There's probably no God

[Frank]

Incidentally, RedCelt,there was a fine interview of Don Cupitt on 'non-realism' in the Philosophy Bites podcast which I felt dealt quite closely with the merits of the Quakers. Interesting stuff.

Haunted said: "One can be still be a good person with a degree of selfishness."

There was a terrific bit of wisdom in Friends as I recall it. An argument between Phoebe and Joey on the possibility of an 'unselfish good deed'. I'd agree with Joey: (Intended) good deeds themselves aren't utterly selfish, even ones which are selfless. One does find some...enjoyment and satisfaction in doing the 'right thing'.

I'm not sure I'd weigh it up with +5 good & -10 bad being a 'bad deed' just because it's -5 bad overall. Certainly, I doubt that morality is really that simple. In any case, even back when I was a 'devout' Catholic, I did feel that the judgement of God had to be reasonable. I know that's not what's actually written down (or promulgated), but it always seemed to me that you'd be afforded an equal and impartial law-angel to speak on your behalf (or to represent yourself if you felt justified).

But with hindsight I think it's fair to say that that's...wishful thinking. It seems like a more sensible system, but I've precisely no reason to believe it to be true. Hope, perhaps, but I think I'm wise enough now to recognise (when examining things) the distinction between hope and belief. For that reason, I think I'm quite sceptical of my own hopes. Just because they make me happy and seem to be my preference...

On the topic of a morality for atheists

I'm told the more attractive parts of stoicism were half-inched by (or otherwise in line with) early Christianty, that marking the particular moral-appeal of the religion. So long as one is master of oneself (and one's salvation is mutually agreed with god, as best as you can know it via the evidence presented to you [i.e. the church, bible and chums telling you what's what]) then your eternal happiness is, essentially, assured.

Of course, that's major simplicity and likely a million miles from the truth, but I freely admit to having found...solace(?) in reading stoic (and other philosophical texts). In that regard, and from a purely 'reading the teachings' viewpoint, one can happiy reconcile the analysis of the books as distinct from the possibility of an existant and divine writer. Consider that someone slipped an edit into the Handbook of Epictetus mentioning how Epictetus was divine...

[Humphrey]

I'm told the more attractive parts of stoicism were half-inched by (or otherwise in line with) early Christianty, that marking the particular moral-appeal of the religion. So long as one is master of oneself (and one's salvation is mutually agreed with god, as best as you can know it via the evidence presented to you [i.e. the church, bible and chums telling you what's what]) then your eternal happiness is, essentially, assured.

Of course, that's major simplicity and likely a million miles from the truth, but I freely admit to having found...solace(?) in reading stoic (and other philosophical texts). In that regard, and from a purely 'reading the teachings' viewpoint, one can happiy reconcile the analysis of the books as distinct from the possibility of an existant and divine writer. Consider that someone slipped an edit into the Handbook of Epictetus mentioning how Epictetus was divine...

Well..(more nitpicking), I agree and I disagree. Its certainly true that Stoicism marked the moral high point of the Roman Empire. In its later years it was marked by a cosmopolitanism and humanitarianism that affirmed the brotherhood of all men and the necessity of kindness, beneficence and the humane treatment of everyone, civilised, barbarian, slave or free, all of whom were possessed of a divine spark. All of this was incorporated into Christianity, along with Platonism (i.e the idea of Christ as logos). However Christianity radically modified all of this. Stoicism never developed, perhaps could never have developed into an explicit claim that all individuals possessed human rights, perhaps because there were characteristics of Stoic doctrine that were not hospitable to the idea of an intrinsic human worth that applied to all people.

