Literally. I do believe that everything we do is for some form of personal gain, no matter how significant. Whether it's voluntary or mandatory, we always want something for ourselves in the end. It doesn't matter what type of action it is. Even take this thread for instance: I made it to gain insight on other people's views. In the end, I would have learned something, which will ultimately benefit me. Do you agree or disagree? This is one of the oldest debates out there.

Ann Rand had a theory like this, right? I think it depends on how you look at it. Some may do good deeds because they believe in a moral code they hold true to themselves. In which case they do it because they believe it is the right thing to do. While one could argue these good deeds were done 'selfishly' to keep to the moral code, another could argue that person unselfishly did what was right even though it could have been easier to not. I think the question is similar to "is the glass half empty or half full?" In which case, I would answer,"The glass is at half capacity."

I'm not sure who came up with the theory; it's very common and discussed all over the internet, but if a person wanted to follow a moral code, then isn't it a possibility that they would want to just to be seen as someone who has moral values (admirable to many) ie a good person or either to stay out of trouble to achieve the same results? Maybe they don't go around and openly say this, but subconciously could they be thinking this? I don't see why not. In the end, "doing what's right" does have it's rewards, even if it's simply feeling good about it inside or having people see you in a more positive light than say, a criminal.

Answer this question: Why do you debate? Sure, the reasons might seem selfless at first, but if you break the reasons down enough, I'm sure it will eventually come back to you.

I think every action can be rationalized to be something 'beneficial.' I talked to a girl who said she sometimes wondered if she should get raped. So she could learn from the event and become a better person---because she had been through a lot of bad things in life and she's become a stronger better person afterward.

Because this does not mean good deeds lose any of its value as a good deed, I don't see the grand importance of nit-picking at the concept too much. I think depending on how you view things, you can say something was done for one reason or another. What's important is that you did something good. And I don't think that should be thought as something negative---unless it was intentionally done for a selfish gain consciously and not honestly.

This is one of those questions that are related to sailing a boat to the horizon.
As you move along the discussion, the view of the horizon looks the same ..
even though it is changing and you will never arrive.

I don't like to used this argument ... but it is one that is well known,
Jesus .. did he do every action for his own benefit?
To the point where it brought him to the cross and agonizing death?

If you look at one person's self sacrifice and change the view
then you can always say that person was selfish.
And thus my analogy about the boat sailing to the horizon ...
the view will change and you will never arrive at a conclusion


Whew, new meds again ... those last ones were doing me no good.

Eh, I wasn't nit picking, but trying to explain my point of view by being specific and giving examples. At least now you see what I'm talking about. No, it isn't bad if someone is doing something for their own interests if it helps in some other way. That wasn't what I was saying at all... It's different if they're harming others just to be get what they want. And I guess you're both right that this will be an endless debate as people will always have different perceptions. That's what makes debating theories like this so fun. You get to hear about other people's beliefs and opinions that are different from your own.

I agree, but on mechanical reasons or how the brain works rather than for spiritual or moral reasons.

Our minds are like the CPU in a computer - I know computers can't think now,but someday they might. Anyway, we go thru life processing data, evaluating it then moving on to the next thought just like a computer so that all data is processed and referenced from this mind and no one else's. I think for myself, you think for yourself, and he thinks for himself. Every thought is referenced to oneself for oneself so the process is inherently self centered.

Example:
1) Dying to save others. No one wants to die, but sometimes people think of sacrificing themselves if it can save others. This person balanced two options and chose the one that would end his life because he thought it was the better option. Why it was the better choice can vary, he is a heroic type, he wants to save the lives of loved ones, or he is atoning for past sins. But in all cases he chose whats best for him: He rather die a hero then let others die, he'd rather die so his offspring can live or he rather clean his reputation than live.

Every year, billions of Salmon travel up streams world over to spawn and die. Science now believe the mass dying evolved because the nutrition supplied by the parents bodies was way more beneficial to the survival of the species than for the parent to live and come back next year. I know salmon aren't intelligent, but they are dying for selfish reasons, so their offspring have a better chance at survival.

very good point.

certain people do things because they're morally incline to do so. these people are aware of the positive impact or outcome, and are not provoke from a selfish standpoint.

but then, there are people who do it for personal gain.

there is a deep philosophical implication of metaphysics, in this question often asked by physicists, "if a tree was falling and nobody was around, did it make any sound?"

if you can answer this, you know why people do thing.

