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selfishness vs. altruism

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Limelight

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I have been in a small debate/discussion regarding the ethics of selfishness and altruism. One of the people refuting the existence and/or the necessity of selfishness within ethics was arguing over the meta-concept of how an act may be directly altruistic, while its rational selfish dimension is indirect; a construct developed from hindsight. At the moment it may seem to be altruistic, without a positivistic rational knowing that it returns to you. It may be hope or something that usually does happen, but it doesn't have to happen. In fact, should others not adhere to the altruistic act (which they might), the rational return collapses. Thus the individual act is altruistic; the rational return, a leap of faith, faith in the others doing the same thing. From the collective view, it is rationalistic, but on the individual level it is not. Having this collective viewpoint, rationally, on the individual level when one does not contribute, ones calculus is better: one has no investment, while enjoying full return (ie. freeriding). In turn, rationalizing this to the collective level would destroy the benificial system. Thus, while having this system is rationally better for everyone, and can be individually rationalized by means of construct, on the strictly individual level the act is purely altruistic. The whole construct is a leap of faith, and thus, in itself, not rational. Pure rationality would actually destroy the system. Pure altruism on the other hand, would not. In these matters, we are, in fact, rationalizing altruism from a hindsight perspective.

Does this make sense to anyone? I've heard this argument before from other people and it just slips through my mind as pure fluff, but it's frustrating not to make complete sense of it, if it does make any sense. :thumbsup:

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His argument applies to altruism between complete strangers. It is completely true: if you give twenty dollars to a total stranger there is absolutely no guaranty you will get any reward back in any way shape or form. There is no mystical force which promises to turn every self sacrifice into a mutually beneficial trade. It is up to you as an individual to ensure that whatever you're doing you're in a situation where you will see the reward which you are expecting. For instance, when someone buys an old knick knack from you at the swap meet, you expect to see the money first. The fact that you're not holding a gun to each other as you trade money for item does not mean you're "taking it on faith" that the guy is going to give you the money for the item. It's called trust.

If you place your trust in a person, you've made a rational judgment that they are worthy of that trust. In that case if you were to give something to them and expect something in return, you'd tell them what you expect in return, and they'd probably give it to you. If they don't give you what you want, you're not likely to continue trusting them.

If you are in a friendship and you buy a birthday present for him, you might implicitly expect a birthday present from him on your birthday. Barring some horrible financial strain on him, you might rightly be hurt if he doesn't get you a present. It might prompt you not to buy him a present next time.

The point is, altruism from the perspective of giving something to a stranger completely free and expecting that philanthropy to be returned to you by arcane means -is- irrational. If you give to a charity, your philanthropy should be rationally based on the idea of valuing whatever that charity is for. You should be okay with sinking money into the charity and seeing -absolutely no- material return for you. The payment would be emotional. That's why charity should be chosen on an individual level and not mandated by law.

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I kind of see what he's saying. If you have a system based on altruism, it is to every individual's benefit to cheat the system (so it only works when everyone is "unselfish"). The system fails if there is the slightest bit of self-interest. Of course, if there's no self-interest, there's no self-preservation. So much for individualism, free will, material prosperity, etc.

The flaw is in presuming that we're starting with a system based on altruism. The fact that it is to everyone's advantage to cheat the system is one of the many things that makes altruism not viable. What he is saying then is that altruism can only be defended practically at its furthest extreme, and everyone would have to be willing to live under that extreme, without the thought that they'd be better off without it. Even if that could be defended as a moral ideal, it simply will never happen, it relies on everyone believing to their core that they are fundamentally less worthy of life than everyone else, and people cannot function without self-esteem. If we start in a system where people are rational and selfish, they can continue to be rational and selfish without anything breaking down, except the altruist. Tragedy, that.

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