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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: jbe who wrote (86530)	8/26/2000 1:40:47 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

You can be poor and have a bad heart and rich and have a good heart. Only a serious student of Russian history would make the tricky distinctions you have made. It has nothing to do with personal wealth. If you feel like putting a dollar in the hand of every beggar you meet that is your business. Just remember all you are teaching the beggar to do is beg for more. Pretty soon he thinks he can make a moral demand on you or the next guy for another dollar. What you have taught your friend is evil and inhumanely selfish. You are denying your friend the only thing that will ultimately empower, dignify and free him from poverty. The path of the professional victim is a thorny one.

To: jbe who wrote (86530)	8/26/2000 2:56:30 PM
From: cosmicforce	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 108807

When I was in college I had this same argument with my Philosophy instructor. He believed in moral absolutes and I didn't. Even altruism could be explained by the internal sense of accomplishment or simply good feeling as a "selfish" act. Heck, if someone didn't get something from an act, I find it illogical why they would do it. Even throwing yourself on a grenade, a "selfless" act, must be driven by an overwhelming urge to do the "right" thing or to do that which would preserve many more. Just knowing how neurotransmitters work in the brain, this is more plausible than people going around randomly acting not in their self interest and being labeled "good" people. The best altruism is that which helps both the giver and the recipient. That is sustainable and stable. Anything else doesn't seem to have the right economic motivational factors to be self-sustaining. Maybe it is just the science guy in me saying this.

To: jbe who wrote (86530)	8/26/2000 6:19:45 PM
From: Rambi	Respond to of 108807

In the 60s, (when I started college as a psych major), there was a lot of interest by psychologists in "pro-social" behavior and this led to questions about altruistic behavior. We commit most of our pro-social acts because we are motivated by self-interest, but sometimes we act altruistically and psychologists did hundreds of studies trying to figure out WHY. Where did altrusim come from? Why does it sometimes override self-interest? I took a graduate course in Piagetian development, most of which I've forgotten, if I ever learned it, but I remember that most of the studies arrived at theories of different stages that progressed from a naive, simplistic realism-- rules, avoidance of punishment-- to a belief and acceptance of universal principles based on fairness and personal conscience SHortened version was- that people first accept basic rules and act out of fear, and expand to a "what'll it get me" approach, then on to group expectations and belonging (which seems to correspond to your definition of morality) to a sense of responsibility and a realization of others' interests, and finally to some acceptance of a universal moral code, a sense of fairness that can see beyond self(like your Ethics?). I'm not sure too many people get all the way to the end. And I suppose sociopaths get stuck in stage one. Anyway- I guess I was thinking that the reason you can't really draw a clean separation between the two (altruistic vs. selfish behavior) is becuase of the evolving and progressing aspect of moral development that makes motivation difficult to analyze. I feel like this should have been handwritten in a bluebook. Funny, it's a whole lot more interesting now than it was then.

To: jbe who wrote (86530)	8/26/2000 8:49:35 PM
From: Neocon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 108807

Well, you have said nothing I particularly disagree with. On the other hand, I had intended that both selfishness and altruism, as general orientations, be understood as deficient. I think that charity is a good thing, and that motivation counts. I do not, though, think that being wholly "other directed", to one's detriment, is good. What I said was that selfishness is bad, and altruism is not much better, because we should have respect for individual dignity, whether our own or others, and balance claims with a certain impartiality, insofar as possible.