall not steal.
9.You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.
10.You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.