Are there any real "Self-Less" acts ?

[Pex]

Me: naem a selfless act
Him: getting hit by a bullet
Me : you would be known as a hero
Him: but thats not under your control
Him: you didnt take the bullet so you could be known as a her

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

You're only seeing black & white. Selfish is hurting others to somehow improve your own situation. Selfless doesn't exist. Mutually beneficial things are what most of us are familiar with, and what many term 'selfless'. Shades of gray, is all.

 

[Kipper]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

ANY action taken where the acting party obtains any sort of gain, acts with ulterior motive (no matter how insignificant, or acts in accordance with nothing aside from duty is an egoistical act. Acts which are done out of a sense of duty and a sense of duty alone have moral worth - i.e. are altruistic.

This doesn't change the fact that the action may be good in general, but it does diminish the worth of the act morally. So for example, if you save Bill Gates' life and he gives you a million shares in M$, your action may have been good (or bad, depending on who you talk to ) but it has no moral worth because a.) he gave you a reward, b.) you undoubtedly feel good because you saved someone's life, etc.

 

[TwoMix]

Does it really matter what reason why people do the right thing or sacrifice themselves to help others

 

[amcdonald]

I've never fought in a war, but I'd imagine there are some genuinely selfish acts done in that kind of extreme environment.
You could argue temporary insanity though.

I think the subconcious motivation is typically true, but I believe there are people with genuinely giving personalities that don't hold onto their altruism as a trophy.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: TwoMix
Does it really matter what reason why people do the right thing or sacrifice themselves to help others

nope i treally does not matter. But that is NOT the question now is it?

 

[djheater]

Originally posted by: polm
I thought of this when I read Gruks post in this thread.

Being nice would be respecting your wishes. I'm not getting on your case; far from it. I'm the same way about electronics and my mother is the same way about "being thoughtful & nice". She always used to pull sh*t like this as well to try to bolster her own image. It's really a selfish thing, subconsciously.


When you do something for someone, is it not primarily to bolster your own self-image ?

The social network humans have created is a bit like an insurance policy. We spent a lot of energy developing large brains at the cost of maturity at birth, but our large brains allow us to care for these basically premature offspring. These large brains allow us to communicate and form social bonds, like most ape species.

Why do we do this? To be a group of many against nature instead of one, in a group of many our survival and reproduction is more likely.

 

[jyates]

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

You're only seeing black & white. Selfish is hurting others to somehow improve your own situation. Selfless doesn't exist. Mutually beneficial things are what most of us are familiar with, and what many term 'selfless'. Shades of gray, is all.

Selflessness does exist.

There are a lot of selfless people in the world living and dying every day.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: jyates

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

You're only seeing black & white. Selfish is hurting others to somehow improve your own situation. Selfless doesn't exist. Mutually beneficial things are what most of us are familiar with, and what many term 'selfless'. Shades of gray, is all.

Selflessness does exist.

There are a lot of selfless people in the world living and dying every day.

Hehe, I'd read your other replies and deigned not to comment, as we obviously won't agree. I thought you'd do the same

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: jyates

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

You're only seeing black & white. Selfish is hurting others to somehow improve your own situation. Selfless doesn't exist. Mutually beneficial things are what most of us are familiar with, and what many term 'selfless'. Shades of gray, is all.

Selflessness does exist.

There are a lot of selfless people in the world living and dying every day.

heh it has been explained why that is wrong. but whats the point? you arent getting it.

 

[KarenMarie]

Hypotheticals:

Someone is walking down the street and sees two guys beating the sh!t out of another guy. He thinks it is wrong, and decides to stop them. While doing so, he catches an azz whopping, but at least the guy getting beaten is not killed. The cops come and everyone runs in different directions, never to meet up again.

A woman is in a store and there is a kid who is $1.00 short on what he wants to buy. She hands him the $1.00 and never sees him again.

A man gets ill and cannot work. His neighboors take up a collection to help pay the bills and medical expenses. A person drops $100.00 in the collection anon. and leaves himself short for the rest of the month, cause he really cannot afford to just give away $100.00 and does without stuff for the rest of the month.

Are NONE of these selfless acts?

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: polm
I thought of this when I read Gruks post in this thread.

Being nice would be respecting your wishes. I'm not getting on your case; far from it. I'm the same way about electronics and my mother is the same way about "being thoughtful & nice". She always used to pull sh*t like this as well to try to bolster her own image. It's really a selfish thing, subconsciously.


When you do something for someone, is it not primarily to bolster your own self-image ?

no, but it makes me feel good to do things for people, so in that sense i guess i am selfish.

 

[amcdonald]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Hypotheticals:

Someone is walking down the street and sees two guys beating the sh!t out of another guy. He thinks it is wrong, and decides to stop them. While doing so, he catches an azz whopping, but at least the guy getting beaten is not killed. The cops come and everyone runs in different directions, never to meet up again.

A woman is in a store and there is a kid who is $1.00 short on what he wants to buy. She hands him the $1.00 and never sees him again.

