Is genuine altruism possible?

twyvel,

I think you are correct because evocation of the "self" prior to performing "the act" amounts to negating altruism.

truth
Deleted by poster. See below.

truth
Isn't "meaningful" experience always a reconstruction of the past, a matter of memory? An exception is seen in the practice of some kinds of meditation (I almost said medication) in which the meditator is looking at experience "in the raw," which is to say pre-reflectively. At such times the experience is meaningless, but containing a clarity that is blissful. But once this process (this state of "becoming") is looked back upon, it is frozen into meaingful objects of reflection (objects in a state of "being"). But in the process of acting, as when going into action to do what we've been conditioned to do as "what's right" (save a person from rape, prevent the theft of a car, etc.) are we acting "pre-reflectively" or are we acting with self-conscious (and self-aggrandizing) "premeditation"? Or may it not be a complex combination of these factors?

K Vee, maybe you don't think about your actions, but I do.

Fresco, I'm not sure what you said exactly, but while it's a nice idea, as far as I'm concerned Deep Structure has been empirically disproven. This doesn't change the fact that "to understand" serves a different purpose in those sentences. Try rewording the first as "John is easily understood" and you'll see what I mean.

The next bit is just in general.

On free will:
Naturally, we don't have the free will to do absolutely everything. But within the limits placed on us by our environment, we still have a great deal of freedom to choose what we want to do. Any influence of culture is just that - an influence. You can choose to act according to that influence, or according to something else. It's really up to you.

JLNobody,

You seem to be referring to consciousness without an object.

truth
Rufio, it seems that most of us are discussing the problem of the metaphysical status of "free will" while you are talking about political power, the ability to impose one's (taken for granted free) will on others. To me the question may be tailored to be "Does the most powerful man in the world have free will, or are his actions, in the nature of things, necessarily determined?

truth
Twyvel, I think I'm talking about conscious without frozen objects, which is to say meaningful mental categories into which sensations are placed. In the state of pre-reflective observation the immediately perceived sensations are in a continuous state of becoming (that is to say changing, without fixed and meaningful category membership). They are empty of meaning; they just are what they appear to be, and that appearance is one of process or "becoming". Since one is not trying to capture them into meaningful categories, one is free from memory and conceptual grasping. Likewise, the feelng of being a self that sees changing sensations is seen pre-reflective as a process of moving sensations, and one realizes that there is no subject as well as no object. There is just empty/changing experience, like clouds floating overhead. This is my understanding of the practice of mindfulness or shikantaza. What say you?

truth
Yes Tywvel, once dualism is put aside the problem seems to disappear.

I disagree Twyvel, in my opinion, you're substituting debating points of logic for a description of ordinary human perceptions.

truth
Twyvel and logic?

I didn't say he had been logical, simply that the terms to describe ordinary human perceptions sound like talking points in a debate on logic.

(Ah ha, hit the edit button while i was typing, i see.)

truth
Set, I don't recall Twyvel ever to use "logic" to win a competition. Instead, he seems to describe his intuitions even when they defy ordinary logic. I've said this about him before.

Re: truth
To be honest, I haven't been following the discussion here as it drifted off into the realms of dualities and poles and what-not. I'll admit that it has been, at times, interesting and enlightening, but nevertheless somewhat off-topic. I think one of JLN's remarks neatly summarized the problem:


As JLN (and Twyvel, I think, before) have noted, deterministic analysis is usually ex post, whereas people typically make decisions ex ante (one is reminded of Homer Simpson deciding to rob the Quik-E-Mart, only to discover that he had already left the store and was on his way home). The question, then, to those who take this approach: is there any place for a notion of "altruism" in a deterministic universe? Or, to put it in other words, if no one has a true "choice" about whether or not to act altruistically, then can we say that there is such a thing as "altruism" at all?

If anyone denies that altruism is possible on purely deterministic grounds, then I think that position should be made clear so we're not talking past one another. If, on the other hand, a person has free will, and is capable of making a choice between one's own interests and those of someone else (i.e. acting "selfishly" or "selflessly"), then I think there's still something left to discuss.

JL, I guess I'm probably on a more political level, because I've never discussed free will in terms of philosophy, but only in terms of anthropology and various types of determinism. For instance, there are various species of biological determinism, sich as eugenics, LH Morgan's temporal (maybe???) determinism, Boas' cultural determinism, Whorf's linguistic determinism. Then there's metaphysical determinism, which amounts to the looney on the street corner with the sign saying "Jesus has a plan for you." I don't know that there's really much to argue for on that level. Personally, I think that biology, culture, time, and maybe even language (though I doubt it) have influences on behavior, but that there's nothing that completely determines it. You can't exist (biologically or otherwise) in a vacuum - there will always be influences. You can't have a discussion of free will completely on a metaphysical level without taking into account the influences. Stripped of influences, though, all individuals are the same - they have the same brains and the same decision-making powers, and given the lack of influences, the choices made would be completely random in any group of individuals, and not dependent on the individual, either. It hardly matters if what a person is, without influences, determines choices, since without influences we are all the same. On some level, though, I believe there is a kind of random-choice generator that is separate from influences and even simple logic - whatever it is that makes you run out and do something for no reason at all. If, as most anthropologists like to think, there is only the self and the influences, than all choices are predetermined. But I don't see that as being the case at all.

joefromchicago

The lack of free will doesn't only negate altruism it negates selfish acts.

rufio

One might have to define "influences".

If you can distinguish an influence there is something that is being influenced. If not welcome to nondualism.

Well, most people hold that people really aren't their race, their class, their culture, their possessions, their time period, their gender, or their biology, since we can think of all those things without necessarily thinking of ourselves. That is what is being influenced. A soul, if you will. Whatever it is you're talking about when you say "I".

Setanta


"other oriented" implies a self that is other oriented. That self has to take care of its self before it can take care of others. I agree that once ones needs of self-care are met, especially if they are frugal in nature one can direct their attention to others. And we can say that this is a form of altruism, although rather generalized and easily challenged.