Secondary and primary are probably better descriptive adjectives to qualify the act than material and immaterial, you make a good point about intent.
That’s true, and I think that it would be very important to go beyond what the intent appears to be on the surface, to actually put oneself in the position of the actor to such an extent as to closer approximate the actor’s true intent.
I definitely agree with that, and given the very nature of Cause/Effect the Motivation does not affect the actual consequences of an action regardless of whether it is Selfish, Self-Interested, or Altruistic. The question is simply one of, how are we to describe a certain action. Strictly speaking, it is probably going to be rare than an action ever truly need to be described with respect to Motivation, the court of law being an obvious exception.
I’m afraid we’re just arguing the same points over and over again on this one. I’m definitely for continuing the above parts of this conversation, but doubt we will reach any consensus on this matter.
I agree we are not likely to reach any conlusion on that one.
Ever since I was exposed to Ayn Rand a couple of decades ago, I wondered why her admirers failed to see the logical inconsistency in her heroes preparing to lay down their lives instead of accepting a compromise. After all, for a person all of whose values are derived from their usefulness to the self, nothing whatsoever can be worth dying for. It would necessarily be an irrational act. However, I could never get someone advocating individual self-interest as the sole motivation for all actions (at least rational ones) to agree with me on this. I often wondered why until it struck me that just because someone realises it does not necessarily mean the person has to acknowledge it, if acknowledging it may not be in the person’s own interests.
Pure selfishness as the sole motivator for actions has been employed to successfully explain even apprently altruistic behaviour (including self-sacrifice in soldier insects), but by selfishness at the level of the gene and not at the level of the inidviual organism or groups. A similar elegant explanation exists for apparently altruistic behaviour in humans, but again at the level not of the individual, but of memes. These explanations regard the individual as a temporary vehicle for the replicators, genes or memes. So an individual sacrifice is an influence of the replicator (gene or meme) for its own selfish ends to propogate itself. Of course, these explanations cannot explain every action in every instance nor do they attempt to. They only predict that the replicators that act in a way less than maximising their survival in the corresponding replicator pool will find themselves in less vehicles as generations pass by until eventually they go out of existence.
It will be interesting too see what the surival chances of a meme that holds the individual self as the highest value are.
That’s actually a good definition of altruism. What you probably just did, brevel_monkey, is give into someone who you were afraid to say no to. Altruism does benefit someone in a positive way - but I don’t think it at least directly harms another. If you had wanted to be truly altruistic, you would have given Bob the $100 that Fred owed - that would have actually benefited both parties and it would have been a self-sacrificing act to yourself.
I think though that a truly altruistic person sees no self-sacrifice and always gives from a place of fullness, not loss. And I do think that there are truly altruistic people who want nothing in return, either consciously or subconsciously. I think we’ve come that far at least in our evolution.
The only way to commit a truly altruistic act by this threads definition is to be limited in your time to think about the act.
I am reminded of a not to long ago article were a man saved someone from a subway track who had fallen by hoping down and laying flat with them as the train passed over.
In the split second before he saved the person was he able to think about the glory of his success? I think that when time is constrained enough some of us might have an automatic inclination toward altruism. Maybe it is even ingrained into us by society or movies that on some level or another self sacrifice for another always yields benefits. I would argue this to be the case in fact. And as such the only truly altruistic action is one you dont think about to the point of finding the benefits. As rational humans the only way this can happen is limited time or some kind of mental anomaly.
Dear PavlovianModel146,
I cannot question that in yours and in many people’s cases, what you say is just so. But, as I know it is not so for everyone- lots of people would say that they regularly [physically] act without self-awareness/consciousness - I do still wonder; is your consciousness of self when you “hand out food to homeless”, inevitable because of the actual [i]nature[/i ]of “self” and “consciousness” or, could it have more to do with not normally wishing/needing/being used to distinguishing between action and self-consciousness?
Even if you personally consider it impossible; if one imagines that we mentally could detach ourselves from a situation, one can assume that our views on that situation would no longer include a concern for “self” and that this, indeed could alter what we believe to be an appropriate way of handling the situation as a whole.
I may of course be wrong but to me, it still seems likely that true altruistic behaviour exist and have something to do with self-dissociation…
I believe that’s a perfectly rational theory. I’m honestly going to mull over that for the next few days and then come back to you with a response. Presently, I’m unsure, but I might end up agreeing.
Simply stated, my argument against that is that everyone has (consciously or sub-consciously) already thought about the act, or an act in a situation so materially similar as to not be substantially different, in terms of what decision the person will make. I’m not necessarily suggesting that the person thought about it in the sense of immediately prior to the act happening, but in the sense of previous comparable acts that they have already committed, or in theoretical comparable situations pre-considered.
The first four commandments have to do with worshipping and doing the will of god. For what possible reason might someone adhere to them except to serve god? Well, insofar as the fourth commandment goes - Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy… someone might choose to follow this simply because they realize that it is both wise and reasonable to take a break from work, to have one day in which to relax.
Aside from that, the last six would depend on the person’s intent, his motivation. A person who followed those six might do it from a sense of his own personal or moral code. That doesn’t have to necessarily be about a god. I also don’t think that adhering to that personal or moral/ethical code has to suggest altruism though it can. I think an altruistic person acts consciously (and perhaps unconsciously even) from what benefits mankind and does not deliberately harm. That might seem to describe one who lives by a code or a moral person but I still think there’s a difference.
Altruism does benefit someone in a positive way - but I don’t think it at least