The influence of stoicism on Roman law was extensive in ameliorating, for instance the treatment of slaves. But the Stoic's indifference to suffering prevented them for actively seeking the protection of the weak. The net result of Stoicism was to act as a reinforcer of traditional values. It regarded traditionally given roles as natural. A person’s moral progress lay in the order and coherence of their words, thoughts, and actions with Nature. Epictetus for example, lists roles associated with appropriate actions, including natural ones like father, mother, old, and young and social ones like ruler, citizen, general, and soldier. However he also includes “slave, cripple, and beggar.” All these roles are customary ones in Hellenistic-Roman society and there is little incentive to change matters; all these exist under a state of cosmic determinism. Stoicism was therefore a cosmic metaphor positing a Divine Economy in which every thing and every person had its proper place. It's cosmopolitanism is really not more than a formal unity of men as beings possessed of reason.Stoics also cultivated an apathy to suffering because they believed that pain sickness and suffering were indifferent things (adiaphora). Its unlikely that a philosophy which teaches that the father should look on with perfect indifference on the death of his child or wife and that the philosopher, although he should shed pretend tears for his friends, should suffer no real emotion, would have had great difficulty becoming a lasting religion of benevolence. Furthermore the pantheistic theology of stoicism prevented the uniqueness of the individual from being fully recognised.

The strongly held idea that human value is acquired rather than inherent was nearly pervasive in classical antiquity. It was so central to their conception of value that a fully developed principle of sanctity of human life was never achieved in pagan society. It took two radical ideas, firstly the principle of the equality of souls before God, and following on from that, the idea that God, not man has ultimate sovereignty over humanity and there are natural laws which compel us to recognise the rights of others. All of this we nicked off the bronze age goat herders via the cosmic zombie and the hallucinating Palestinian peasants and added a sprinkling of trendy Greek philosophy to make it more credible.

Buddhism gets talked up a lot these days. I have to say I don’t understand the appeal of trying to get rid of ‘the self’; I’m rather attached to it. If you have a problem with the historicity of Christ it’s worth bearing in mind that the sayings of Buddha weren’t written down for about 300-400 years after his death. Despite being agnostic towards the existence of God there is the acceptance of various Hindu concepts in there such as Karma and reincarnation. Then there’s some interesting stuff about women. On the one hand, it’s the first religion to ordain them and exceptional women like Visakha are treated on an intellectual plane. On the other hand your birth as a women is due to bad karma and the aim is to acquire merit in this life so as to be reborn a man. Buddha frequently warns about the wiles of women, saying that ‘women are soon angered, Ananda, full of passion, envious, and stupid’; but then he was a man of his times.

[RedCelt69]

Frank, you get your inspiration from a wide variety of sources. I was expecting you to quote Homer Simpson next

Whilst it is possible that Mark Twain foresaw the wisdom to be espoused by Joey, I think it worth providing a wee snippet from his essay What Is Man. It's from an e-book, so excuse the occasional use of caps as they appear in the original text.

In a Socratic exchange between an old (hence wise) man and a young (hence naive) man, the old man is questioning the young man's suppositions about what motivates people to act unselfishly. When the old man asks the young man for an example of self-sacrifice; "The doing good to another person where no shadow nor suggestion of benefit to one's self can result from it." the young man answers:-

Y.M. Well, then, for instance. Take the case in the book here. The man lives three miles up-town. It is bitter cold, snowing hard, midnight. He is about to enter the horse-car when a gray and ragged old woman, a touching picture of misery, puts out her lean hand and begs for rescue from hunger and death. The man finds that he has a quarter in his pocket, but he does not hesitate: he gives it her and trudges home through the storm. There--it is noble, it is beautiful; its grace is marred by no fleck or blemish or suggestion of self-interest.

O.M. What makes you think that?

Y.M. Pray what else could I think? Do you imagine that there is some other way of looking at it?

O.M. Can you put yourself in the man's place and tell me what he felt and what he thought?

Y.M. Easily. The sight of that suffering old face pierced his generous heart with a sharp pain. He could not bear it. He could endure the three-mile walk in the storm, but he could not endure the tortures his conscience would suffer if he turned his back and left that poor old creature to perish. He would not have been able to sleep, for thinking of it.

O.M. What was his state of mind on his way home?

Y.M. It was a state of joy which only the self-sacrificer knows. His heart sang, he was unconscious of the storm.

O.M. He felt well?

Y.M. One cannot doubt it.

