LordSnooty

I can see where you're coming from, but I don't entirely agree with you. I really didn't feel any sense of satisfaction. The suggestion that altruistic acts MUST be due to internal self-serving motivation doesn't ring true to me. It might be true a lot of the time, but not all of the time and not in this instance.

Why is self sacrifice logical if all acts are essentially self serving?

Paul

Jamie_L

I sort of understand what James Pryor is getting at in the quote, but the two sphinx/sphere examples seem muddy to me.

Example B specifically: Pryor argues you feel good after moving the sphere because you wanted to move the sphere. But he says himself that the reason you want to move the sphere is you don't like it where it is. That is, you aren't happy with it's current location, so you move it. You choose to move the sphere because you think moving the sphere will make you feel better.

Some of his other points make some sense though. In some ways arguing that giving to charity is done to make yourself feel better is a bit like arguing that you shouldn't murder because it makes society more stable, which will benefit you in the long run. Both seem a bit weak.

This discussion has made me think about this scenario: Giving your life to save someone or futher a cause. Here, it seems that there really isn't a pay-off for you (unless your a religious fanatic who is expecting a paradise reward for your actions in the afterlife). Any arguement like "it makes you feel better" is weak - i.e. you might feel better for a fraction of a second before you croak. Yet there are clearly many people willing to die - not just for their offspring (which could have a "payoff" in an evolutionary sense - furthering your genes), but also dying for friends, causes, principles.

Are such cases of people giving their lives really motivated by self-interest?

Jamie

ManM

Jamie_L,
Some would argue that even self-sacrifice is motivated by self-interest. The claim is that death is better than a life without having made the sacrifice. For example, Bob's life would suck if his friend Jim died, so he would risk his life for Jim. I personally do not agree with that view of things, but it is the standard response to your question.

The AntiChris

LordSnooty

You appear to be arguing that it's possible to act completely without motive. You said:

If you are motivated to act, it must be because you wish to bring about a set of circumstances that you, personally, prefer - the payoff. This payoff may range from immediate pleasure through to choosing the least of all evils. Whatever the motive, you will have a perception that the payoff will have a net positive effect. The actual effect of action may, superficially, appear only to benefit someone else or even harm you, but, ultimately, it must bring about a set of circumstances that you, personally, prefer.

Because it brings about a set of circumstances that the person who acts prefers.

To do anything other than act in a way that brings about a set of circumstances you prefer would be irrational.

Chris

LordSnooty

I would agree with that. All I was arguing was that the 'circumstances you prefer' need not be in any way self serving.

Of course, everyone has a motive - but that motive can be totally selfless.

Paul

The AntiChris

Like many of the disagreements here, it really just boils down to differences in definition and interpretation.

Chris

tronvillain

So it would seem. Not much point arguing about it then I suppose.

MadMordigan

This discussion has made me think about this scenario: Giving your life to save someone or futher a cause. Here, it seems that there really isn't a pay-off for you (unless your a religious fanatic who is expecting a paradise reward for your actions in the afterlife). Any arguement like "it makes you feel better" is weak - i.e. you might feel better for a fraction of a second before you croak. Yet there are clearly many people willing to die - not just for their offspring (which could have a "payoff" in an evolutionary sense - furthering your genes), but also dying for friends, causes, principles.

Are such cases of people giving their lives really motivated by self-interest?

I'd say many of these cases, where not caused by independant suicidal tendancies, ARE in fact motivated by self-interest.

Firstly, we should acknowledge that at least some of the people who 'die for a cause' do so in order to co-opt the cause as a socially aceptable form of suicide. Blowing one's self up inorder to further the cause of democracy or to protest a political issue is more socially justifiable than blowing one's self up as a reaction to existential angst. Ironically, many suicides do in fact care how they are seem post-humously, and so will mask what would otherwise be a private, individual action with a public statement. This is one of the reasons that 'suicide by cop' is an uncommon, but very serious issue.

Secondly, when people say they are willing to die for a cause, they usually do not intend to die. Whey they often mean is that they are prepared to risk dying in the furtherance of a cause.

There are many people who feel so strongly about an issue that they would rather be dead than live in a word where that issue was not resolved in their favour. For example, a revolutionary fighting for his freedom, or a man trying to save his son from death, may be motivated by the negative consequences of inaction. They man actually lothe the idea of living under totalitarianism , or with the grief of their sons's death so much that they would prefer to be dead that to allow those potentialities to actualize. Their intent is to live, but they recognize that they may die in the attempt to enact change, and admit they would rather die than not succeed.

Thirdly, many professions carry a risk of death as an occupational hazard. For policemen, loggers, firemen, miners, pilots and others, statements that they are prepared to give their life on the job are often expressions of shared courage in the face of mortal risk. Very few rescue divers or race car drivers intend to die when they go to work, but most of them like their job too much to give it up to avoid the inherant risks.