A man gets ill and cannot work. His neighboors take up a collection to help pay the bills and medical expenses. A person drops $100.00 in the collection anon. and leaves himself short for the rest of the month, cause he really cannot afford to just give away $100.00 and does without stuff for the rest of the month.

Are NONE of these selfless acts?

The argument stated is that for each of these acts, there's is a subconcious motivation that is selfish.
In all cases they would argue that the people do these things based on the good feeling they will receive after the act is complete. I think this holds true for many people, but to say that there are no altruistic acts is silly to me.

 

[waggy]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Hypotheticals:

Someone is walking down the street and sees two guys beating the sh!t out of another guy. He thinks it is wrong, and decides to stop them. While doing so, he catches an azz whopping, but at least the guy getting beaten is not killed. The cops come and everyone runs in different directions, never to meet up again.

A woman is in a store and there is a kid who is $1.00 short on what he wants to buy. She hands him the $1.00 and never sees him again.

A man gets ill and cannot work. His neighboors take up a collection to help pay the bills and medical expenses. A person drops $100.00 in the collection anon. and leaves himself short for the rest of the month, cause he really cannot afford to just give away $100.00 and does without stuff for the rest of the month.

Are NONE of these selfless acts?

nope.

again as it has been said a few times. because when you do those you get a sense of satisfaction, well-being, etc for doing those.

NO matter how SMALL the feeling is he recieved.

But also there is another theory that states that doing something that is good helps society. Helping society has a small effect on the persons well-being.

saving the guy from getting killed keeps him alive. he may be a doctor who saves your or your child's life later.

there are so many diffrent theory's that can explain why there is no TRUE selfless acts. It does not mean there are people that are willing to help. it just states they get a reward for it. even if they do not search out for such a reward.

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: Turin39789
bullshit, telling me I get an ego boost from doing things for other people, when i buy a homeless person a meal, i end up short of cash but thats it. I dont get a pat on the back, I dont give myself a pat on the back.

Thats not to say that I am altruistic all of the time, sometimes I pass the bum up, sometimes I do feel good about myself, others I just tell myself I that I cant afford to do that. I identifiy with people down on their luck, they are people after all , and I feel that if I can do anything to help, I should.

so you would feel guilty if you didn't help out the bum. therefore you are gaining when you do help him.

 

[Kev]

Originally posted by: amcdonald
I've never fought in a war, but I'd imagine there are some genuinely selfish acts done in that kind of extreme environment.
You could argue temporary insanity though.

that's where the "sense of duty" thing comes in

 

[CubanlB]

Cleaning up a friends vomit. Seriously.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Hypotheticals:

Someone is walking down the street and sees two guys beating the sh!t out of another guy. He thinks it is wrong, and decides to stop them. While doing so, he catches an azz whopping, but at least the guy getting beaten is not killed. The cops come and everyone runs in different directions, never to meet up again.

A woman is in a store and there is a kid who is $1.00 short on what he wants to buy. She hands him the $1.00 and never sees him again.

A man gets ill and cannot work. His neighboors take up a collection to help pay the bills and medical expenses. A person drops $100.00 in the collection anon. and leaves himself short for the rest of the month, cause he really cannot afford to just give away $100.00 and does without stuff for the rest of the month.

Are NONE of these selfless acts?

Nope, your examples benefit the deed-doers in one way or another. The man in your first example is helping to make the streets safer, which benefits society, which in turn benefits him. He also may be eager to fight; to test himself in battle, and overestimated his chances - or made a mistake. The woman in the second example is trying to set a nice example for a kid. We all know what demons the little bastards are, especially in this day and age of the "friend" method of parenting, whereby you never discipline the child and everything they do is right. They end up being even more sh*tty than they would otherwise. She's benefitting society, which in turn benefits her indirectly, and quite possibly herself directly if, in a few years when the kid's a teen, he decides to rob somebody and remembers her, and opts to rob someone else - or not to entirely. It's quite possible, if neither the woman nor the kid's parent(s) move. The guy in your third eample is likely doing it to feel as though he's a good person. He may also believe in Karma, an afterlife, or another supernatural/paranormal reason to do it. Should be noted that these aren't commonplace occurrances. Most people don't feel this indebted to society, get such a good feeling from helping others, and/or have such a strong belief system to think they'll suffer for not doing the good deed.

A good parallel is voting. We all know that our puny little single vote doesn't do very much at all by itself, yet we turn out in the millions to vote when the time comes. We know that, in a very small way, we're turning the wheels in the machinery of society. One of the main aspects of religion is really just to enforce other such things that benefit society. Society demands small contributions from everyone involved, and rewards us with contentedness we couldn't experience otherwise. Think about all the comforts of living you have; plentiful food, shelter, electricity, heat, probably air conditioning, etc etc etc. None of these things would be possible if you were living alone, or even with a small tribe or a small village. Even if your IQ was four digits it'd take you a lifetime to build, by yourself, a nuclear power plant to supply you with electricity - and that's only one of thousands of comforts you enjoy thanks to society. Now it's easy to say "my vote counts for nothing" and not vote, or make similar choices with a more religious connotation for similar reasons. But those little things glue society together. Those who wrote original religious texts knew this well.

