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| Thread: Altruism is evil |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · NEXT» |
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 11:33 PM |
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Altruism is evil
"Altruism is evil?"
"Yes it is"
"Why is altruism evil? Altruism is helping people!"
"No, its not. Altruism is to do something for somebody else."
"But I help people because I like to help them, why would it then be evil?"
"No, that is not altruism, but beneficial egoism. You are helping them because it feels good, not because you want to help them because someone asked you to"
"What?"
"If someone asked you to kill a person, regardless of who, would you do it?"
"No, why would I kill people?"
"Here is the thing: A altruistic action is a action for somebody else, and by killing people for somebody else, without thinking about it, you are doing something that qualifies for some really pure altruism"
"But what about helping people?"
"Helping people is not altruism. It is that simple"
My point about that silly monolog/dialog/whatever was that helping people is not helping people for the sake of helping people, but rather pure egoism.
When you help people, there is several reasons to do it:
1. It makes you feel good
2. You are doing it, because you hope people will want to help you if you fall
3. Its your job, you do it to earn money, 1 and 2 is just large benefits
All 3 of the listed reason are egoism.
Here is the dilemma: Is there actually anything "redeeming" about altruism?
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Shyranis
Promising
Supreme Hero
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posted July 18, 2011 11:37 PM |
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Well, you could discard all of your material possessions (to give to other people or charity) and suffer while you help people. That won't necessarily make you feel good.
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DagothGares
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No gods or kings
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posted July 18, 2011 11:42 PM |
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Thank God, we only have 1.5 objectivists in this forum or all hell'd break loose.
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
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posted July 19, 2011 12:00 AM |
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"What is Ayn Rand" I think someone said?
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Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
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posted July 19, 2011 12:06 AM |
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Not sure if serious.. Some people don't seem to get that there are people that do selfless things and not just to feel good. Which often enough costs them much more than you actually gain - if you count the satisfaction of the deed. You cannot argue about it if you have not felt it.
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Adrius
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posted July 19, 2011 12:26 AM |
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Edited by Adrius at 00:56, 19 Jul 2011.
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Yeah, I believe that people do stuff that makes them feel good.
I believe it's a mechanism that weighs work vs reward, which is also one of the reasons why our race has progressed so far... we're able to take a bit of suffering in order to gain a future reward. Few if any animals do this, 'lest it's driven by instinct.
Like working hard as **** to get enough money for that trip for instance. Not fun, but the trade in pain vs enjoyment will be worth it.
In Shyranis' example, the person would give up his material possessions and have a hard time yes, but he would probably feel way worse if he kept them and thought of all the poor people who suffered in his stead.
Are people at their innermost subconscious core selfish? Yeah, I think so, though I don't think many are aware of it (and honestly, thinking about it doesn't really make any difference...). Is it evil? Hell no, if my selfishness involves helping others then all the better.
I guess we could talk about varying degrees of "bad selfishness"... like eh... a person who thinks only of himself VS a totally altruistic person... both are selfish, but the latter one is definitely a better person, least in my eyes.
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mvassilev
Responsible
Undefeatable Hero
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posted July 19, 2011 12:43 AM |
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"Altruism" has several definitions that contradict each other. Sometimes it means that any action taken for the benefit of others is good, and any action taken for one’s own benefit is evil. Sometimes it only means something like "benevolent action". Language doesn't distinguish between bad altruism (the first) and situationally good altruism (the second). Usually when I write I use "altruism" to mean the former, as per its original definition.
A few people are truly altruistic (in the "bad altruism" sense), though. They think they have a duty to help other people, no matter what, and/or that their own preferences don't matter and that only (certain) other people's do. Or because God wants them to.
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Eccentric Opinion
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del_diablo
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posted July 19, 2011 12:50 AM |
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Quote:
Not sure if serious.. Some people don't seem to get that there are people that do selfless things and not just to feel good. Which often enough costs them much more than you actually gain - if you count the satisfaction of the deed. You cannot argue about it if you have not felt it.
