Altriusm, a nice way to express your selfishness?

[DanP]

It can...if you want to be pedantic and completely miss the point... involve a very specific brand of legal 'intent'.
Rape, legally speaking, tends to be defined as sex without consent.
In many jurisdictions, "I didn't know she was underage" is not a valid defense for statutory rape. Legal intent, in this case, doesn't matter. But jumping to legal intent is a complete tangent.

mens rea is a required element in criminal law to prove intent. Intent is a paramount legal concept in every democracy I know of.

Im sorry man, but it doesn't work as you appear to think it does.

 

[noblegas]

We're discussing what altruism is, appeals to authority are therefore not helpful. The definition that involves intent is extremely problematic, and since we can observe altruistic behavior, self sacrificing behavior, throughout nature... where 'intent' by any definition simply doesn't exist, my point is, intent is not necessary for altruism.

We observed the act of self-sacrificing in many animals because the person or animal doing the self-sacrficing values the cause that institigated the self-sacrificing more so than they value their own life. That person doing the self-sacrificing wants to see some sort of legacy being carried on in subsequent generations whether that legacy be in his genes , because of some religion , or a philosophy. Selfishness is apparent in acts of self-sacrifice because obviously the reason for sacrificing themselves is out of selfishness. Bombers and the hijackers of the planes that would crashed into the world trade center were obviously committed their acts because of their ideology and were not considerate of the life of others around them. Intent does not exist? If intent didn't exist , all of the behaviors and acts we carried out in our daily lives would be based on randomness, which is obviously not the case. Intention implies a purpose or goals that you set for yourself or that others set for you. To further illustrate the point why the idea that 'intention is an illusion ' is ludicrous, the events that take place everyday, brushing our teeth, going to work, driving on the right side of the lane, would be based on pure randomness and these events would not exist because , certain actions would not be carried out, such a driving in the right side of the lane to avoid getting a fine from an officer because , like lower forms of animals, we would completely disregard the legal and social consequences for not carrying out such actions, because we would possesses a lower level of consciousness that many animals have inherent that prevents human beings from achieving the level of self awareness that many human beings have now. The same notion applies to altruism concerning if it is based on intention which it obviously is.

 

[DaveC426913]

Selfishness is apparent in acts of self-sacrifice

This is a false definition of selfishness. Simply put: you cannot sacrifice yourself and be selfish at the same time. They are opposites.

The fact that you are motivated to sacrifice yourself for some reason does not mean you are thinking only of yourself (the definition of selfishness) in doing so.



Again, you are using circular logic. You are claiming that no sacrifice can be selfless because, with any example you are presented with, you claim that the sacrifier gets something out of it, therefore that makes it selfish. You are stating a foregone conclusion.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

We're discussing what altruism is, appeals to authority are therefore not helpful. The definition that involves intent is extremely problematic, and since we can observe altruistic behavior, self sacrificing behavior, throughout nature... where 'intent' by any definition simply doesn't exist, my point is, intent is not necessary for altruism.

Appeal to authority? You're joking?
This thread is about the common use definition of "altruism" and the muddiness in its application. You are proposing the use of a specialized definition of "altruism" which you believe relieves us of this muddiness. It is incumbent upon you to demonstrate that this lesser used definition actually operates well in application and resolves these issues. You can not simply insist upon its superiority and discard conflicts which do not sit right with your definition as irrelevant.
You are appealing to the authority of your proposed definition. Or just handwaving.

It can...if you want to be pedantic and completely miss the point... involve a very specific brand of legal 'intent'.
Rape, legally speaking, tends to be defined as sex without consent.
In many jurisdictions, "I didn't know she was underage" is not a valid defense for statutory rape. Legal intent, in this case, doesn't matter. But jumping to legal intent is a complete tangent.

I am not referring to any legal definitions. I am referring to the simple common use definition. That being that one person forces themselves upon another against their will. If you can find me a definition of rape that does not involve the intent of one individual to overwhelm the intent of another then do so.

You are seemingly handwaving again.

And I'm not saying you can't talk about altruism and intent. I'm saying intention is not necessary when talking about altruism.

And I am saying that you have not properly demonstrated the qualification of this definition which you assert. I noted in my previous post that you seem to be mixing "intent" with "rationalization"/ "justification"; you did not respond to this. I also noted the possibility that lack of a perceived "self" is responsible for the apparent selflessness, or altruism, in animals; again you do not respond.

If you have arguments to make then please make them instead of simply dismissing mine.

 

[noblegas]

This is a false definition of selfishness. Simply put: you cannot sacrifice yourself and be selfish at the same time. They are opposites.

Selfishness is simply putting YOUR self-interests above the interests of others. The type of self-interest that I am describing where you sacrifice yourself for a "greater good" such as a soldier dying for a country or a religious fanatic dying for his religion is called an indirect self-interest. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indirect_self-interest ). Self-sacrificing yourself for a cause larger than yourself while sacrificing the lives of other people certainly is not an act of altruism.

 

[DaveC426913]

Selfishness is simply putting YOUR self-interests above the interests of others.