O.M. Very well. Now let us add up the details and see how much he got for his twenty-five cents. Let us try to find out the REAL why of his making the investment. In the first place HE couldn't bear the pain which the old suffering face gave him. So he was thinking of HIS pain--this good man. He must buy a salve for it. If he did not succor the old woman HIS conscience would torture him all the way home. Thinking of HIS pain again. He must buy relief for that. If he didn't relieve the old woman HE would not get any sleep. He must buy some sleep--still thinking of HIMSELF, you see. Thus, to sum up, he bought himself free of a sharp pain in his heart, he bought himself free of the tortures of a waiting conscience, he bought a whole night's sleep--all for twenty-five cents! It should make Wall Street ashamed of itself. On his way home his heart was joyful, and it sang--profit on top of profit! The impulse which moved the man to succor the old woman was--FIRST--to CONTENT HIS OWN SPIRIT; secondly to relieve HER sufferings. Is it your opinion that men's acts proceed from one central and unchanging and inalterable impulse, or from a variety of impulses?

Y.M. From a variety, of course--some high and fine and noble, others not. What is your opinion?

O.M. Then there is but ONE law, one source.

Y.M. That both the noblest impulses and the basest proceed from that one source?

O.M. Yes.

Y.M. Will you put that law into words?

O.M. Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. FROM HIS CRADLE TO HIS GRAVE A MAN NEVER DOES A SINGLE THING WHICH HAS ANY FIRST AND FOREMOST OBJECT BUT ONE--TO SECURE PEACE OF MIND, SPIRITUAL COMFORT, FOR HIMSELF.

[Humphrey]

O.M. Yes. This is the law, keep it in your mind. FROM HIS CRADLE TO HIS GRAVE A MAN NEVER DOES A SINGLE THING WHICH HAS ANY FIRST AND FOREMOST OBJECT BUT ONE--TO SECURE PEACE OF MIND, SPIRITUAL COMFORT, FOR HIMSELF.[/size]

The old man is too cynical, although he would make a very good socio-biologist. A large proportion of apparently altruistic behaviour can be explained by kin selection or reciprocity; doubtless a lot can also be explained by the desire to improve ones status in society (reputational), or to salve ones social conscience. But what of cases where certain death is involved. The man who rushes into the burning buildings on 9/11 to save others? or the guy who throws himself on a grenade to save the rest of his platoon?. Then of course there are some of the Germans who saved Jews during the holocaust. When they were studied later, it was found that some of them actively disliked the people they had rescued. Instead a sense of inner duty had outweighed their natural prejudices and selfishness and they were willing to risk death because of it. Although Twain is right about some of human behaviour, he goes too far in the dialogue. The young man's conclusion is more nuanced.

[Hennessy]

[RedCelt69]

Ah, Hennessey. I see you suffer from Mary Whitehouse Syndrome. Given a choice of watching/reading something that interests you or the avoidance of watching/reading something that disinterests/offends you... you bizzarely take the third option of watching/reading something and then complaining that you watched/read it. Skip along to another thread if you don't like the contents of this one.

But what of cases where certain death is involved. The man who rushes into the burning buildings on 9/11 to save others? or the guy who throws himself on a grenade to save the rest of his platoon?.

If they knew the building was going to collapse, they wouldn't have gone into the building in the first place. Firstly, because they'd die. Secondly, because any trapped people they reached would die regardless. It would have been a pointless and fruitless act and (if they had families) a potentially selfish act to knowingly kill themselves. They ran in because there was a chance that they could run out again. Which isn't to undermine or downplay the bravery of those that choose such a profession. There are plenty of people who wouldn't run in if there was a chance they couldn't run out again.
As for the grenade example, you have two choices... an anonymous death with your friends and colleagues... or the death of a hero, leaving behind witnesses to attest to your act of bravery. Either way, you die.

I perfectly understand why such notions can be difficult, uncomfortable or just downright annoying. We want to think that angels walk amongst us... but wanting or hoping for something to be true doesn't necessarily make it so.

Although Twain is right about some of human behaviour, he goes too far in the dialogue. The young man's conclusion is more nuanced.

Well. Strictly speaking, the young man's conclusion is also Twain's conclusion... or at least, he is aware of (and gives voice to) both approaches to the nature of man. But I'm with Twain's old man on this one.

[Anon.]

As for the grenade example, you have two choices... an anonymous death with your friends and colleagues... or the death of a hero, leaving behind witnesses to attest to your act of bravery. Either way, you die.

