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I've often thought about the idea that there is really no such thing as true altruisim. Because no matter what, you feel good about doing good. Even if you don't tell anyone about the good thing you did, you still get a good feeling from it, therefore there is some inherent selfishness involved no matter what.
Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People should absolutely being doing good things and get to feel good about it.
When it's trash day on my block (city life) and the collectors leave a trash can in an open parking spot and I move that can to the sidewalk, you're claiming that I'm doing this because it makes me feel good to be helpful to someone I'll never encounter, and that this isn't "true altruism".
So, should we be discussing why we don't do things that make us feel bad? "True altruism" can't exist because we don't go around helping people commit murders or because we're not voting for a politician we dislike? I don't think that's the intent of the word.
I mean, there's 'doing things because they make you "feel good"' and there's altruism. These are not the same nor are they mutually exclusive.
I think perhaps the word you're trying to shoehorn into altruism is heroism - when you do something for the benefit of others knowing it's detrimental to yourself. Or, if you really want to dig into doing things that make you feel bad, I'm not really sure what word that would be. Idiocracy?
Autistic people will often do the right thing simply because they were taught it is what they are supposed to do - with no consideration of how they'll feel about it.
And ADHD people don't get to feel good about anything they do.
Combine the two and you get the ultimate altruists!
(this comment is meant as a joke)
The idea that Woke changed the world to be kinder is ridiculous funny. Most people seem to want immediate self gratification and to make money by posting on social media virtue signalling.
I think we have to go back to real poverty to be altruistic eg. the world wars, 1930s recession. A person with literally nothing will give you half of their life savings, even if that's the change that they have in their pockets, to help you make a phone call.
I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich,
Straight from a can, it tasted so bland,
I asked the lass to pass me a glass,
of Engels' Conditons of the Working Class....
I think that as long as people's individualism does not override the freedoms of others, then the pursuit of self-interest frees the mind to explore all kinds of avenues of spiritual discovery.
That's a big ask though, and most people have different ideas of what is fair when expressing their individuality, so I do think that there needs to be a mediator of sorts to balance the more extreme aspects of our self-interest, and make sure that no one is fully happy but that we're all kinda happy, in order for us all to progress, even if it's at a snail's pace.
I think itβs a bit fatuous to argue that altruism is just self-interest. Sure, people who volunteer or help others in distress usually get some kind of benefit. They feel good about themselves, or they get to live in world that is one trillionth of a percent kinder/happier because of their good deed, etc. But the self-interest argument falls apart when you look at it from a cost/benefit standpoint. Suppose a person spends 2h raising money for the food bank. The hungry people who gets to eat and feed their children benefit the most. The local community benefits a tiny bit, and maybe the volunteer gets a small self-esteem (and other-esteem) boost. On the other hand, if that person were to spend the time earning money for a nice sweater, say, they might get a bigger self esteem boost, a few compliments, and a warm fuzzy garment that lasts for years. The hungry person is still hungry, but remains an abstraction. I would argue that the sweater earner benefitted more than the volunteer. Yet, people still volunteer.
Some people make anonymous donations. Do you really think the self-esteem boost is more valuable than the literal money that person donates?
The argument that the world would be better off if everyone acted in their self interest is ridiculous. That inevitably leads to a might-makes-right system of oppression. The only reason this argument is still being circulated is because shitheads like elon musk, who already has a huge amount of wealth and influence, spam this shit everywhere (on Twitter, Fox News, etc.) to legitimize their undeserved status and evil power.
But the self-interest argument falls apart when you look at it from a cost/benefit standpoint.
I agree, and this is a much better way to define "self interest" too.
If you look at it from the political side that this is the basic idea of liberal democracy.
Everyone votes in their best interest and especially in proportional representation you get some compromise of the interests.
Right now at least in politics people act less in their own interest but more of what they emotionally feel like their interest.
Actually voting itself is against your best interest as the bebefit of your vote is so minuscule that it does not warrant the severe disruption of voting.
No, most people wouldn't recognize their own self-interest if it stopped them on the street. Neither are people all that great at identifying morally correct actions on the fly.
This is why formulating ethics into easy-to-remember precepts is a time-honored tradition. Most people are too lazy or inexperienced to do their own ethics work.
Define self interest.
It is in your best interest to invest heavily in childhood education and recruit young people in to the agricultural sector. That is also in society's best interest. As it happens the only people doing that are those who can see the problem even with short sighted goggles on.
Most people do not look beyond their short sighted goggles. Most of those goggles come with blinders on the sides.
Human civilization as a whole is maintained by people with blinders and goggles on, and we were trucking along just fine, and will continue to do so until we're standing in ruins of our own making.
The contextual and memetic aspect of what constitutes a "person's self interest" far outweights the person's actual decision and the individual actor cannot be removed cleanly from the wider discussion envelopping what this "self-interest" even is.
The "law" and its detterence logic shapes what "self-interest" is. Talkibg heads shape your understanding of reality and anchor what your self-interest is and means.
Nobody has self-interests in a vacuum.
I wonder if the fact that human civilization has lasted and flourished for so long is just a stroke of luck then.....
It has collapsed before. It will collapse again.
