ishalon

Is there anything wrong with this? The only fault i see is that it can be better achieved by actually meaning what you do. (or telling yourself you do)

Jamie_L

In theory no. In practice, three things:

1) Most of us are programmed from birth to have emotional responses to certain basic "moral" situatiations. So, it can give pleasure to help someone even when it otherwise offers no benefit to you. It can cause guilt, pain, and suffering to be manipulative or otherwise consciously put yourself ahead of those you care about.

2) Human beings are short-sighted. What you THINK may be good for you in the short run, may not be good for you in the long run. Things that support society at large and help other people, may tend to create an environment with less risk and more potential benefits for you. Doing things that seem immediately useful to you but hurtful to others may have unintended consequences that either will cause you harm, or will put you at risk for harm. This is where "morality" can help you even when it contradicts short-term gain. Morality attempts to get you to do things that are better for everyone, helping you over come your short-sighted selfishness.

3) People aren't always as stupid as we seem. Sometimes your not as smart as you think. If you try to intellectually build a support network by manipulating people instead of relying on genuine emotional bonds, empathy, and good-will, you may slip up one day. Then everything falls apart, and you're screwed. If you build actual friendships based on genuine emotion, trust, loyalty, etc., you've got a better chance of those relationships sticking with you and being there when the sh*t hits the fan.

Jamie

ishalon

Yes, but being programmed to get pleasure from something makes doing that thing good.
Thats what makes it harder...
If you're good enough, you'll be able to fix it once it happens
But thats why i said its better to actually mean what you're doing.

Jamie_L

Well, when you boil everything off, all people are generally doing everything they do for themselves. However, when you come out and say this, most people will try to twist it into acting selfish all the time and screwing the rest of the world. My point is that screwing everyone else to get ahead may not really fit the original idea of doing what's best for yourself.

So, in a way, we probably do agree. If you do all that stuff because you mean it, help people, help society, build yourself a nice support network of family and friends, live a reasonably moral life, then you'll basically be doing good for yourself as much as anyone else.

The Other Michael

Does it boil down to enlightened self-interest?

cheers,
Michael

ishalon

yea.... i do agree

Alonzo Fyfe

Actually, this is false.

It is true that people only act to fulfill their own desires. This is because that their desires are encoded into their brain and only their desires are connected to their muscles in the right way. Nobody else's desires can move my arm (short of their grabbing me and forcing the action upon me).

But there is no limit to what a person may desire. Those desires may be self-interest, or they may be other-interested, or even other-thing-interested.

A peson who desires that P, only desires that "P" is true. "P" can be anything.

To illustrate this, ask people what they would do under the following circumstances.

"For some reason, imagine whatever details you will, you have a choice.

Option A, your child (or somebody important to you) can live a healthy and happy life, but you will be made to believe that they are in the hands of a cruel dictator being mercilessly tortured, with no chance that you will ever discover the truth.

Option B, that same person can be tortured mercilessly, and you will be made to believe that they are living a happy and healthy life, with no chance that you will ever discover the truth.

Again, imagine the case however you will so that nothing else of significance hangs on the decision, and that the options are true, accurate, and complete as described.

Which would you do?

Any type of self-interest theory says to select option B. But most people report that they would select option A.

Now, it may be the case that everybody will, in fact, select option B if given this choice under these circumstances. But self-interest theory must still explain why anybody might (falsely) believe that they would select option B.

In this one way, desires are like beliefs.

A person can believe that P, with seemingly no limit on what "P" is.

Similarly, people also seem to have the capacity to desire that P, with no conceivable limit on what "P" is. There is no evidence that "P" is limited to only self-regarding propositions.

Jamie_L

Ahhh, but why does someone select A? To help their child. Why do they choose to help their child? Because helping their child makes them feel good. We get satisfaction out of doing the right thing for our children. Even if, after the decision is made, our immediate feelings will be forever erased, that does not make the current feelings irrelevant to the decision. Quite the opposite, really, it is our feelings at the present that drive our decisions, especially those related to morality, protecting our kids, etc.

Jamie

Alonzo Fyfe

Desires are neither selected nor unselected. They are caused or uncaused.

Most of our basic desires (to eat, to drink, to care for our children) evolved. Those of our ancestors whose genes favored the construction of a brain structure whereby destress to one's children solicited certain behavior later had grandchildren, and great grand children, and eventually us.

Which brings up the second great argument against the self-interest hypothesis: evolution.

The self-interest hypothesis adds an extra step to mental processes that is inefficient. It is easier (and thus more likely) that animal thought process takes the form of:

Fire! Run!

than to use the more complicated chain:

Fire! Bad for me! Run!

In other words, the animal runs from a fire because it is fire, not because the animal somehow realizes that fire is "bad for me."

Evolution does, in fact, tends to favor the acquisition of adverse reactions to things that are 'bad for me' and positive reactions to things that are 'good for me'.

But not always. In fact, evolution does not favor an individual, it favors the gene. (Read Richard Dawkins, THE SELFISH GENE, for a much more detailed account of where this argument is heading.) So, it is unlikely that all desires are self-interested; some desires are 'other-interested' where that 'other' is genetically linked and in a better position to replicate those common genes.

A phenomena recognized in evolutionary biology as 'kin selection'.

Not all desires are genetically hard-wired. We also acquire certain desires by experience -- so as to better suit us to our existing environment. Yet, again, the processes described above are relevant. Evolution is unlikely to favor a method of 'learning' that only allows an individual to 'learn' (or acquire) self-regarding desires -- because self-regarding desires are not always the best desires for genetic survival.

This, then, is the second of two great problems with self-interest theory.

Problem 1: Self-interest theory is inadequate to explain the full range of human behavior. Like Ptolomy's earth-centered view of the solar system, self-interest theorists end up adding epicycles on top of epicycles to get their "me-centered" theory to explain behavior. We can avoid the complexities and contortions of me-centered theory with other-regarding desires.

Problem 2: Self-interested desires are inefficient in an evolutionary sense. It is far more efficient to act and react to external events directly than through a mediator of self-interest, and other-regarding interest is sometimes better at promoting genetic survival.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>

Alonzo Fyfe

Error!

Dead post eliminated.

[ July 15, 2002: Message edited by: Alonzo Fyfe ]</p>