What do you consider as personal gain? If a parent buys a toy for his daughter would you call that an act of unselfish love toward his child, or an act of selfishness towards himself? Let me specify: he didn't buy it because of pressure from others, he didn't buy it so that others would praise him, it was not because of his wife, not because of anything that would benefit himself, other than the pure joy he gets from seeing his daughters happiness. Making her happy does indeed make him happy too. Would you then say that he did it to make himself happy, or say that he gets happy by making someone else happy but he did what he did first and foremost for the other person?
People usually act because they have some sort of desire or goal in mind. That goal can be directed at themselves or at others. When they are doing something purely for other people then that in my mind counts as an unselfish act. It doesn't matter that the person feels good about it afterwards, if that wasn't the reason they did it. Do people sometime act this way? Yes, I think so. they are still doing something that they desire, but some desires are selfish and others are not. It will probably be easier getting this if you have kids.

A man would do things to make his daughter happy, Sometimes he is happy to this ,other times it pains him to do this. Either way, he did it for his own benefit. To benefit doesn't mean to be happy.

If you believe evolution in that things that increase a species ability to compete and survive become written in their DNA. Then all animals are just different designs to compete and survive in the environment they find themselves in. Since sex is the means in which animals continue their line and more importantly, sex and reproduction are done on an individual bases( each individual passes its genes to its offsprings ), It is each individuals objective to successfully pass on its genes and be survived by its offspring, this in turn serves the greater purpose of maintaining and evolving the species to continue life. More compactly, The species benefits when individuals act in such a way that there offspring survive and multiply. Behavior that is bad for the species would be weeded out and behavior that is good for the species kept in the DNA. In higher animals like dogs, rabbits, dolphins etc.. automatic behavior is replaced by a certain amount of intelligence. Higher animals interpret their surroundings and make choices. But, bad choices for the species would over the course of time be weeded out. So thought process over time has been molded to benefit the species. Animals do not think in ways that would destroy their species. However, it must be said that non of this matters unless the individual successfully survives to reproductive age and has offspring, plus the individual must fulfill parenting requirements that some species have. So the thought task of the individual is to first look after its own benefit then look after its offspring if so pre-programmed. So selfless things like dying for your offspring are in reality selfish things since its fulfilling your objective.

Humans are not simple animals nor do we live in a simple environment. But, we are matching up situations against these pre-programmed requirements and making decisions on whats best. Obviously, a lot of things don't match up well against such primitive directives, but that's why we have conflict of ideas. One way to visualize this conflict is to think of a moth. Moths are programmed to navigate by position of the moon to itself. What happens to a month when it gets too close to a street light? It thinks its the moon and keeps flying around and around. I think dying for the cause of freedom, or dying to bring science forward are exapmles when people have conflicts with their older programming.

I have a pretty simple perspective on human actions: if they are rationel then they are justified by a persons beliefs and desires, if they are not rational then they go against a persons beliefs and desires. Most people act rationally. Now where do our desires come from? You could call them a higher order of instincts that have been shaped through evolution with a common goal: to survive and procreate. Whether or not that is the case is not important (but to be honest I don't think it's the entire truth).

From this view, if people are rational then all their actions will have been motivated by a desire. Actions such as drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, buying a toy, or sacrificing oneself to save others and etc. All actions are what the person ultimately desires - I agree that the person is after all doing what he wants even if it means killing himself. Now would we call such actions selfish or unselfish?
If you call all of them selfish because they were caused by a persons desire, then so be it. I just think that is too broad a way to characterize selfishness. If they are all selfish actions then there seems to be two types of selfish actions: actions that are aimed at benefitting one's own welfare, and actions that are aimed at benefitting other people's welfare. How should we differentiate between them? Egoistic selfish actions and altruistic selfish actions? It sounds a little redundant but I can live with it.
Or... we could just call the first type of actions for selfish actions, and the latter type of actions for unselfish actions. On closer examination that seems to work very well with our everyday usage of the words. I would rather say that one can desire to do selfish as well as unselfish actions. It's still 'powered' by a person's desires; if the person were to not desire it the person would not do the unselfish action. But I don't think it's wrong to call some actions unselfish or some desires unselfish. After all, if your jumping through a burning building to save my life at the cost of your own is an act of selfishness, then I thank you very much for being 'selfish'. I'll be selfish in a real selfish way by not doing the same for you and get my @$$ out of there.