I hardly think that the examples of military heroism one reads about in the press weighed up their chances of a VC against a CGM before going ahead and doing whatever they did. And to pretend that dying in battle is glorious is tosh, as any GCSE English Literature lesson will tell you; any soldier who sacrifices his life for his comrades' does it for just that reason, not for some sort of posthumous recognition in the London Gazette. A purely selfless act does happen.

[RedCelt69]

I hardly think that the examples of military heroism one reads about in the press weighed up their chances of a VC against a CGM before going ahead and doing whatever they did. And to pretend that dying in battle is glorious is tosh, as any GCSE English Literature lesson will tell you; any soldier who sacrifices his life for his comrades' does it for just that reason, not for some sort of posthumous recognition in the London Gazette. A purely selfless act does happen.

You may well be right. Care to cite some examples? A hero's death on the battlefield can bring glory and honour to the memory of the deceased. As any GCSE History lesson will tell you. Certainly any GCSE History lesson that covers Ancient Greece (or Rome... or Scandanavia... or Japan...). Does "Come back with your shield or on it" ring any bells?

You haven't given a good rebuttal to the point I made wrt the grenade scenario. Either way, you're dead... death+glory (however marginal) > death+zero.

[Haunted]

Surely by your definition redcelt there can be no such thing as a selfless act?
If a person does something because they want to do it (e.g. donate to charity = feel good = desire to do it) then anything selfless cannot be done since to do anything there must exist a desire to do it in the first place and if there is a desire to do it then it isn't selfless?

[Humphrey]

Well, I thought I was guilty of having an overtly negative view of human nature but it seems I've met my match. Of course you can come up with a selfish reason for performing any act. But it doesn't then follow from that, that the persons who committed the apparently altruistic deed held that as their principle motivation. I was reading about a mining disaster the other day which happened near Wrexham. About 200 miners were trapped underground after an explosion and were surrounded by flames and carbon monoxide. Volunteer fire teams looks at the situation and thought it was hopeless but they decided to go in anyway to try and rescue their comrades. In the process a large number of them died, as did all but 3 of the miners. Now maybe some of them did what they did because they figured they might become a hero and get laid, but I think its more likely there was a bit of self-sacrifice involved. Of course there's no way of knowing that for sure, but its a fairly safe assumption.

Of course we shouldn't delude ourselves into thinking people are inherently angelic, but we shouldn't run off to the other extreme either just so it fits our philosophy. I think the truth is more complicated.

[Frank]

Cheers, Humphrey, a helpful explanation there.

I'd loosely concur on RedCelt's side with the 'no selfless acts', but then Friends was always the core of my moral compass.

Anyway, my point would be that any selfless acts (taking the grenade, digging out the miners, general self-sacrifice etc) are surely (and ths is where the neurosci/psychology of it all becomes exceedingly interesting, IMO)being mentally rewarded for doing something that is, in their minds, not heroic or noble or grand...but good. We are ourselves possessed of some funny notions. Perhaps a misguided (or well-guided?) sense of honour. Jumping on a grenade might be a poor choice in the long term, but the rewarding thing to do at the time: make something of yourself, surrender your life, just do it. It'd perhaps be a curious option to consider what'd happen to a person who would be inclined to jump on the grenade (we might say: an Heroic individual) if they didn't make the jump. Would there be an element of pain in doing that?

In that sense, I think the 'selfless' acts seem to be ones you do by accident... But then that's not a terribly helpful outlook either. For my part, I'm content to believe in the old 'no selfless acts' debate which started this line in the thread, but also happily believe that a selfish action is not necessarily a bad action. Indeed, many 'good deeds' have a core of selfishness about them. (Indeed, when we talk about sanctimonious people being sanctimonious I'd suggest this is a fine example: a 'good deed' but largely because they're getting a holier-than-thou kick out of it...)

Anyway. My 'belief', to put it such, is quite aligned to Humphrey's point. As an old highschool friend put it when explaining his refusal to instigate a threesome with two ladies he'd brought back to his house: It's more complicated than that.

(They were mother and daughter )

[RedCelt69]

Hmmm.... well. If there is such a thing as a selfless act, I'm struggling to bring one to mind.