Hoarding?
Evil for the sake of evil?
Undeniable urges?
Or something else?
Quote:
I guess we could take about varying degrees of "bad selfishness"... like eh... a person who thinks only of himself VS a totally altruistic person... both are selfish, but the latter one is definitely a better person, least in my eyes.
But a purely Altruisitc person is a person who has no self, you know, how about a computer drone, following orders?
The egoist would be something that is entire selfish, but what it does on the other hand does not have to be hoarding.
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bLiZzArdbOY
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posted July 19, 2011 12:50 AM |
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@Del:
Of course all people's actions are rooted in one motivation or another, otherwise they wouldn't do it to begin with. That's not really relevant though.
Your way of looking at it implies that being miserable is morally superior to being happy. Theoretically, if a person does something that is beneficial to others and they get absolutely nothing out of it and hate every minute of it, how is that more noble than a person that does the same thing and is enjoying it the entire time? Isn't the 2nd situation the preferred one? I mean that's pretty much people's aim in life. They find a passion that hopefully also brings pleasure to other people in some fashion, ranging from doctors to artists. That way they get paid 
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
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posted July 19, 2011 12:54 AM |
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blizzardboy: Where did you get "miserable is better than being happy" out of what I wrote? I need to know that, otherwise there will be a ludicrus derail.
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bLiZzArdbOY
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posted July 19, 2011 12:57 AM |
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You concluded that helping people wasn't altruistic because their desire to help people was based on an internal motivation (I don't know any other kind)
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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del_diablo
Legendary Hero
Manifest
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posted July 19, 2011 01:07 AM |
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Blizzardboy: Then you think that "altruism" is "morally superior"; I said that altruism is morally inferior, because what it is.
Or you think that egoism and being selfish is a bad thing, without even looking at the context.
If you define altruism as "good", then a computer(something that only exist to do something somebody else tells it to do) must be the paragon of good.
Hence i think your interprention of what I said is flawed.
I think that being "selfish" can be good. And I think that teaching kids that "being able to work for oneself is evil" is a really despicable moral, because why is then not "helping people" evil"?
Edit: I wanted to write more.
Or, what I wanted to write is that you seem to have a silly idea.
The silly idea is that you think "altruism == helping people", because it is not. "Helping people == helping people", altruism is something else, that can be done when helping people.
But if I want booze, because it makes me feel good, I am egoistic. If I want to help people, because it makes me fell good, I am altruistic?
That is WRONG! <3
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mvassilev
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posted July 19, 2011 02:16 AM |
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Quote:
But if I want booze, because it makes me feel good, I am egoistic. If I want to help people, because it makes me fell good, I am altruistic?
That is WRONG!
Del_diablo posting something I agree with? IMPOSSIBLE.
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blizzardboy
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posted July 19, 2011 03:06 AM |
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I suspect this will break down to arguing over semantics, in which case I'll stop posting, but the reason the later is commonly considered altruistic is simple: because your desire involves helping people. That the motivation is ultimately rooted in self-interest is a moot point. As far as we know, there aren't woodland animals artificially influencing our thought patterns in order for us to do something that we otherwise wouldn't do, so of course any motivation is based on self-interest in some sort of fashion. However some self-interests will benefit strictly yourself, whereas other self-interests can be more encompassing. In the case of drinking a booze, the benefactors would be 1) you and 2) the people profiting from your purchase. The scope of people being benefited from you saving puppies would be much wider. This will typically separate between what people consider selfish or unselfish, because if your self-interests tend to be excessively narrow in who the benefactors are, it can sometimes piss people off, or especially if your self-interests come at the expense of other people's well-being, such as an alcoholic that betrays his friends and tells his mother to **** off.
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"Folks, I don't trust children. They're here to replace us."
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 19, 2011 03:06 AM |
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The only reason people feel the need to help each other is because, in some way, it helps themselves. Genes are inherently selfish.
