Should we have concern about the welfare of strangers? Why?

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Amazing answer.

I never understood this.

Rand's Egoism is not anti-government.

I would expect Rand to advise people to seek out "free money" from the government.

Like this guy ....

Or like King Leonidas .... from your government ....

"give them nothing, but take from them everything" ...

Actually, biologically speaking, our current society can't be compared to a hive.

We live in a highly complicated social group. Humans are the most socially complex species on Earth. Hives are no where near this level of social complexity.

The notion that we shouldn't have empathy for strangers because some people might take advantage of it is something I consider short-sighted and borderline childish. Empathy is a necessity for social animals and mostly results in a net positive for the individuals involved. If I'm walking down the street and discover that someone has left a baby in a dumpster, I fail to see how I'm being taken advantage of if I call an ambulance. According to this thread, I should just keep walking because the baby is a "stranger," and we shouldn't care about strangers.

Again, it's not biology that dictates the social system, it's raw population numbers that do. As population grows the need for power at the top of the pyramid grows to maintain the order of the social structure. Humans are not immune to this process. Look at our current geo-politics, half the world is being led or wants to be led by a 'strong man', the equivalent to the authority of a hive queen in arthropods. In fact, the vast majority of western history has been dominated by monarchies, where king and queen aren't hypothetical comparisons, but actual positions of power that mimicked those arthropod social structures. Democracy is a throw-back to pack days, where the leader of the pack was not absolute, rather the leader needed consensus among the members to operate effectively-- it's also why democracies have been short lived and rare, because they don't really work with the population numbers our societies produce. Also of note, human civilizations are non-migratory, just as hives are, and this is a major departure from our pre-civilization days when we were one of the most migratory species on the planet-- it's what allowed us to land on every continent (save Antarctica) in a short 100,000 year span.

As for your hypothetical baby scenario, let's say we're in Sudan, or some other third world country, it's possible said baby is now your responsibility because the government doesn't have services for orphans because baby's aren't munitions and that's all the hive there cares about. Or hell, even here in the states you could take that baby to social services (pack instinct) and get fired from your job for being late (breaking hive rules). Let's say you're steeped in pack instinct and have a desire to help those less fortunate so you donate to a charity, realize the vast majority of charities pay out less than 50% to the groups they purport to help, the other half goes to the charity institution (hive) itself.

If I remember correctly you were in the military so I'm sure you've heard the term 'cannon fodder', that's a hive concept: that individuals are easily replaceable, and therefore can be used as throw away pieces on the chess board. A pack has no such concept since their members are not easily replaceable, if a pack leader throws half his pack to certain death he's ensured the entire pack will go extinct even if they win the skirmish, since now the pack will produce less than half the resources it once had (sum of the whole is greater than the individual parts). Packs care about the individuals of the pack, the small size of a pack requires each member's contribution to survive, hives do not because they produce far more labor for survival than they need, thus the individuals of the hive are expendable.


All that said, I'm not recommending you not feel compassion or even act on it, I'm saying the way our society is developing into a hive you will find little support for that compassion from society itself, and don't be surprised if society attempts to take advantage of that compassion.

A very interesting scientific article on altruism.
We are not Borg yet.
http://dujs.dartmouth.edu/2009/05/is-al ... V-6q-s8KrU

If the issue is scale, and I find Aristophanes has a compelling argument there, then perspective comes into play. Our complex social structures mimic hives and packs when aggregated at different scales. Find an appropriate scale and find useful analogies.

I started thinking about other options. Herd analogies always seem to limit the set of people under consideration by some quality other than size, which seems notable.

Strangers are everyone. You are a stranger to me and I am a stranger to you. We should help strangers.

Last edited by ZachGoodwin on 07 Jul 2017, 5:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.

The only mammals that can be compared to insect "hives" are naked mole rats. Other than that, human society has little to no resemblance to an insect "hive."



That doesn't answer my question.




Human society is not a "hive," and hives do not operate the way they do on account of a lack of empathy.



Not relevant.

All I'm going to say is I'm talking social structure, you seem to be arguing biology. We are not in stasis, nor will we be.

Gosh I don't have any deep philosophical reasons for this.

I know what it's like to be the outsider. I know what it's like to live in poverty in a house with mould and threadbare clothing and no central heating. I know what it's like to have an illness.

I just don't want anyone to suffer if they don't have to because I didn't enjoy what limited suffering I've experienced and I know that there are folks out there who have suffered greater things that me and that makes me sad and I want to help them because I know that pain feels bad.

I am very happy to pay into taxes to help people when they fall on hard times.

I'm not certain what you mean precisely when you say "emotional arguments", but I do know that not helping a person in need, when someone needs help and you have the means to provide it, is to me somehow inhuman, utterly reprehensible, and just plain wrong. It has nothing to do with Darwinian "arguments" about how we are a social species, require co-operation for society to work and so on, and everything to do with basic empathy (which people like us apparently lack, according to some misinformed people). There is an old saying that goes along the lines of, "There but for the grace of God go I", which is something you should think about the next time you find yourself in a particularly selfish mood. Misfortune can occur at any time, to anyone, for any reason, and when it does you will be thankful for any assistance given. You need to consider the perspective(s) of the downtrodden, those who, through no fault of their own, find themselves unable (not "unwilling") to get themselves out of the rut their lives have fallen in to.

By the way, it isn't "selfish" to derive an emotional benefit from helping someone, if, like me, you define selfishness to mean "that which is done for the sole purpose of self-gratification and/or advantage, with no regard for the impact of such actions on others". Altruism is NOT selfishness in disguise.

Then of course there is the religious (specifically Christian) view, but you might take that to be an "emotional" argument, even though as far as I can see it clearly isn't: it's one of common decency, respect, and a recognition that, in the end, we are all the same and can't take our riches with us when we die.

I'm glad to see we can sometimes be on the same side.

Ironically, you're making an emotional argument now.


Every country makes the decision to ration care, and let people die.

How is that morally wrong ?

Because there is no good reason to let someone suffer if you can help them.

According to whom? You?

The fact that countries ration care, and let people die, is a demonstration that there are good reasons.