You can write hundreds of paragraphs explaining why evolution gave us such unselfish desires, as do a lot of scientists and some philosophers, but it is irrelevant and almost uninteresting. What I need you to acknowledge is that there are two types of desires: desires aimed at your own survival and happiness and desires aimed at other's survival and happiness. I think there's a pretty good case for calling one of them unselfish. How we came to have such unselfish desires is a different matter.

Yes, I acknowledge that there are two desires: the desire for self and the desire for others as you explained.

Its nice to argue to learn rather than debate to win.

I was eating a bag of chips walking while down the street. There was a beggar that asked for the chips [rather rudely actually, lol.] I figured I was done with them so I said "go for it," and handed them to her without breaking stride. I didn't gain anything from it. It just seemed logical. I was full. She wasn't. She wanted them; I was done with them. It just didn't make any sense to say "no."

I agree that we do things for personal gain, due to the fact that just about everyone wants to better themselves in life in whatever it maybe being financially, education wise, physically etc. Although u still have some people in the world content with the things they have or where They live...and I have few people like that I met and do not want to better Current lifestyle which they'd refer to as "simple" with no other such desires to better their situation.

You see, this is where I've been getting at these last few posts. If you focused less on the literal wording of this topic, and more at the point I've been trying to make and supporting, then you might start to see things my way. Selfish might have been bad wording on my part, but naming the topic such was the simplest way to get people to have an idea of where the topic was headed. Maybe "Why People Act Rationally" would have sufficed since I am using the two terms interchangably. Anyway, you've analyzed my view point already. Perhaps it isn't something so significant, but it makes an interesting debate topic nonetheless. That's why I created this thread in the first place.

Humans always do what is best for themselves through rational behavior. They will always make the choice that will benefit them the most. For instance... you see a bum and you have money to spare. You could walk past the bum and keep the money, but you might feel guilt or regret inside. If you give the bum a dollar, you might have sacrificed a small part of your wealth, but in the end, you feel a sense of generosity. Sure, you didn't have to do it, but you did it anyway. The gain outweighs the cost. A lot of people would disagree and say, "Oh... some people just do it because they felt like it". But WHY did they feel like it? This is delving more into psychology and I find it interesting.

I don't see how you learning something necessarily mean you're being selfish. After all, this thread would ultimately benefit not only you, but those who read/participate in it. To me, selfish is when you do it for your personal gain in the expense of other people.

I believe there's a difference between selfishness and building up oneself.

It has been tested in communist countries ...
When people are doing things for the good of the state, they tend not to work as hard or
do the things that make for a better world.
While people who are working for themselves, they tend to work harder and longer hours to have
more money and better things in life.
But, you also, got to remember that not everything is selfish.
Some people would teach for nothing if society would provide for them.
But that isn't the way it works. Society requires you work for yourself and look
out for your self. No one else will do that for you. So, in the present society and social
circumstances, we must do things which make our own lives better.

This doesn't mean that there aren't people with good hearts that do things for the better of mankind.
Real life good guys. Hey, it takes all kinds to make up this world of ours.

Not really, usually this is the 'realist' point of view, but the 'realist' point of view is not all too real. There are two things that go against this theory: 1. we are not all to 'rational' enough to do things that are conciously beneficial to us 100% of the time 2. Instinctual...pretty much the psychologist no free will argument.

You can't impose your own definition of a word in a discussion.
selfish is defined as:
1 : concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself : seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others
2 : arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others

Selfish doesn't equal harm others.

If you meant selfishness, as defined above, in one way or another always hurts others, then I would like to hear your case.

Thank you for the definition. But the part 'without regard for others', do you or do you not think it has a negative connotation?

It definitely is neutral to negative. But that doesn't mean at the expense of others.

Example:
A boulder rolling down a hill will go along the path regulated by the laws of physics. By its path, some people will get crushed and others will be spared - clearly neutral to negative for those involved.