Of course, but their self-interest need not be shortsighted and materialistic. A man who willingly walks into certain death to save those he loves/to stand for righteousness is 100% doing it out of selfishness, as it is in our own interests to live with self-respect, self-esteem and few/no regrets.
Our decisions are heavily influenced by emotion. We have the sense of empathy, which is an adaptation that makes communal living work. Empathy motivates us to do things for other people sometimes. You can say, "you do helpful things to satisfy your own emotional needs." But that's pretty much saying, "you do helpful things because you want to." I think self-interest is a big factor in how we act, but I don't think it's the only factor.
Some people completely lack any empathy at all.
So reading the title I came to say yes with a caveat but you included the caveat. The thing is self interest is ultimately about happiness but humans don't always understand what brings it. Drug use is sorta the basest level. Chasing literal physcial sensation of pleasure. Sex addiction would be next which is really just chasing drugs that our body naturally makes. Same with danger addiction and such. Then you get to like food addiction. Next is money addicition which is sorta looking at it as a gateway to everything. Recognizing how important others are on different levels means a lot. Its a bit like the hierarchy of needs. You can maybe get physiological on ones own but after that any increase in actual happiness involves having to improve your environment and society and ultimately the earth. So I guess Im saying yes but people can pervert it for not seeing the forest for the trees.
That's where the term "Enlightened Self Interest" comes from.
Naive short-sighted stupid self interest is destructive - both to the community and even to the self interested individual.
But self-interest doesn't have to go away. We all have wants and needs, and most of our wants and needs are (mostly) harmless.
Instead, self interest can be enlightened - seasoned with understanding of the bigger picture, and with the wisdom of other's experiences.
Agreed!
I might think it is in my self interest to lie, cheat and steal, but if I do that, my community and my reputation are worsened, and I may have a harder time getting a better position in a crappier world.
If instead I think it in my self interest to volunteer at the local food bank, I might see my community and reputation improved, and by demonstrating a commitment to community, perhaps I will get a better job offer.
More basically: civilization has figured out that fair trade benefits both the farmer who needs tools and the blacksmith who needs food. It is in everyones' self-interest to support things like: rule of law, commerce, and education.
Is acting only according to your self-interest a good strategy in life?
Not if you plan on living in a society.
In a sort of way, yes. Everyone makes the decisions they feel a bit better with, even the selfless ones.
The way you describe, I don't think so. Maybe if you include "for a good feeling".
An argument can be made that all actions people take are for their own self-interest. Even things like helping the community is done for reciprocal benefits for yourself plus the general increase in respect.
I believe if the act benefits someone else more than it benefits yourself, then that is what differentiates selfless from selfish.
As with many things, I think the answer is somewhere in the middle.
You have to act in your own self interest at times otherwise no one is going to prioritise your interests. But at the same time you should at times prioritise other peoples interests so that they will do the same in turn, I love the saying, "treat others how you would like to be treated"
That said, if you only ever prioritise others over yourself, at some points this will be a detriment to you.
However, just because you might try and strike the balance of maintaining your own self interest in tandem with those you care about, doesn't mean you'll always strike the right balance or not accidentally prioritise yourself at the detriment of someone else, we are only human after all.
Every single act you do you do because you think it will benefit you in some way. Either that it will directly benefit you, or it will avert suffering, or it will make you feel virtuous, or prevent a sense of guilt.
Most people don't have the brain power to actually know what's in their best interest.
At most, they can handle very simple situations.
To really make choices in own best interest, your have to think long term, at a broad scale. Unfortunately, we can't see with certainty beyond maybe a few steps from our present time and place. So we would also have to think out layers of possibility with each decision.
If you can't do that quickly, you're fucked because you'll always be reacting instead of planning. Since even the smartest people on the planet can still only handle as much planning as a chess game takes, we're all fucked.
And yes, I'm including myself as not having the brain power to properly act in my own best interest long term. Being able to see the problem doesn't mean you're immune to it.
Of course, you are the only protagonist of your movie and you must chase your destiny. You must follow your heart, and you must be honest to yourself, and you must chase with all your might, and if you're lucky, you might find who you really are and what it is to be human, and only then do you find out what everyone else is and what humanity is all about, and only then do you find your purpose in life.
The fact that 70 million Americans voted for a christofascist dictatorship suggests not.
There are no selfless good deeds
Another point is that if all people just act for their own self-interest, they will have a better life themselves, and if everyone does the same, some sort of proper balance will be achieved.
Hmmm, I don't know... I think that kind of "balance" you talk about is obtained rather at that middle point between the individual and the collective interest.
I think we all act to a greater or lesser extent according to our interests, the problem I see is that we have this idea that life is a zero-sum game, where others must fail for one to succeed, that's where the conflict comes from, because not everyone can win, there are more losers than winners. A cure for this mentality, I believe, is precisely to think about the collective interest understanding it as "what benefits my community also benefits me", it is to achieve individual benefit through collective work and cooperation, if everyone wins I also win.
War is the least interesting place to look for heros but it is undeniable there, read stories of medal of honor recipients and tell me they pulled off some insane shit because of "self interest".
No, virtually every gift bestowed upon you by this world is a direct or indirect product of people making the strange choice to act in the interests of the greater good against ridiculous odds when the easier choice was screaming at them to take it. That is how it always begins :)