One example I'm wary of suggesting (because of the emotions it would engender) is the following:-

You help a paedophile procure a child to molest.

The act might be decribed as selfless because the act you are assisting is abhorrent to you; thus you would get no pleasure from helping the individual. Or at least I would certainly hope you wouldn't. If you would, it would be a bad example. And you would be a bad person. (master of understatement)

Pick anything you heartily disapprove of (to the point where you can guarantee the absence of self-satisfaction). How about you load the gun for a hunter about to shoot the last breeding pair of elephants alive? (set in the hopefully distant future). That might be described as a selfless act... assuming the hunter was a complete stranger and not, say, a friend. In which case you have a lousy taste in friends.

Any act of helping others which will provide satisfaction to you for having helped cannot be described as a purely selfless act. This might seem a strange or bleak view of humanity, but knowing that self-interest is at the heart of everything we do doesn't diminish the fact that people do good things for each other on a daily basis. The system works, regardless of the mechanics which underlay it.

Turning to a more mundane example... the other day I was standing at the checkout of my local Co-Op with a basket of shopping. It's a small store, which occassionally operates conveyor-belt checkout points when it is busy. This wasn't such an occassion. Behind me, was a woman with 1 item. I stepped to one side and said "you go first". Was that a selfless act? Well, no. I got (marginal) pleasure from being a considerate human being on the off-chance that she might "pay it forward" (with a nod to the Kevin Spacey film). If not to me, then to someone else... who (holistic world that we live in) might eventually pass it back to me.

My philosophy isn't "all people act selfishly, isn't it a terrible world". It's more a case of "all people act selfishly, but if it is done with consideration to others, no harm... no foul." It is based on a modified version of the Golden Rule. One day I will write a paper on it.

PS Thanks Frank. I now can't get that aborted menage a trois from my mind.

[Haunted]

Blimey. Only here can we define selfless acts to be evil acts.
Unless of course said individual was a sociopath and got severe displeasure from, say, helping an old lady cross the street, only he can then say to have acted selflessly for good (good as defined by someone else, yeesh).

Of course, it would be much easier to simply ignore any psychological benefits when talking about acting selflessly or altruistically since such benefits are immaterial and abstract compared to the real world benefits that such acts bring about (e.g. giving food/shelter).

[Thalia]

The fact is, all forms of altruism must have some kind of gain/probability of gain or else no body would be altruistic. What's the point in doing something if you get absolutely nothing from it, not even a little piece of self-satisfaction?

[Frank]

I don't think I'd be quite as sterile in my 'golden rule' as RedCelt's being, Haunted. That is "All good acts are selfish...isn't that neat?". I think it's a more positive look on selfishness, to be honest. I.e. "You're being selfish" is no-longer the cutting, pithy remark it once was. Rather, the realisation that selfless acts are still a bit selfish is quite...freeing. It hopefully prevents you from being unknowingly sanctimonious about things!

Anyway, RedCelt, I think your example is, unfortunately, a selfish act still...provided one considered it before hand. You'd be at least drawing satisfaction in doing it to prove you were doing a non-selfish good thing...thus rendering it somewhat selfish and undoing all our hard thought-experimenting!

As Haunted says: If one were to go by our views (i.e. almost no totally selfless good deeds), then truly selfless deeds are only really viable for people who have a mental disorder to some degree! Now, I think Haunted'd say that this highlights why our reasoning is maddening, but I'd say it highlights why I'm not content with my view of 'what a selfless good deed' entails.

The pedant in me would quibble anyone being heralded as selfless (see again the 'only bizarre sociopaths...' line of reasoning), but strictly speaking I can happily divide up my thinking as Haunted suggests: to note that abstract self-gratification may well be an impulse for doing a good deed (and rendering it somewhat selfish), but I'd also note that not all selfish motivations are to be disapproved of. Indeed, I'd say many are the root of most good deeds. As Thalia points out: Altruism surely has some sort of reward to it, else why would anyone do anything altruistic?

But, by now, I think we've come full circle and merely highlighted why RedCelt and I concur that selfish deeds can easily be very good deed simultaneously! Theologically, can God do a good deed? Or is he beyond any sort of applicable morality? I.e.: most'd think that God wouldn't need to apologise for anything? (When I was religious I was quite convinced that 'The Day of Judgement' would involve the settling of accounts on both sides, some people apologising to God, some people exacting reparations from God for knocking their house down etc...the scales of judgement were two directional...)