The boulder itself is rolling 'without regard for others' but it is not rolling at the expense of others. Further more, if there were nobody on the hill, then no one would get hurt - a totally neutral result. I know boulders aren't selfish, but the example was to discuss 'without regard for others' which is separate from selfish.

I did not make this thread because I'm selfish, but knowinging that I could get something out of it, I did. It's self-beneficial. Excuse my poor choice of wording for the topic title, but I did not think it through at the time; I just wanted to make it as quickly as possible. You're right about this thread benefiting everyone who participates in it, but that again proves my theory. Why else would people participate in the thread? For pretty much the same reasons I created it in the first place: to share knowledge, to have our views heard, to be able to say we have grown a bit more knowledgeable and wiser at the end of the day. Who doesn't want to learn something new everyday?


1. Even if we aren't rational enough to always do things that we know will benefit us in the end, more often than not, we will make a choice that we THINK will benefit us most, even if it doesn't. 2. Perhaps instinct plays some part in this? When there is a danger, we will try to avoid it. If we are born with instincts, then it's not so hard to believe that humans are programmed to always want what's best for themselves. And we aren't the only creatures that think this way; pretty much all life does.

I don't think that acting selfishly and acting rationally is the same thing. And I don't think that you and chiuchimu are arguing about the same either.

As far as I can see chiuchimu believes that we have 2 types of desires: egoistic desires and altruistic desires. His argument was that both are 'selfish' and in that sense we always act selfishly. I think that we have good reason to call one of them unselfish.

Your point (I think) is/was different. You argued that we always act on egoistic desires. Every example of an altruistic act is really (according to you) an egoistic act.



Likewise, if a father were to buy a toy for his daughter he wouldn't really be doing it for her, but he would be doing it so that his wife or daughter would stop nagging at him; buying it will get him some peace and quiet. Everything can somehow be re-analyzed into an egoistic motive. I gave you an example that proved otherwise. It doesn't seem impossible that people sometimes act without gaining something personally from it. Even if the father actually feels good too, it doesn't mean that the act was motivated by the prospect of feeling good, rather than the prospect of making his daughter feel good.

Another argument is that though we can always imagine a selfish reason for people to act the way they did, it does not show that people always act on selfish reasons. Nothing yet rules out that they acted on unselfish reasons, because we can also always cook up an unselfish reason to explain why people act the way they did.


Again you're trying to show that a person did it to feel good, rather than to actually help the bum. I think some people do it to feel good about themselves while others do not. Why are there some people who do good things even when they don't get anything out of it? Some of it is caused by upbringing, some of it by the evironment (culture), and some of it probably genetics that have survived natural selection. I don't find the answer that interesting. I don't think there's more to it than that.

As for rationality I agree that what is rational is a product of desires and beliefs. I don't think that something can be rational without getting it's justification from some desire one way or another. But I don't see why that would make all rational actions selfish. Sometimes we act out of unselfish desires, and that would make rational actions unselfish. All rational actions are desireable, but that is not the same as saying that all rational actions are selfish. If you want to make this a debate about how all actions are rational rather than selfish, then I still disagree. flipcombatmedic already mentioned that we don't alwasy act rationally. Sometimes we know what we want, we know how to get it, but we just don't do it.

So to sum it up: not all actions stem from a selfish desire, and not all actions stem from rational reasons.

Sometimes it is a benifit just to see someone happy, to see they are safe .

in giving, one gains something whether you're conscious of what you gained after giving or not

There are consequences to one's actions. And there certainly would be consequences to wrong actions. Dark they would be, and inescapable.

Agreed. I've always wondered this myself, in fact. The way I see it is that, no matter how 'selfless' an act may be, there is always something to gain from it personally, whether it's on a material level (like money, fortune, fun, sex, goods, hardware, etc.) or on a more subconscious level (like attention, fame, influence, insight, curiousity, knowledge, honour, respect, self-respect, personal achievement, etc.).

Ultimately, I think there is always an element of personal gain to everything we do, no matter how much we might try to deny, moralize or rationalize it. In fact, we might have multiple different personal gains from every action and we might not even be consciously aware of what those personal gains are half the time... like why I even wrote this pointless post in the first place? I'm still trying to figure out the exact reason, but I think it might be a mix of gaining insight from strangers half way around the world, maybe a bit of unnecessary attention seeking, and probably just timepass to keep myself from getting bored at home?