How about filling up a rental car with premium gas? That doesn't make you feel good because you're not really benefitting anyone but a faceless corporation that doesn't need your help.

Purely selfless!

I think once you acknowledge that it's selfless and get a feeling of satisfaction out of it's no longer truly selfless. But it's still a good thing and that should always be endorsed.

Not totally, but there are always gradations--some things we do for others aren't important to us personally, so don't really feed anything in us.

Actually, a number of cars are damaged by premium gas.

I thin it's selfless if you do it without thinking about it..ie automatically. almost disinterestedly.

This was a truly selfless act, I think.

In which case, dhruva, you probably don't know that you've done it. Right?

I once had a terribly long and heated discussion with my philosophy major then-boyfriend on this very topic. My arguments went like this: "If you give me flowers on a non-important day, it's not altruistic. Being presented with flowers randomly makes me think you're sweet and spontaneous, and makes me happy. When I'm happy, your life is better. However subconciously, you buy me flowers to make your life better."

I made other, non "our relationship" examples to support my point - if a woman next to me on the subway sneezes, I give her a tissue not because I'm thoughtful, but because I don't want to catch whatever she has, etc...

I won the discussion, but eventually this viewpoint sort of depressed me, and I felt like a jerk. I don't think about it that way anymore. (I also never got flowers from him spontaneously.)

For ArsncHeart.

I don't think that the motivation matters.

I won the discussion

I'm not sure how you "won" the discussion. This question has been discussed through the history of moral philosophy and as far as I'm concerned, no one could possibly say that the argument has been settled.

However, almost every mature moral philosophy, in the Western tradition probably starting with Aristotle's Nichomachean Ethics, is going to define "self-interest" deeply enough that it begins to look indistinguishable from altruism.

Using Aristotle as the example, he discusses at the beginning of Ethics "eudaimonia" which is sometimes translated badly as "happiness" but is better translated as "well-being". Aristotle asks whether most people would include their descendents' "well-being" as something they'd prefer and, thus, to be included in their own concept of "well-being". This is just one way in which he broadens the more simple idea of what it means to say that one is "happy".

I realize that this sounds like an appeal to authority; but my real point is that this question is central to moral philosophy and how one answers it is crucial. You can say that there is some "true" answer to this question if you start from certain assumptions, but those assumptions are by no means universally accepted.

More broadly, however, one reason this question is not answered is because, in my opinion, it doesn't actually make much sense. As is almost always the case with these things, there is an implicit tautology involving "intent" and "motivation" with regard to "self-interest". What would it mean to say that someone chose to commit an action but was truly indifferent to its outcome? Is that a sensible notion? I assert that it is not.

One way, the way in my opinion, to start to make sense of these difficult ideas that are both quite commonsensical and yet, as I argue above, also quite nonsensical, is to first recognize the principle of appropriate levels of description, and then to identify what level of description of something is appropriate for your purposes.

Evolutionary biology, which in the past was used to deny the idea of altruism, actually today supports some limited notions of altruism. And, of course, if you start from certain metaphysical assumptions about morality and the mind, then altruism is possible by definition.

mudpuppie: no, you know you've done it, but it's so removed from the front of your brain that it doesnt matter. An example: i generally have a good reflex action for catching falling objects off a table and such, and i remember once rescuing a dislodged object something off a neighbour's table and returning it, without even skipping a beat in the conversation with a friend. This i would argue is a selfless act.

...and i remember once rescuing a dislodged object something off a neighbour's table and returning it, without even skipping a beat in the conversation with a friend. This i would argue is a selfless act.

Why? Because you did not consciously choose to catch the object? What does "choice" mean when it's an "unconscious choice"? Is that meaningful? If "unconscious choice" is a moral act, then it must require intent, musn't it? Or how might you call an act "moral" without the existence of intent? Is that meaningful? But if there is intent, then even if it is "unconscious", it is for these purposes indistuinguishable from a conscious act which is supposedly altruistic--that is to say, you did it for a reason. Was that reason truly not for your own benefit?

Alternatively, if there is no intent, even "unconscious intent", then again I ask how you could call an act "altruistic", which requires a moral component, outside the context of intent? If there is such a thing, then how is it distinguishable from every random consequence of every act we make that we don't "choose"? So because I picked up the mail at 4:30 PM instead of 5:30, thus avoiding the corner where I would have otherwise had a car accident injuring someone, I have committed an "altrustic" act? Is that meaningful?

kmellis: ok my eyes are blurring :) I mean that if you look at the act alone, disregarding the intent, and if you minimise any selfish interest as much as possible, then it is closer to being altruistic. In real life it is probably impossible to do that, because you always benefit in someway or the other, but my example was an extreme one to illustrate the above point. Your picking up the mail example is not really relevant here, in my opinion, because to do a selfless act, you still have to choose to do something, but you have to minimise your involvement with the act. (this is kinda a paraphrase from hindu philosophy : a famous quote from one of the scriptures, where Krishna tells Arjuna that "to work you have the right, but not to the fruits thereof")

Oh, I hate this discussion. It often comes up with Randdroid objectivists who claim that selfishness is a virtue, and that every action is selfish and so bla bla bla it's very tautological and irritating.

But really. You get a "pleasurable feeling" by helping someone. But couldn't you simply state that the "Pleasurable feeling" is your own altruism? In that Altruism is an innate motivation, just like hunger or thirst or sex drive.