(Actually, following that though, it was that sort of thinking that kept me floating, religiously, as it'd be quite easy to reject the more clear-cut, black'n'white, "I'm right [and God], you're wrong [and going to hell]")

[munchingfoo]

WHAT THE FUCK?!

[Anon.]

SHUT THE FUCK UP.

Actually after I'd posted my last post on this thread I tried to post a rethink but my internet conked out. What I had meant to post was that sometimes I've done things I didn't want to do because I knew I would have been racked with guilt afterwards if I hadn't done them. Extrapolating this further I could imagine one might choose to die for something rather than live with the guilt of not having died for it. Is that selfishness?

Another thing which quite often comes up in cheesy romances is someone abandoning their own attempts on "the one they love" because they recognise that the adored object would be happier with someone else. Would that be selfishness? Yes, because that person would get more joy from someone else's happiness than they would from their own? Er, but isn't that what unselfishness is?

[Anon.]

Sorry to haul this thread back from the brink of oblivion but I was expecting to be absolutely slapped down by RedCelt/Frank there and nothing happened! Why not? Come on people, I want to be told why I'm wrong - that is the main reason to post on here after all

[Haunted]

I too await my arguments to be brutally slapped down but I think I scared her off (sorry).

[Frank]

Sorry, did I miss anything?

Extrapolating this further I could imagine one might choose to die for something rather than live with the guilt of not having died for it. Is that selfishness?

Well, yes. It's a funny definition of selfishness though. It's not to seperate things into 'selfish' and 'unselfish' like "I have a big bag of sweeties. A- I eat them all myself. B- I eat some and keep some for later. C- I at some point share them with my friends. D- I throw them all away". Of course, you'd need to query how many sweeties everyone else has and whether you deserved them, how you came by the sweeties, if sweeties are good things or bad things in the first/last/middle place etc before really getting a sensible answer.

In those cases, C & D, would strike me as the 'less selfish' ones. But my point basically stems from 'selfish isn't bad'. In view of the primary (i.e. little) school ethics of 'share= good, keep= selfish and bad' then I'd suggest, quite obviously, that the situation isn't that simple. None of the options is necessarily 'bad'.

Still, as per Anon's example of dying because you didn't want the guilt of living, well, I'd highlight the selfishness we (as a loose society) commonly attribute to suicide. It's a 'get out of everything' card. It's quite selfish. Still, I bet some folks would suggest that the unjust (escaping justice's pound of flesh!) suicide of, say, Harold Shipman, would still be half-selfless in that it's also a good thing. Obviously selfish because it got him out of a bad spot (well..., or ought that be: hell...), but it's somewhat selfish (I doubt he did it for noble reasons, but it's possible some sort of atonement along the lines of 'I give you my, you deserve it more than I!' would be the evidently unselfish part.

Now, in a book I'd been reading recently (Bloodlines by Kathy Traviss, a Star Wars novel* and, frankly, generally awful/not-for-me in style) our character elects to do something he deludes himself into thinking is "the epitome of unselfishness"; which is: decide to kill the people you love most in sacrifice in order to get something you deem rationally more important.

Now, it sounds quite ludicrous to me, and if I'd been playing the game of that character's life (which'd surely be more fun than the novel was) I'd have opted for valiantly less ridiculous decisions, but nevermind that. The point is sortof clear. The closest we're going to get, I think, in terms of 'unselfish' is in sacrificing your overt emotional desires (attachment to one thing/person) in favour of something more 'noble' (attachement or value to something/one else). In that regard, a pacifist or conscientious(sp?) objector who joins the army to blindly (if ably) follow orders would be, in a manner, selfless. But then he's still getting some (we can be sure) solace from knowing that it's selfless...

That's sort of my point, still. In Anon's example, we tend to make most of our decisions with self interest (or satisfaction) in mind. We can forgoe our own immediate imperatives in favour of something a bit more abstract (sacrificing our own preferences in favour of someone's whom is much more pleasant to share a bed with than just one's hand, for instance... ), but then that's really a trade. It's still got your self interests at heart...sortof. A trade, even. It's not quite convincing though.