And religion is instinctual. It stands to reason that our tendency to perform what are seemingly altruistic deeds which also happen to benefit society have a genetic basis as well. It makes sense from an evolutionary standpoint; those who wouldn't / couldn't / didn't give to and receive from society would have harder lives and thus a harder time passing on their genes, while people who did do things to benefit society would have an easier time procreating.

 

[KarenMarie]

Ok, in mosts of the posts I have read, it seems to me that some of you are projecting what the giver's intention are/were/would be.

This is where it is grey for me. I think that if the giver had any of these intentions at heart, I would agree that they would not be selfless. However, it is the intention of the giver that determines the selflessness of the act.

I beleive, rightly or wrongly, that if the giver gives with NO ulterior motive and with NO expectations of reward, then it is a selfless act. If the giver expects anything in return... good feeling, rewards, etc.. then it is selfish.

To me, it is about the intentions in the heart of the giver.

 

[Chronoshock]

There are no self-less acts. Ever action has a motivation. That motivation is selfish. My english teacher posed this question to the class and I brought up the example of mother theresa, the archetypal doer of "self-less" acts. At first glance it seems that someone doing such noble deeds is doing so selflessly. Well hey, doesn't she want to go to heaven? Doesn't she want other people to feel good thus making her feel good? A truly selfless act would be where one does not feel good in the end, rather it does not affect one at all.

 

[PanzerIV]

I don't subscribe to the notion that a feeling of well being negates any act of kindness, charity or bravery as being selfless. I offer for example a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to spare his comrade(s), something I've read about occurring many times in WWII and Vietnam. Knowing he will probably die the soldier makes a split second decision (literally) and does this regardless. He does not have time to mull over his assured place in heaven (if he believes in that) or a feel good buzz he will achieve having performed this act. He simply does it.

Of course somebody will analyze it and come up with how it's still not selfless but I disagree.

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, in mosts of the posts I have read, it seems to me that some of you are projecting what the giver's intention are/were/would be.

This is where it is grey for me. I think that if the giver had any of these intentions at heart, I would agree that they would not be selfless. However, it is the intention of the giver that determines the selflessness of the act.

I beleive, rightly or wrongly, that if the giver gives with NO ulterior motive and with NO expectations of reward, then it is a selfless act. If the giver expects anything in return... good feeling, rewards, etc.. then it is selfish.

To me, it is about the intentions in the heart of the giver.

Originally posted by: PanzerIV
I don't subscribe to the notion that a feeling of well being negates any act of kindness, charity or bravery as being selfless. I offer for example a soldier throwing himself on a grenade to spare his comrade(s), something I've read about occurring many times in WWII and Vietnam. Knowing he will probably die the soldier makes a split second decision (literally) and does this regardless. He does not have time to mull over his assured place in heaven (if he believes in that) or a feel good buzz he will achieve having performed this act. He simply does it.

Of course somebody will analyze it and come up with how it's still not selfless but I disagree.

Intentions may well go far deeper than you two realize or are willing to concede. The subconscious mind is a vast and powerful influence on our behavior, for one thing. Then you can delve into genes... In our predominantly existentialist society most people don't want to admit that genes play a big role (or even a role at all) in our behavior... this is simply untrue though.

 

[AnitaPeterson]

When you ask questions like these, you should look up names like "Thermopylae" in an encyclopedia... that might give you an answer.

 

[jyates]

Originally posted by: waggy

Originally posted by: jyates

Originally posted by: Gurck

Originally posted by: KarenMarie
Ok, let me see if I understand.

Doing something that is the right thing to do, or is just a nice thing to do cannot be considered selfless.. because the feeling of 'warm & fuzzy' inside makes it selfish. Therefore, it cannot be considered truly selfless?

Is that the opinion?
Seriously, I am trying to understand that concept.

You're only seeing black & white. Selfish is hurting others to somehow improve your own situation. Selfless doesn't exist. Mutually beneficial things are what most of us are familiar with, and what many term 'selfless'. Shades of gray, is all.

Selflessness does exist.

There are a lot of selfless people in the world living and dying every day.

heh it has been explained why that is wrong. but whats the point? you arent getting it.

So, when someone doesn't fall in line with what you post "they aren't getting it"?

Here's a news flash for you.....what you type on ATOT isn't the law and if people have
opposing views to your's what are you going to do about it?

Tell them "they aren't getting it"? come on you can do better than that can't you?

 

[Gurck]

Originally posted by: jyates
So, when someone doesn't fall in line with what you post "they aren't getting it"?

Here's a news flash for you.....what you type on ATOT isn't the law and if people have
opposing views to your's what are you going to do about it?

Tell them "they aren't getting it"? come on you can do better than that can't you?

You're doing the same thing.