Is genuine altruism possible?

So what are "needs," twyvel? Are we talking about staying (biologically) alive, or is some happiness needed as well?

It has been said,…. Only god can say, "I am."


Ultimately that is what's under question, what are you talking about when you say " I " ?

There may be nothing there but the question.

Well, there has to be something. Descartes' tautology, you know.

But seriously, if we were only our influences, why do people with the same influences act differently? And how could we think of our influnces as separate from ourselves? Something has to be there to do the thinking, and clearly, it's not the influences, since one can't think of onesself in the third person.

JLNobody

Thanks for your shikantaza description, something to contemplate on, if only I could untie my untied unself.,

People don't have the same influences. That's one reason they act differently.




If something is thinking it can't be thought about since it is doing the thinking. The best it can do is represent itself through thought.

truth
Rufio, it seems to me that your comment that "something has to be there to do the thinking' (presumably a self) reflects the tyranny of our grammar. It is somewhat like our need to say "'It' is raining" rather than the phenomenologically more accurate: "raining."
I think that Decartes' "I think therefore I am" should have been "there is the thought that there is an "I" who is thinking, and following from that ("ergo") is the thought that the thought of "I" is therefore emprically factual.
Rufio, I like your description of our denial that we are simply our empirical properties, i.e., we are not JUST our race, our culture, our possessions, our historical position, our gender, our biology, etc., and that what remains (assuming the list of properties was exhaustive) is our true essence, a soul or a self (both expressed with "I"). But let me ask you, do you think that after we have abstracted the properties of an apple--its redness, its roundness, its taste, its weight, its nutritutional values, etc.-- that what remains is its "self" or its "soul"?

truth
Rufio, what if we were to push your point even further. What if we subtracted, in addition to the properties you mentioned--race, culture, possessions, gender and so on--also what you saw as remaining, the soul and/or self. What would remain then? I would suggest just experience/consciousness, with no agent possessing them. That's what we might call spiritual minimalism.

is genuine altruism possible? no, not in reality, Rescuer will always get something in return, whetehr is be fame or fortune or even a good feeling after they completed their "deed." People can make a genuinly altruistic act though, you define altruism as getting nothing in return, but as long as the person doesnt intend to get something in return, the they are being genuinly altruistic. another topic though, is altruism a good thing? my belief, no. altruism is a bad thing. if everyone went around doing things for others all the time, nothing would ever be accomplished. people need to do things fro themselves or for no one in particular, or the world as we know it would cease to advance

Locke, However, "genuine altruism" does not happen in a vacuum. Therefore, there will be the person rescued, and the information of the heroic act with others. Since we can't expect the rescuer to feel badly about the good deed, we can still give credit where credit is due. It doesn't take away from the "genuine altruism." As for "everyone doing good things for others," it is contrary to human nature.

BTW, Locke, WELCOME to A2K.

I believe that the martyr committs an altruistic act if he is not in it for the recognition...I mean define altruism, is it not getting anything in return or not wanting anything in return? Because you can hen-peck every scenario imaginable until every situation yields a perk for the poor so-called "altruistic" individual; but if he does not seek these perks then that my friends is altruism...

Locke, I'm not sure I understand your post. It looks as if you're saying that genuine altruism is both impossible and possible. Or are you saying that altruism, although theoretically possible, is impossible in practice given human nature?

As for not intending to receive anything in return for an "altruistic" act, let me pose this hypothetical:

Rescuer happens upon a windowless room. It is empty except for a table with a device on it. The device is a box, connected to a set of wires, with a red button. Next to the device is a sign that says: "if you press this button you will save a human's life." No one else is in the room, no one knows that Rescuer is in the room, and no one else (as far as Rescuer knows) is aware of the device with the red button. To press the button, Rescuer will be required to expend minimal effort, and upon pressing the button a bell will ring but nothing else will happen -- no evidence, in other words, that pressing the button had any effect whatsoever.

Now, Rescuer presses the button.

