I did a little searching and found that this topic had been covered back in April, but I wanted to specify it a bit more. From what I read in the old post, a lot of emphasis was put on ALL living organisms and whether or not selflessness existed. I am strictly concerned with humans. Are there really ever selfless acts? Aren’t all our decisions based on our own benefit, in one way or another? Just a thought I’ve been debating on with a couple devout catholic friends. (Yes, devout catholic is an oxymoron.) Thoughts?
If it’s confined to human meaning, then it’s whatever you say it is if you can convince others of it…
the problem with determining if there can be selfless acts is that seemingly selfless acts might just be a popularity scheme 
No, I don’t agree that the idea of a selfless act is subjective. Its simply an action taken by a human with no regard for one’s self. And humans don’t do this, wouldn’t do this. Every decision we make every day benefits us in some way, otherwise we would choose not to do it.
One of the big observations of my life is that men and women have a severely different concept of self.
That leads to the next topic: why is being “selfless” considered “good” and “selfishness” considered “bad”?
I always thought it was the opposite…
Apparently, I’m out of touch with reality.
Wouldn’t the following fictive scenario be a good example of selflessness?
(I’m a foreigner, so please excuse my English)
I’m walking down a road. It is totally deserted, except me, and a guy with his dog walking towards me.
The guy looks like he could easily hurt me, and in general looks really unpleasant - a guy I would avoid any kind of interference with if possible.
As he passes me, he starts kicking the dog, seemingly unmotivated.
Animals mean very little to me, but yet I pity the dog seeing it in big pain, but I know that if I interfere I risk that this guy will hurt me in some way, at least I think that.
Yet, I choose to interfere; I tell him to stop, and hope he doesn’t hurt me.
Being an atheist, I didn’t do it to improve my chances going to some kind of paradise or similar.
Also, as said, there were no people around, so no one to impress, in any way.
And I am convinced beforehand, that the dog will not like me for it - so I didn’t do it to get in better standing with the dog.
I have no friends or family in any way, that I could tell it to (to maybe look better in their eyes).
Would that not be selflessness on display here?
Or would it be egoistic in the end, because I didn’t really do it to help the dog, but mainly to prevent myself from being in emotional pain (over seeing another living creature get hurt) ?
To sum it up:
I risked getting hurt - for something I was 100% sure I wouldn’t get anything out of myself in any way, with the (apparent) sole purpose of helping a dog (except maybe a lessening of my emotional pain).
You told us though, just now. 
(Sorry to burst your bubble – ok – not really!) 
The problem with selflessness is defining how a person could act irrelevant to their “self”. That’s nonsensical.
Your action builds the self, so how can you go around it in anyway shape-or-form?
Your best bet, and everybody else’s, to be selfless is to be illogical and totally emotive without recourse… (I guess)
What you’ve done is describe a selfless act, yes, but in reality, if you had absolutely nothing to gain from helping the dog, you simply wouldn’t do it. Unless you got the satisfaction of feeling like a better person, you would let him abuse his dog as you walked by. We weigh the options of every choice we make, and if we don’t benefit from it, we don’t do it.
exactly.
Okay I follow both of you (“your cousin” and “realunoriginal”).
And I guess it doesn’t make much sense to talk about DEGREES of selflessness as well then.
I mean, defining some acts as closer to the “impossible act of selflessness” than others …
Lets say another guy very much like me, would only have helped the dog, if he was rewarded a large sum of money. Couldn’t it then be said that he was somehow further away from a selfless act than me?
(i helped the dog to lessen my pain of seeing a living creature being abused)
(he helped the dog to lessen his own pain of seeing a living creature being abused AND to get a lot of money)
Kovacs, I think you answered your own question in that particular case, when you said “Or would it be egoistic in the end, because I didn’t really do it to help the dog, but mainly to prevent myself from being in emotional pain (over seeing another living creature get hurt) ?”
You prefer to risk physical pain in order to avoid emotional pain.
But I think there are some instances of true selflessness.
Try this carrot and stick scenario. You are an atheist (hmm, a necessity for true selflessness), and a really bad dude (the Joker, let’s say) offers you a choice. He offers you great wealth etc. etc. if you will activate a circuit that only you can, that will blow up a city. If you don’t do it, you will be killed, no one will ever know that you saved them and your ashes will be scattered under the North Pole ice cap.
We could sit here all day and discuss if any certain act is selfless or not, but its only common sense. We don’t do anything that doesn’t benefit us. In this case, why would you not blow the city up? what would be the reason for chosing to do it, or not do it? You would weight the outcomes of each option, and choose. “If I blow the city up, yes I’ll be rich and I can continue living, but I will have to live with the fact that I killed thousands of people. I would like to spare myself from the guilt and internal pain that would cause, and while I don’t want to die, it’s better than living with that.” you have the luxury of being executed with “honor”.
no matter what you chose, you chose for the benefit of yourself, therefore it is not selfless. Don’t confuse selfless with charitable.
Sorry, but one last try:
What if the Joker then, on top of all this, also offered to ERASE certain parts of your memory, so you would not remember anything about your choice? So you knew in advance you would never be bothered by any kind of guilt or internal pain, should you choose to bomb the city (or why a city, maybe it was only to save one guy! to make it even closer to “selflessness”).
then I, personally, would blow up the city. If there are no negative repercussions for me, why would I not? Wouldn’t this be the same as The Joker telling me he will give me a large sum of money to simply press a button without the knowledge of what it does?
A self-less act is impossible, as long as the act is perpetrated by a self.
If you want more input me, then know this:
If you’re trying to define a selfless act, then the pain & pleasure principle is a bad ethics to take with you. I wouldn’t ever argue that an act is “selfless or selfish” based on Utilitarianism, because that system implies a large presumption about self – that your self is a part of society. I say, screw it, call the act selfless and see if you can get away with it. Your only problem then becomes defining: “self”.
humans engage in altruism towards kin. the goal of all reproducing organisms is successful propagation. When a child or sibling shares 50% of your genes, yeah some ‘selfless’ acts (cost to one human to the benefit to another) exists. it happens in humans a lot.
Sorry if I wasn’t clear.
You are fully aware in advance that you will kill those people, but you are also aware in advance that your memory about the incident will be erased ONCE you have pressed the button.
But if we say:
selflessness = altruism (wikipedia: Altruism is selfless concern for the welfare of others)
Don’t the previous examples at least make some sense?
I mean, then we HAVE to take into account how we are concerned with the “welfare” of others.
We might argue about what is good/bad in that regard, but in principle we are still tackling the same problem about trying to think of actions that are selfless, right?
Even if we forget the altruistic part, and say it is just about doing something selfless, no matter if it is “good” or “bad” for anyone else, aren’t we still basically talking about the same thing?
In regards to all those scenarios, with outset in something more or less “real”, maybe it would be better for the discussion if we came up with examples of something selfless, no matter how theoretical it might be.
Would that at least be possible?
For example (only to clarify what I mean, so they might sound stupid):
Could a man that was not aware of his own existence somehow do selfless actions? Or a person where certain parts of the brain were defect? or a machine/android maybe?
Or is it futile no matter what end we start from (as some seem to suggest)?