Humans and Selfishness

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Is every action we do governed by the self?

Is every thing we do, think is for gratifying the self be it in a physical way or an Emotional way even though it seems to be for an selfless cause?

I mean think about it.

You see a poor man seating on the street corner. You give him some change. It seems like a very selfless thing to do right? Well not entiraly. Because you are gaining something in return. The emotional 'good' feeling of the act. Or if your religious a nice spot in heaven.

Every action we do is for the self.

Am I wrong to say that?

For your example, especially where I come from, I do not take satisfaction in handing poor people money. I do it to shut them up, in a way. They are everywhere and its bloody annoying to be asked every 10 feet for change. I dont get a good 'feeling' from it because, what I give them, I'd only put into a jar at home which would never see the light of day again. I figure 'its less change around my house and it helps them buy liquor so.' Does that make me feel good? I dont know, having change around the house doesnt haunt me, its just that I dont use/need it.

There are many things I do for others but they would be up for debate. I'm learning guitar but almost because I feel I can interact with people better if they know I can play (I'll "wow" them). So I guess that is a selfish act.

The old, "there are no altruistic acts argument". Well, it all depends on how you define altruism as the cliche goes. Every act has a cause, a self-cause, otherwise there would be no acts. But, this doesn't make them selfish acts, it doesn't make them anything. Actions are empty, opinions are where the worth of the act is judged. Every action will always be judged by an opinion.

basic sociology is that humans (or all life for that matter, by design) are self serving.

Exactly!

The dictionary term: Selfish- Concerned only with ones self.

I'm just saying that just incase people got the wrong impresion of the word 'selfish' connotating it as a negative thing.

Like for instance: Say you were back in kindergarden and you had 2 cookies. But you wanted them for yourself. ('selfish'). But then you got in trouble from the teacher because you didn't share your other cookie. So you share your cookie (unselfish) in order not to get in trouble (selfish).

And after awhile you start to share your stuff with people because it benifits you in some way. Either your social standings rises and your reputatoin or you get a 'feeling' from it. They don't have to be negative or positive feelings or recignition. It just comes right down to serving the self. Being selfish.

So selfishness begets 'unselfishness'.

What are you'll standings?

Even 'lesser" animals that walk on 4s or swim in the ocean, are selfish by nature. Life here on earth, as bad as this may seem, are like parasites, or like a cosmic cancer. Yet, the purpose of life is preservation and procreation. In other words, keeping the cycle going. We evolved from primative upbringings, yet many (or most) have not evolved very much at all. People are still slaves to their animal impulses. However, I do think that autism is the next rung in the ladder of evolution, we're beginning to evolve into more logical, compassionate, and generally less selfish beings (this is not to generalize aspies or NTs though). Slight of social skills, we actually do have alot of "alpha" characteristics that are overlooked. Such as integrity, the ability to speak our minds without caring what others think, and to challenge the "normal".... I don't think aspies are non-social or anti-social, we're just socialised differently than NTs are. Bear in mind that a great many if not most of our great minds through history were AS, and that was back when we were an even much smaller minority. They literally rose above the odds and made alot of changes.

Yes, but 'serving the self' has been etched in us because we evolved from animals, we still have the animal brain. It's just hiden under our mammalian-human brains. The R-complex and what not. A lot of what we do are animal insticts just evolved to fit a human world and intelligents.

On the bases of Autism. It does indeed have certin favorable characteristics to help society ( Our unique take of the world, The ability to think outside of the box, Hyperfocasing on things we love. Be it a good thing or a bad thing.) But I'm sure intelligent NTs have also many of the characteristics as well. What it boils right down to is intelligents. Is the said person understanding the problem presented to them in a logical fasion to choose the correct answer that would do minimal damage. Be it if you have Autism or not, Do you have the intelligents?

"Is every action we do governed by the self?"

The conclusion I come to is no. To use your giving change to a bum example, you can't just the selfishness of act or the person by the resultant feeling you get from doing it. Instead you have to look at the motivation for doing the act. If you gave the change to the bum just so you can feel superior to others because your a "generous person", then yea, that would be selfish of you. If however, you are concerned or atleast empathize with their plite and are just trying to help, then the good feeling you get from giving the change doesn't make you or the act selfish.

But judging selfishness/generosity by a persons motivation is hard at best. A much easyer way is to look at the way an act effects the person and the world around them. If an act benifits you and harms the world then its selfish. If the act benifits the world then its generous regardless of it benifiting or harming you. Anything else is neither selfish nor generous.

If you give change to the bum, wether its your last dollar or one of your millions, it benefits the bum so it is not a selfish act. If we judge selfishness based on the way it makes us feel then anything that makes us feel good could be considered selfish and then "selfish" would just mean "feels good".

The thing is, the way things are defined that Altruism can only exist if we define a 'good' act as being something completely random.

I don't think that's fair at all.

Maybe one does do something for a selfish reason, but that action can still have positive consequences, and should be treated as so.

Further, I don't like the idea that we should somehow separate thought from action.


If one defines a selfish action as one in which one chooses to do in action which benefits themselves and we arbitrarily decide that it's negative, than yeah, pretty much everything we do is somehow 'bad'.

But, one can still genuinely want to help others. Which does boil down more or less to feeling 'good' about what you do, but you could still have done something which was helpful.


It is probably the case that all of these qualities are just states we have created based on our own emotions, in a Universe that is cold and unfeeling. But, the actions these feelings inspire do have an affect, and so I would argue they are real.