A Refutation of Egoism

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*falls asleep*

As i scrolled down with my mouse i said, "holy crap"
i will go read it now, obviously there is passion inside.

i agree that we cannot seperate ourselves from our emotions, not completely. We are also bound by our biases and prejudices; lifes experience. But still, you take the whole of a person, munch it all together, and what pops out is their perception, unique and different from anybody else's. And from that theymake choices in life. And those choices are based upon their own self interrest.

Nobody can compel you to do anything. They cannot MAKE you become a drug addict. They cannot MAKE oyu love them. They cannot MAKE oyu take a shower. each person as an individual makes these choices for themselves, and based wholly upon what their view is best for them.

At a later time they may change their mind. But that boils down to new lfes experience giving them further or different priorities. For example; once they loved but now they don't, they have fallen out of love. Why? because it is in their best interrest at the time to do so.


The idea of philosophy is to answer one simple question, and in truth has never been answered to satisfy me completely.

The question; Whay am i here, and what is my purpose for being?

according to the philosophy discussed, it is to satisfy your needs with each moment and it is dependent upon each persons perception. A more complicated version of the basic human instinct which is survival.



And as you went off topic you mentioned about how mankind is so egotistical that we can no everything and think ourselves the dominant species.

As we know things ( and all things cannot be known by us) we are. Do you have a cat or a dog, any pet, doesn't matter. Give them the ability to reason. As they watch you get in a car and drive away, they must be thinking wow, bow wow, imagine that.
They watch you construct a bed for your kids and put it to use, wow, bow wow imagine that.
A bulb has burn out where they sleep, you put in a new one and flip the switch, wow, meow, wow thats unimaginable.
A house pet must be amazed at the things we can do. Just like you are amazed at the possibilities that lay in the great beyond, at the furthest reaches of the universe. You are humbled by the thought, and that is your best interrest to be so. Because the unknown is unimaginable and you cannot have it.

i hope, midge, that i was able tomake some points.
It was a challenge to so. Quite frankly you overwhelmed me.
and to be honest, "wow, Bow wow, what a great mind!"

There are so many falsehoods in this thread, I hardly know where to begin.

1) Profit, in its wider meaning, is 'psychic' profit. Trying to differentiate between different kinds of profit, for example material profit from other kinds of profit, is nonsense. You can only compare apples to apples, i.e. the profit from one course of action versus another can only be compared if the two forms of profit are the same. If you try to compare a gain of $10 versus the gain of a new friend, the comparison can only be made if both forms of profit are 'psychic' profit. Furthermore, this comparison can only be made by the actor in question, or by judging the alter ego's motives. There is no objective standard of such profit. One can only judge if, given a man's desires, his actions do indeed lead him to profit.

Also, profit is the hopeful outcome of every (purposive) action.

2) This comes to my second point, in that every action is selfish. There is a difference between self-centered and selfish. If I donate money to a charity I'm still acting in accordance to my own wishes and desires.

3) The fundamental problem wish altruism is not in term mangling like I just complained about. After all it's easy to rephrase that the goal of altruism, or rather what altruism considers preferable, is that people value the easing of others unease (or words to that effect). I suppose I could complain that you cannot value this more than your own easing of unease for the definition of unease for an altruist is due to the unease of others. The whole thing is circular and leaves no room for self-love and respect.

However, I find the fundamental problem with altruism is it doesn't make sense from a deontological (as opposed to utilitarian) standpoint. It hinges on some kind of socialistic meaning of profit and loss, which is nonsense.

4) Which brings me to so-called "interests of society" mentioned on this thread. Value judgments (preferences) can only be made by individuals. Some members within society may have interests as to how we should interact, or may have an interest in protecting voluntary social cooperation from those who would subvert it, but society does not have any interests of its own.

By all means, I'm not suggesting that doing things for others cannot be eudaemonic, I just wouldn't call it altruism. While materialism and asceticism exist (at least as philosophies), altruism does not.

By the way, even though I'm not an objectivist (I'm a methodological dualist), Rand has been misunderstood concerning her advocacy of egoism. She has much to blame for this, as she often talked about the "virtue of selflessness" and so forth. However, her main point isn't that egoism is better than altruism. Her main point was the whole model of the conflict between egoism vs altruism was wholly fallacious. Her point was that human interests are harmonious and not in conflict.

I don't think Rand is the best agent to refute altruism though. It's easy to pick altruism apart without referring to the whole objectivist slant (A is A etc.)

Mithrandir,
go to Anti American Sentiment and read the last offering by Klytus.

He offers some good arguments for altruism.

I am still debateing the arguments in my head.

But at least he gives me something to debate.

Sorry Mithrander,
Wrong postee and post.

this is the correcttion and post.

Malaclypse wrote,

Anyone who claims to know the universe beyond what can be deduced from existence has already lost my confidence.

Many (or most) ancient religions relied a lot on introspection for finding the truths of the world. This was true even in Greek culture after Aristotle. Only some intellectuals considered the naturalistic (now scientific) approach.

That comment about the painting makes sense to me, but only because one cannot recognize something in reality without first creating a notion of what that is beforehand. That doesn't imply any kind of solipsism or mind-reality-energy connection however. The distinction between reality and knowledge is a lot better understood once one accepts they are fundamentally different and exist in their own relative objective and subjective spheres. Like I've said elsewhere, we don't know reality; we understand a notion of reality within a framework of knowledge.

As for the violent and egoistic part, it relies on the fallacious conflict between altruism and egoism. I don't know about the rest of you, but I like to refrain from violence. That has nothing whatsoever to do with altruism. Altruism is not synonymous with civility or sympathy.

Two opposing views,

I would imagine that the universe is much more simple to understand than the complexities and unpredictable nature of human perception.

I think it'd be easier to understand the universe than to know oneself. Our minds are so jaded, especially when looking inwards. Outwards is a far more reliable bet as far as a little more accurate interpretation.

Therefore, pretty much everything is beyond the realm of our "knowing". All we can ever do is guess. Some guesses are just a little more educated than others.