YHWH666

Why should someone value their own happiness/pleasure but not others?
I think it is arbitrary and irrational to value one’s own pleasure but not others. If happiness has no objective value how could it derive value from Self, which also has no objective value? Why value self?

Saying A has a certain value because it derives value from B is only logical if B has value. But where does thing B get is value? If there are no objective or intrinsic values then B must derive its value from another source outside it’s self— C. but now C must get its value from D which must get its value from thing E, and E from F, and F from G, and G from H… ad infinitum. Without a breaking point where something actually does have real value nothing can have value, subjective or otherwise.

One is tempted to try to escape this problem by using circular reasoning:

“I value my own happiness because it is mine, it has value to me.” “I value myself because I am myself.”

These are just sly ways of saying “I value myself because I value myself.” Instead of having an infinity of empty value relationships, we have value relationships that loop back around on themselves:

A has value because of B which has value because of C which has value because of A.

Or:

A has value because A has value.

Circular reasoning is any reasoning in which the conclusion of an argument merely restates a premise of the argument, and has the form “C (some statement) because of C.” This is how bad arguments are made. It is rather like trying to lift oneself up by one’s shoelaces. Good arguments support conclusions with independent reasons (evidence) and have the form “C because of E” (where “E“ is some statement other than “C&#8221 .

If we do not allow intrinsic values then why value any thing? How can we say something has value because of something else that also has no value in and of its self? People tend to act in a way that cultivates happiness. It seems to me that in doing so we are acting under the assumption that happiness (or something else related to it) has some kind of independent value. Otherwise how could valuing ANY happiness (including our own) be rationally justified?

Feather

"Value" is arbitrary. That doesn't mean it's irrational.




So I'd say that a given object has value only if it is assigned value, and that this value is arbitrary and may vary from one person to another.

tronvillain

Why value self? The self is simply constructed to value itself. That the self is valuable to itself is a brute fact, not something to be justified:

A is valuable to A because of the nature of A.

This is not accurately labelled "circular reasoning" because the nature of A may then be explained. In the case of humans and "the self", this explanation lies in evolution and related areas of science.

Finally, we do not generally say that something has value because of something else that also has no value in and of itself - we always end explanations of value with reference to who or what those things in the chain are valuable.

MadMordigan

'I value my self' seems as self-evident as 'I think my thoughts'. Its seems an inescapable experience, and one that is therefore self-evident.

galiel

Valuing others has positive social consequences. Valuing only oneself has negative social consequences. Since the purpose of relinquishing some personal freedom to join a society is to enjoy the collective benefits of belonging to a society, being completely selfish is irrational and counterproductive, while being generous and considerate is sensible and constructive.

CuriosityKills

My dictionarty defines the selfas a person as an individual or a person's special nature.

As individuals we each have a physical body with a unique set of characteristics. Our physical nature gives us a feeling of being different and separate from others. It is the body's nature to seek out comfort for itself and avoid discomfort.

Our minds could be considered our special nature. This special nature includes the collective experience of the individual. The collective experiences of the mind create filters through which the mind views its surroundings and relations with others. The mind has a tendency to relate everything back to itself. People only see things in terms of how these things are related to themselves. In the mind's eye the self is the centre of the universe.

I believe that this combination of physical and mental states create a sense of selfishness.

It is not a natural thing to have compassion for persons or beings that have no connection to you. It is more natural to preserve ones self at all costs. Compassion is cultivated. It takes concious effort to relate to other beings in a compassionate manner. To do this a person must make an active effort to become selfless or go beyond one's self.

99Percent

Positive social consequences for yourself obviously. But the ultimate value is the value you place on yourself. In fact it has no relative value, its absolute. But if the reason is to ultimately satisfy yourself then whatever "unselfish" actions you do are then therefore ultimately selfish. There really is nothing irrational and counterproductive to be selfish if you are being conscious and rational about it.

bd-from-kg

YHWH666:

In what sense are you using the term “should”? If you mean it in the moral sense the question answers itself: one shouldn’t. If you mean “How is it in one’s self-interest?” the question (properly posed) is trivial: it’s in my self-interest to pursue my self-interest.

Perhaps so (in fact I believe it is so), but this is hardly self-evident. You need to do more than just assert it as if it were an obvious or accepted fact.

It doesn’t “derive value from self”. It is simply a fact that I desire happiness. This would seem to make it self-evidently rational to pursue it. What it means to say that one values something is that one pursues it. Am I missing something here?

This is meaningless. When I play chess I want to win. In other words, I place a value on winning. Why do I have to think that my winning has some intrinsic value (independent of my wanting to win) in order to try to win?

MadMordigan:

Yes, but it is equally self-evident that most people value others as well as themselves. Some people even value some of their loved ones more than themselves. It is simply not true that people value only themselves and not others. So the first question to consider is whether there is any rational justification for acting selfishly when this goes against one’s natural inclinations. I think that it’s self-evident that there isn’t.

galiel:

So what? Why should I value positive social consequences? If the answer is that this has value to me, we’re back to valuing only myself. If I help keep Uncle Buck alive because I get a large income from him while he’s alive and no inheritance when he dies, I am not thereby “valuing” Uncle Buck; I’m valuing the income I get from his continuing to live.

CuriosityKills:

There must be something wrong (or at least incomplete) with your theory, because not everyone does act selfishly. In fact, hardly anyone acts selfishly all of the time. Lots of people (perhaps most) make significant sacrifices for their children. Some people devote their lives to helping strangers. In any case, there is no rational basis for saying that selfish behavior is “more natural” than unselfish behavior. It may be more common, but that’s another matter. Heterosexuality is more common that homosexuality, but that doesn’t mean that homosexuality is less “natural” than heterosexuality. Both types of behavior are observed in the “lower” animals; are they acting “unnaturally” when they engage in homosexual acts?

And I think that your last statement is flat-out wrong. It is completely natural, and nearly universal, to have compassion for persons or beings that have no connection to you. Not everyone acts on such compassion, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t experience it.

Finally, “natural” is not the same thing as “rational”. A given behavior can be natural but irrational, or rational but unnatural.

99Percent:

Why? If someone chooses to sacrifice his life for the sake of others, it would seem that he has not placed an “ultimate” value on himself. Are you saying that such a person does not value something outside himself more than himself, or that he is being irrational in doing so? If the latter, what is your basis for this claim?

To all:

To put my cards on the table, I think that it is ultimately irrational for a person to pursue his own self-interest (even the most “enlightened” self-interest) to the exclusion of others’. But this is a contingent fact about human beings: it could be otherwise, and perhaps there are intelligent aliens for whom it is false. I’ll try to explain this when I have more time.

[ November 08, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>