Yet, you never hear anyone state that people aren’t really Hungry, or aren’t really thirsty or aren’t really Horny. That would be stupid.

In psychology, the term motivation means the psychological energy, or signal, or whatever that causes actions. Could be hunger, or hornyness or sleepiness or whatever. In fact it's very broad, encompassing almost all of psychology. I took a whole class on psychological motivation. It was very interesting. (much more then you would think. I wanted to take the class on "Drugs" but it was full).

Anyway, if every act is selfish, then the word loses all its meaning, and it becomes a synonym for psychological motivation. A tautology. Your question would be rephrased as "Is it possible to take an action that you have no motivation to take?" Remember motivation doesn't just mean 'wanting' something, but all psychological desires.

Otherwise, selfishness is just one motivation, along with Altruism and hunger and thirst and hornyness. When you eat, when you have sex, when you drink a glass of water, you feel pleasure. But no one would ever question those motivations. No one would every say "Is there such a thing as a truly thirsty act? Did he drink the water because he was thirsty, or because he wanted the pleasure of satisfying his thirst."

As I mentioned the scads of people currently in IRC, I paid the bridge toll for the car behind me last night. But, I probably did it for me more than them.

How do you know the teller didn't just pocket the money?

It often comes up with Randdroid objectivists who claim that selfishness is a virtue...

Yeah. Like so many things about Objectivists and Randroids, their supposedly really, really smart philosophy is stuff that the rest of us deeply considered when we were eleven years old. This (and theirs) is the moral philosophy equivalent of "dude, what if the solar system was an atom...?"

Yeah. Like so many things about Objectivists and Randroids, their supposedly really, really smart philosophy is stuff that the rest of us deeply considered when we were eleven years old.

So true :P.

No, I don't think there is any such thing as a self-less act, but if you are to the point that you are doing things for someone else, you don't need to worry about it, IMO. Charity is such a rare value... help those in need first, and question your motives later (if you have time).

So what if helping people makes you feel good? The important thing is that they get help. Your quandary is best dealt with later, and really, it doesn't matter... maybe you DO pump up your own ego by helping people in need, but it doesn't matter. People were in need, and you helped them out of their need. They are no longer suffering, and that's all that matters. You can sort out your motivation later.

In philosophical terms, I think I'm what they call a pragmatist. I care less about people's motivations than I do about their results... in "assistance" type situations, anyway.

I just asked my hubby whether he thought you could perform a selfless act. He said yes, citing the Burning Man and the philosophies behind it as an example. I said, "But doesn't doing something for someone makes you feel good, and doesn't that make it a little bit selfish?" He said no, you could give something to someone without feeling one way or another. I'm having trouble with that concept. And I'm about to go to bed.

I'm seeing lying awake, thinking, in my future.

For an act to be selfless, it would have to be performed without a self. Only a being devoid of ego could do this, and if it is devoid of ego, how can such a being "be"?

So... Eideteker... you're saying... only a zombie is capable of a truly selfless act?

Hmmmm...

*strokes nonexistent beard, selflessly*

kant - ethical motivation
jesus - parable re: rich givimg more shekels, poor giving less; higher personal cost = more meaningful giving
hence
better model for altruism - expressed as relative sliding scale where x is said to be more altruistic than y, rather than boolean "yes" or "no" dichotomy thus meaningless question;
economic terms of cost/benefit ratio where cost c is positive nonzero # and benefit = 0;
c ÷ 0 = error lol
maybe if you're a deity
biological mechanisms of pursuit of rational self interest
prefrontal cortex (weigh benefits of altruism at expense of personal cost) vs dorsal striatum (anticipates satisfaction)

Being presented with flowers randomly makes me think you're sweet and spontaneous, and makes me happy. When I'm happy, your life is better. However subconciously, you buy me flowers to make your life better.
Oh, if only it were that easy.

... and no, there is no such thing as a selfless act.

This is really great, I mean it. I selflessly love Metachat.

.

Aw, eth, that was great, thanks!

Growing up means and maturing means discovering that life is not black and white but various shades of grey.

Think of charity as a series of sliding scales:

1------------------------10
benefit to donee

1------------------------10
harm to doner

1------------------------10
benefit to doner


In the case of $5.00 donated to the Salvation Army by a woman making $18,000 a year vs. $10,000 donated by a corporation it is clear that the $5.00 is of very little tangible benefit (no tax write off, no publicity) but of great financial cost requiring a sacrifice (no frappacino that week.) so it is much closer to being a selfless act.

In the case of flower giving, let us use two different men. Albert spends $20.00 he can ill-afford (he has to go without lunch all week) but gets a huge pay-off; his previously angry girlfriend resumes sexual relations and washes his laundry and packs his lunch for a week.

Zachary, on the other hand, spends $50 on flowers for his happy girlfriend and only has to go without lunch one day. But in return, he gets only a smile. Since there was no problem in the relationship,there is no change.

So Zachary's act is much more selfless on the sliding scale.

Is it possible to give something of the greatest cost with the least amount of payoff? The only act I can think of is to lay down your life for someone not in your family or even in your own nation. And if aliens attack, that has to be amended to: not of your own planet.

Short Story Alert:So the most self-less act possible would seem to be giving up your life for that of an alien.

A week of sex, laundry and lunch for $20 in flowers? Albert's girlfriend is pretty cheap.