Why be generous and give to others? Why not be selfish with what you have and know?
More fun. If you are nice to people they are (generally, not necessarily) nicer to you.
It’s like a joke - no fun if you keep it to yourself…
or gas, you’ll explode if you keep it to yourself…
-Imp
Everyone is purely selfish. The only difference is some are more honest with themselves about it.
A lot of these big questions can be easier if you study the question itself, instead of leaping at an answer.
Answer this. What do you mean by “Why”? Do you mean to say “I know that being generous is good, but what makes it good?” Or do you mean “Is being generous good, or isn’t it?” You might even mean ‘Why’ as in “What’s in it for me to be generous?”
You aren’t a Martian, so presumably you have the impulse within you to find generosity in others as admirable, and selfishness not. So I can safely say the one thing you aren’t asking is, “Hey, the other day I heard someone say ‘you should be generous’. I’ve never heard of such a thing! What’s up with that?!?”
…selfless… 
perhaps you would think it’s a way of making sense of your life
Well, giving gives me somthing back. As people have already stated here, everything has an “egoistic” purpose. If giving someone a gift would be pure pain, have no reason to it at all and there would be no consequences for nothing doing it, of course I would not do it.
Giving a good gift to someone you love is of course extremly rewarding and makes you feel good, very egoistic. If I would not have given that great gift I would have felt like a bastard, and how would that benefit me?
Sorry if I seem cynical, just trying to make a point.
Good old retreats into ‘everything is selfish’.
Gotta love those ‘satanists’ and other wannabe rebels who simply trot out the individualist dogma of our time no matter how contradictory it makes them…
Dr S, you’ve outdone yourself with this stupidity…
Contradictory? in what way?
Stupidity eh?
So you are refuting my claim with name calling? I supose that is the standard around here these days.
How about you give me one example of a purely unselfish act, then we’ll talk.
I don’t have to, I simply have to provide an example of an act that isn’t entirely selfish, since that is the claim on the board. How about my grandmother, who has mobility difficulties (being over 80), still insisting on cooking and cleaning when she comes to visit?
It certainly costs her more than she gets from it…
How about telling a joke?
edit- contradictory because you claim to be someone who refuses to conform to dogma when in fact your stated philosophy couldn’t be more relative to our own time…
Are you sure? How do you know that being able to still do those things isn’t the most important thing to her at that stage in her life? Maybe what she get’s from being able to still feel useful is what keeps her alive.
Since I live in ‘our own time’, why would I prescribe to a philosophy that wasn’t tailored to such? I don’t follow you…Are you trying to say if a philosophy doesn’t apply to all times and all cultures it isn’t valid?
Dear Dr S.
I know her better than that. She’s spent her retirement years studying art and literature and (until recently) travelling.
No, of course not. But dressing up the conforming to the populist dogma of our time as some sort of rebellious or subversive act is contradictory.
I’d like to counter a most common expression, and that that since we enjoy doing nice things for people, doing nice things must be selfish.
Two things. First, pointing out that we enjoy doing nice things is not at all the same as saying that we do those nice things [i]just in order to experience that enjoyment.[/i] That could easily be a side or fringe benefit, of no real importance. The girl that cashes my paychecks at the bank is cute, I like it when she smiles at me. I [i]don't[/i] work my forty hours a week for the thrill of her cashing my paychecks.
Second, and more important, don't overlook the bare fact that [i]we enjoy doing nice things. [/i] Gaining pleasure from things that give us no tangible benefit is a peachy definition of 'altrusim' and 'selflessness'. No doubt, we would call a person who [i]hated[/i] doing anything for anybody extremely selfish. Seems to me that someone who enjoys it is the opposite.
It’s about being rational. Selflessness is a pretty humanity dress up. Too bad many people fall for it. Those who lives for himself day in day out aren’t that much more rationaller.
Because it can be a very benificial and self-interested thing to do (call it selfish if you will). For example: I skip 3 out of 4 meals a day for a week to save up money to get my girlfriend a present, because I know doing something nice for her will ultimatly make myself feel great. Am I being selfish by being generous then? Sure. Does that diminish anything? Nope. Win win situation. My conclusion: its in your better self-interest to be generous . . . most times. Perhaps Artistotle’s golden mean may be applicable.
im always usefull and enjoy it.[/url]
selshishness is an act of god