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friendofgunnar
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able to speed up time
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posted July 19, 2011 05:27 AM |
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@Corribus, here's something to ponder:
Let's say we meet some aliens and they come to live amongst us (or us amongst them). It's fairly likely that you would be able to find occurences of true altruism, and by "true" I mean absolutely no expectation of reciprocity. So how would that square with the fundamental selfishness of the gene?
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Corribus
Hero of Order
The Abyss Staring Back at You
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posted July 19, 2011 05:48 AM |
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You don't have to rely on aliens to get your point across. Humans display altruistic behavior to much more mundane creatures like cats and dogs as well, to no apparent self-beneficial purpose (aside from making us feel good about ourselves - which is not a negligible effect by the way).
Anyway, it's a fair point, so let me clarify.
Humans tend toward altruistic behavior because in general anything that benefits society benefits the genome. When humans are altruistic, it strengthens society, and humans have a much better selective advantage over other species as a cohesive group. (We're not the only species which derives benefit from group-strengthening behavior of course - takes wolves as an example.) Humans are built for altruism - that is, we are built to want to be altruistic. We derive chemical satisfaction from it. A side effect of our ability to exhibit compassion is that this behavior is manifested toward things besides humans. It's an evolutionary misfire, if I can put it bluntly. Much like how the navigation hard-wiring of insects causes them to fly into bug zappers at night time. With much less disastrous results in the case of altruism, of course. 
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JollyJoker
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posted July 19, 2011 07:11 AM |
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How can a win-win situation be "evil"?
Someone needs help. Another one gives it, no conditions attached. Can that be evil?
Let's first see about thee "feel good" about it.
If you help someone, should you feel bad about it? Should you feel nothing about it? OF COURSE you should feel good when you do it. You made someone's day. You did something to further happiness. That IS good, and because that is good, you are entitled to feel good about it.
In other wwords, you can't distinguish between both.
The only real question is: is there an ulterior motive to help someone? An underlying scheme? The whole thing may be staged to win the trust of the helped for another thing. Say, the helper wants to date the helped. Or rob. Or con in some way.
The difference is, that in the latter case helping is a KNOWN (that is, deliberate) means to a negative purpose and therefore a lie. Therefore it's evil in the moral sense.
And in the first case? Even, if it's done KNOWINGLY with the purpose to feel good, it's obviously not evil, because there is nothing wrong with doing good things to feel good.
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friendofgunnar
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able to speed up time
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posted July 19, 2011 08:02 AM |
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@Corribus
Firstly, I dislike using the word altruism when talking about humans interacting with animals just like I dislike using the words "good" and "evil" in the same context. They all seem kind of....jarring, and inappropriate. Words like "kind" and "cruel" seem more fitting for those types of interactions.
Speaking of which, your altruism to animals scenario reinforces your original theme, which is that the genes act selfishly. Wolves and Humans share 85% to 90% of their genes. The characteristics that we recognize and love in dogs (social behaviour) is to a great degree the same gene set that we inhabited from our mammalian ancestors.
The less genes we have in common with a creature the less we instinctively want to share the goodness. For example people will happily throw lobsters into boiling water but would recoil at the thought of doing the same to dogs. Culture of course can dramatically change those reactions but that seems to be the intrinsic human emotion that people have to the two different animals.
Speaking of culture, the actual point that I was driving at was that memes (cultural genes) can act selfishly in the same way that physical genes can. To use an analogy, if the the culture is the software and the genes are the hardware, a program will behave altruistically towards other hardware that is carrying the same program but will be less likely to act altruistically towards identical hardware that is carrying radically different software. (see "Europe"- Religious History of) That's why I created the alien scenario, to entice you to expand your viewpoint of the fundamental basis of human behaviour.
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Doomforge
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posted July 19, 2011 11:05 AM |
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Quote:
Much like how the navigation hard-wiring of insects causes them to fly into bug zappers at night time.
I like the mach band theory more. Damn moths.
And yeah, altruistic people do it to feel good, which ultimately is selfish like everything else 
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