So, focus: Anon's example. Is it selfless? Totally: No. Generally, it's something I'd be content with people idly calling 'selfless', but the pedant in me would still say "It's in their own interests..."

As I've said before: It's a funny way to look at selflessness and really ends up with selfless actions being ones one didn't intend. But then being selfish, in this view, isn't a bad thing. It's a...natural thing, and it's something which can be quite good, wholesome and rewarding.

Certainly from an amateur/pigeon/pseudo-psychological-evolutionary outlook, it makes sense, to a degree. One of the most compellling ways to behave is 'selfish', in an odd general sense, but there's surely an underlying motive for it. There's a compelling argument that we don't need a god, a divinely good force, or even the Force to have the modern morals/ethics/etc we have today. If they came from somewhere, it's a vaguely intriguing idea to assume that the 'good' and 'bad' ideas we have are sortof conditional.



But in a wholesome way. It'd be the case then, I suspect (though presently have done no amount of thinking or researching on the matter in depth), that our 'healthy' ideas of good and bad fall out of the equation at the end of a lot of theorising. If selfishness is just a motivator in seeing what suits oneself, then the idea that there's complex interactions going on (i.e. 'punch this girl and steal her food just in case' or 'be nice to her, perhaps kiss her eventually...maybe more, then take her food and by then she'll be happy with that' style decisions) with which selfishness is just a wee part.

In that regard then, making a decision in general is a bit selfish. I suppose, it's a way of looking at decision making.

This does, however, require more thought.

Another thing which quite often comes up in cheesy romances is someone abandoning their own attempts on "the one they love" because they recognise that the adored object would be happier with someone else. Would that be selfishness? Yes, because that person would get more joy from someone else's happiness than they would from their own? Er, but isn't that what unselfishness is?

Well, yes. But that's the point of the Friends argument. Joey claims that even those commonly heroic, epic and brilliantly unselfish actions aren't exactly giving everything away and keeping nothing for yourself. You're still getting a large degree of mental...calm(?), satisfaction(?) from them.

Still, as mentioned above, I do think it's crucially hanging on the point of what we understand to be an unselfish action. Or, rather, in the Friends case, by noting that, you can weigh up things (so it's more for someone else and only selfish in a small degree). I'm not sure I agree with that, but then I'm not a psychologist, sociologist, neuroscientist or other appropriately versed person.

The trick there, I guess, would be that you'd start having folks talking about second-order selfishness. Being really nice to people only to get what you want..., secretly hating them all the time. But that'd be distinct from selfishness that's purely 'not good for other folks'...

I knew a friend once who was much like that. Seemed to delight in doing genuinely good things, but was (in my view) really just swirling the whole pot around. Some well placed good deeds, some casual words here and there suggesting thoughts, 'accidently' letting slip bits of what someone else said in another conversation, breaking a 'secret promise' because it's 'better for everyone to know', that sort of thing. Invididually often good and noble and 'heroic' deeds, but generally very masterfully...selfish. Orchestrating the whole thing...for their own amusement. It's difficult to explain.

The point, therefore, is that one can be very selfishly motivated (and even overtly selfish in deeds), but still in my view a decent, good and wholesome person, yet also you could be a very (seemingly) unselfish person and be quite destructive and selfish in the sense of that extra 'second-order' I mentioned above.

Essentially, I think Haunted's stance on ignoring the mental/abstract aspects of selfish/good/whatever conundrum is a fine method. But I suspect it's not entirely accurate to be ignoring it. (But then, as also mentioned, I'm no professional mind-studier, the longer term good/bad effects there could be quite intriguing, if they could be studied)


* Incidentally, some Star Wars novels have been particularly endearing. I started reading Zahn's Outbound Flight today and am enjoying it much more. A fine example of good tie-in fiction, whilst Traviss' work was a fine example of....awful. I only got back into the 'game', so to speak' after some chums at home harrassed me into it. Other books I'm reading are [/i]Pride & Prejudice[/i], A Tale of Two Cities and Monkey: Journey to the West, I'm sure I'll get a really good book one day soon...!