We can't say that Rescuer received something in return for his act; he's not even sure if it was effective, so he can't enjoy, free from doubt, a sense of psychological satisfaction. Yet he certainly was under no compulsion to act, and he could have easily refrained from acting without risking any kind of moral censure (since no one knows he's there). His act was not selfish, as we normally understand it, because he received nothing in return. Was it, then, genuinely altruistic?

actually said individual could have committed the act in an effort to not be chastised later for not having pressed said button. Therefore he would have spared himself some trouble down the road creating a sense of worth in pressing the button...there was no harm in pressing the button so of course hed press it...only good could come of it.

truth
Joe, a very clever hypothetical situation. You might be good at designing psychological experiments..
Locke, you are right that altruism would be detrimental if everyone went around being altruistic all the time. But then everybody all the time is not the realistic condition. Moreover, if everybody did ANYthing all the time--other than breathing--it would be detrimental.

JL - The main reason that Descartes' tautology is a tautology is that before he even begins to construct his argument, he's already accepted that he thinks and that he exists, even in the process of doubting everything. If only, it shows that we can't think of ourselves as not existing and not thinking. There cannot simply be a thought - a thought, by its English definition, requires a thinker. If there is no thinker, we must call it something else. But what would we call it? What is left of the thought, without the thinker?

About the apple. When all the influences have been removed from the apple, what remains is a Platonic form of an apple, which represents all apples, regardless of their shape, color, taste, weight, and nutritional values - the one quality that makes an apple an apple. However, the apple is no sentient, so the form exists only in our minds. When we are stripped of our influences, we too remain as pure forms - that which makes a human a human. But as sentient, thinking things, these forms maintain themselves, and are objectively real - they don't rely on outside support. That is the I. I don't think the form itself can be reduced further, since it is the cause of its own existence. That's not as circular as it looks, though, since the form only perpetuates itself in theory. In reality, I suspect, it is tied a bit more concretely to its physical representation. Unless you believe in an immoral spirit, that is.

Twyvel, you're right, not everyone has exactly the same influences, and no one even knows what they all are. But you can think thoughts that you know are influenced by certain influences, and when thinking them, feel as if you are under some sort of compulsion, which is alien and external. Alien to what? To your self, your I, which is internal. I can look at myself in the mirror, or listen to myself on a tape, or otherwise know myself as an object, but it's never the same as knowing myself as a subject. In fact, people rarely recognize their own voices, or their own images in security cameras. You hear people say "I look aweful in that picture" or "I look great in that picture" but never "I look like me in that picture". But there is a "me" that is different from, and seemingly, more true than, the object. That's the point.

Just a couple of comments.

In order to discuss "ordinary language" (I, me etc)
we are obliged to seek a "meta-language". Rufio attempts to do this by historical reference (Platonic forms etc) but she is still left with "logic" as axiomatic. Twyvel's platform is one of esoteric philosophy where there is a possibilty of a transient observation mode, or state of being (not an "I") which "sees" the essential mutual nature of observer and observed (Rufio hints at this with her "awareness of influences"). But such a position also transcends "ordinary logic" not simply towards the ineffable, but towards a position where logic itself as applied to "subjects" and "objects"becomes a subsystem. (See for example Piaget's genetic epistemology on a non-mystical approach to this).
The second approach is ironically closer to contemporary developments in "science" than the former with the advent of probability functions and "fuzzy logic". For an interesting discussion on the "stopping of thought" see the Krishnamurti dialogue with the physicist David Bohm.

(Away now until the weekend).

Look again at my hypothetical situation. I said: "No one else is in the room, no one knows that Rescuer is in the room, and no one else (as far as Rescuer knows) is aware of the device with the red button." I further added: "...he could have easily refrained from acting without risking any kind of moral censure (since no one knows he's there)." So Rescuer has no need to fear being chastised later for not having pressed the button. Rescuer can blame himself for not pressing the button, but then Rescuer could never know if his failure to press the button had any consequences, good or ill. He would then be left with, at most, a sense of doubt rather than a sense of having done something "bad."


An occupational hazard -- I learned all about these kinds of things in law school.

My purpose here is to get at a possible underlying assumption: that genuine altruism requires some sort of "sacrifice" on the part of the actor. In the initial hypothetical, where Rescuer dives into a lake to save the drowning Victim, we can easily see that Rescuer puts himself at risk. But is that kind of risk necessary in order for an act to be called "altruistic?" Or can the simple, risk-free act of pushing a button also qualify as "altruistic?"

And by the way, JLN, what do you think?

Twyvel, I would disagree. I think that the self is the ONLY thing that you CAN know without observing it.

Fresco, I too find probability to be much more mystical than philosophy.

K Vee, what do you mean by commissions and omissions?