An unselfish act is impossible?

[Tanken]

Maybe you already had a post about this, most likely cause you seem to talk about everything. But I'll give it a go anyhow.

I belive that every act is in it's motive selfish/egoistic and I don't mean this in a bad sense. It just seems to me that it has to be true.
The reason is becuase we are animals our primary instict would be survival and self preservation. How can an animal preform an act that would hurt her self?

An obvious argument that suggests that human do perform unselfish acts is the example where "John" saves a total stranger from drowing and in doing so risking his own life, for example.

The reason for doing something that doesn't benifit "John" and even potentially harming him might seem unselfish but is actually a selfish act. He does it because a) he would feel good about himself if he saved another human life, he would then derive plesaure from it, or b) he does it because, even though risking his own life, he would feel worse just watching a man die and doing nothing about it, in this case he saves the man to lessen his own pain and suffering.

The argument in b) applies to many situations.

I'm just about done now but before ending this post I'd just like to say because every act is selfish, the word itself loses all meaning. It never needs to be used becuase it has no real opposite. An unselfish act can never be performed. (Altruism is the opposire word for egoism, btw)

[Tanken]

ur an ass / VIktor

[vhawk01]

You need to define your terms extremely carefully...and once you do, the discussion becomes pretty meaningless. I mean, it is tautologically true that you cannot do something that you want to do, using certain definitions of 'want.' It is also obvious that what you want to do is what is in your own self-interest, at least immediately, so yes, the conclusion is, you cannot do an unselfish thing.

But that isn't really what people generally mean when they say something is unselfish. It is the 'selfish gene' approach to selfishness, and not the 'selfish bastard' approach.

[Spence]

I have seen people take their own lives to save somebody elses, and they weren't religious.

I'd say that's pretty unselfish.

[Spence]

also, it's true we have animal instincts and we have a will to live, but we are able to overcome those instincts and, in some cases, make the morally correct decision, even though it goes against those instincts.

[kurto]

Isn't this the theory of Altruistic Egotism?

[vhawk01]

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I have seen people take their own lives to save somebody elses, and they weren't religious.

I'd say that's pretty unselfish.

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Nope.

[luckyme]

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also, it's true we have animal instincts and we have a will to live

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I doubt we have any of the overarching Wills that we are usually credited with. We have packets of more specific intensity that usually fulfill some long-term or larger goals but can screw them up also.

We don't have a "will to avoid starving" we do have an "urge to eat".
We don't have a "will to procreate" we do have a urge to have sex( actually that's a 2nd layer meta-urge, but close enough).

We do the bulk of what we do for reasons we poorly understand and do a lot of rationalizing along the way or after the fact.

'Unselfish act'? Pretty hard to judge since the reasons run deep and silent.

luckyme

[crookedhat99]

This is obv.

What you're saying amounts to 'we feel only our own pleasure and we feel only our own pain', which is obv.

[Piers]

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because every act is selfish, the word itself loses all meaning. It never needs to be used becuase it has no real opposite. An unselfish act can never be performed.

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Yes, which suggests that your definition of selfish is a bit too strong.

Three ways you might weaken the definition so that the word has meaning.

1) Call an act unselfish if the gain to the individual is out of proportion to cost in some sense. Make up your own parameters.

2) If the observer does not see how the act can be a gain to the individual, but the way it benefits another is clear. The act is in an absolute sense selfish, but from the observer’s viewpoint it is unselfish

3) Again have the word selfish only have meaning relative to an observer. An act being unselfish if it feels unselfish to the observer. A gut reaction with no consideration of the details of the act except to the extent that they influence the observers emotional response to the act.

Personally I think 3 is the best option, and is the way the word is generally used in practice.