'Dying for a cause' is not neccessarily an altruistic act. It can be the result of actual insanity, an attempt to avoid the negative consequences of living, or the random and unintentional consequence of pursuing a dangerous career.

bd-from-kg

Jamie_L :

That’s exactly backwards. In example A you choose to move the sphere because you think moving it will make you feel better. In Example B you move the sphere because you want it to be in a different place; accomplishing this purpose does make you feel better, but that wasn’t your motive or reason for moving it.

But this example is perhaps not as clear as it might be, because there is no intelligible reason why you might want to move the sphere in the first place. So let me try a different example (one that I am quite familiar with).

You have a computer program that (usually) performs a function that you value highly. (For example, perhaps it predicts with remarkable accuracy what a specific stock’s price will be 24 hours from now.) Unfortunately, every once in a while a glitch occurs that not only causes the program itself to bomb, but causes the computer it’s running on to crash. Disaster time! So naturally you start looking hard for the error in the program that’s causing this behavior. After a coupe of weeks you finally find it, and the program runs perfectly after you fix it. Obviously you’ll derive a personal sense of satisfaction from finding and fixing the glitch. But the motive or reason for doing it was not to obtain this sense of satisfaction; it was to make money. The sense of satisfaction you got from fixing the problem was a result of accomplishing your purpose, but it was not itself the purpose or motive.

Now in this case the actual motive was self-interested. But the crucial question here is not whether the motive was self-interested, but whether the motive was the sense of satisfaction that you derived from accomplishing your goal. And the answer is obviously that it was not. Once you understand this, it should be obvious that the same distinction is valid in cases where the goal is an altruistic one. For example, suppose that you work for years to help find a cure for AIDS. If you succeed, you will no doubt derive some personal satisfaction from accomplishing this goal. But that doesn’t mean that the motive was to obtain this sense of satisfaction; your motive was to cure AIDS. The sense of satisfaction is a result of accomplishing your purpose, but it was not itself the purpose or motive.

[ November 26, 2002: Message edited by: bd-from-kg ]</p>

bd-from-kg

The AntiChris, LordSnooty, et al:

There seems to be a lot of confusion here caused by loose definitions. Let’s try to clarify things a bit.

(1) All intentional acts by definition have a purpose, which is to say that the agent expects the consequences to be preferable to him to what would have happened if he had acted otherwise. This logically implies that the agent has an interest in the outcome. In this sense, of course, all actions are self-interested by definition.

(2) But this isn’t what’s ordinarily meant by a self-interested action. What’s ordinarily meant is an act where the agent considered only what would benefit him, disregarding its effects on others. (Sometimes the meaning is broadened to allow consideration of the effect on those “near and dear” to the agent.) If such an act has a serious negative impact on others, it is commonly said to be not only self-interested but selfish.

(3) There is a widespread notion that all acts are self-interested not only in the first sense (which is true by definition) but also in the second, “ordinary-language” sense. This is the notion that Pryor refutes (rather conclusively in my opinion).

What Paul (LordSnooty) has been saying (as I interpret him) is that he contributed money to charity with no expectation of any “payoff” to himself, even the minor payoff of feeling satisfaction at having (presumably) accomplished his purpose of helping some people in need – and that in fact there was no such “payoff”. Like many others here, I find this implausible, but not impossible. And it’s not at all impossible, or even implausible, that his motives were entirely altruistic. As Pryor points out, and as the example in my reply to Jamie_L illustrates, the fact that one expects an act to have a certain desirable effect doesn’t mean that this is the motive for doing it. In fact, this particular desirable effect is an almost automatic consequence of accomplishing any purpose; most of the time it is not even part of the motive for doing something; and it can never, by its very nature, be the entire motive for doing anything.

Thus although it’s impossible, as Chris (The AntiChris) points out, that Paul acted with no motive whatever, it’s not at all impossible that he acted, as he claims, from purely altruistic motives, even if he experienced a “personal payoff”. Chris seems to dispute this in the following passage:

Here Chris seems to be saying that the fact that Paul would be bound to take some satisfaction from the fact that some people would benefit from his act implies that the prospect of getting this satisfaction must have been a reason (perhaps he’s even saying it must be the only reason) for his doing it. This is precisely the fallacy discussed by Pryor.

Thus, this does not seem to me to be merely a verbal dispute – a matter of defining terms differently. It appears to me that Chris (and some others here) really believe that no one ever acts from any motives but self-interested ones in the second sense. This is the only way to make sense out of their insistence that Paul (or by implication anyone else) could not have acted from truly altruistic motives; his “real” reasons must have involved some expected benefit to himself. And this is simply false: people do occasionally act from purely altruistic motives.