Perfect, thank you. What I've been arguing all along.


And altruism is simply putting OTHERs' interests above your own.

 

[disregardthat]

Selfishness is simply putting YOUR self-interests above the interests of others.

Well, he's been arguing that it is your self-interest to benefit the interests of others in those cases you do. I don't see how your point is valid.

However, I don't agree with him for that matter, that is, I don't agree with his definition of self-interest, because I think his logic is sound from the premises he sets regardless of their absurdity.

 

[noblegas]

Well, he's been arguing that it is your self-interest to benefit the interests of others in those cases you do. I don't see how your point is valid.

Well, what about the case where you are engaging in the act of sacrificing yourself for a cause not necessarily related to the well being of others such as a religious cause. The example being the hijackers on september 11th who sacrificed themselves and sacrificed the lives of other human beings for a religious cause? The act showed elements of selfishness because innocent people died along with the terrorists who committed suicide.

 

[apeiron]

And altruism is simply putting OTHERs' interests above your own.

And "others" would be a group - a larger scale of the system. Of which the self feels a part.

It is fascinating how these kinds of arguments go on forever as there is always truth on both sides of a dichotomy. And yet the desperation to reduce causality to a monadic, non-systems, model means the greater picture is missed.

I would prefer to use the more general terms, competition~co-operation, differentiation~integration, or construction~constraint to capture the local~global dynamic at play here.

If people must use the terms selfish~altruistic, then that makes the threads harder to disentangle.

But anyway, a system is an equilbrium structure that persists because it dissipates its foundational tensions across all scales. By foundational, I mean the contrasting forces of local construction and global constraint. You have two actions, top-down and bottom-up, and if they work together in synergistic fashion, you can have a structure that is always rebuilding itself and so will persist in time.

So the basic moral puzzle is it natural only to be selfish? Are examples of altruism actually disguised self-interest? Or is disinterested action, even self-sacrificing action, also natural, and therefore not in any way surprising?

The arguments are then based on the idea that one or other must be the case. And examples of non-equilibrium situations seem to prove it.

So a suicide bomber might be taken as a case where a person foolishly puts the needs of the group above their own. Or a person who gives freely to charity might be said to be actually selfish because they clearly just want to buy our esteem.

As social creatures, evolved to weigh up very complex competition~co-operation cost~benefit analyses, we are very sensitive to perceived imbalances between the needs of the individual and the needs of the group.

But this comes back to the point that what we seek as natural is a balance of self and group across all scales. Which means our motivations when acting are never purely one or the other - selfish or altruistic. They are a synergistic blend. That is what makes the behaviour of the system as a whole adaptive.

And again, altruistic is just a bad word because it has certain false connotations. It atempts to site the decision in the head of the acting individual rather than make it a systems property. A suicide bomber doesn't just act out of some personal choice. Their thinking has been shaped as a group dynamic. Research has shown how bombers always come from groups who all came from the same village, hung around the same coffee shops, or in some other way were part of a very particular grooming process.

The balancing act between competion and co-operation must find its equilibrium over all scales. So it has to work for the "selfish" individual. And it also has to work for the family, the village, the nation, the world.

Nations act selfishly. They also co-operate. They fight wars and they also give disaster aid. After wars, they try to rebuild trading relations. After giving aid, they expect something in return - goodwill, influence, esteem.

This seems like having mixed motives and reductionists like monadic purity. But systems are the product of opposed causalities that then have synergistic results. That is why the exist at all.

 

[JoeDawg]

mens rea is a required element in criminal law to prove intent. Intent is a paramount legal concept in every democracy I know of.

Im sorry man, but it doesn't work as you appear to think it does.

A quick google search says different, man:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/437789.stm

"The implication of the rule is that anyone who has sex with a girl under 13 is committing what is termed "statutory rape". There is no defence to this charge - even if a boy says the girl was willing or that he thought she was older than she was, it would not matter."

 

[JoeDawg]

We observed the act of self-sacrificing in many animals because the person or animal doing the self-sacrficing values the cause that institigated the self-sacrificing more so than they value their own life.

The act of putting the lives of others first, is altruism.

That person doing the self-sacrificing wants to see some sort of legacy

This is patently false you can observe inter-species acts of altruism even amongst lower forms of life that have no concept of 'legacy'. In fact you can observe acts of altruism directed towards nonliving things. Altruism is an instinct. Its not logical or rational.

You're committed to defending your selfishness at any cost... that's clear. And boring.

 

[JoeDawg]

Appeal to authority?

Yup.

That being that one person forces themselves upon another against their will. If you can find me a definition of rape that does not involve the intent of one individual to overwhelm the intent of another then do so.

Its called statutory rape. I mentioned this already.

And I am saying that you have not properly demonstrated the qualification of this definition which you assert.

And I'm saying that you are evading the whole issue by appealing to definitions which don't address what I have actually said.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Yup.

Its called statutory rape. I mentioned this already.

And I'm saying that you are evading the whole issue by appealing to definitions which don't address what I have actually said.

I suppose I forgot that I had used the qualifier "statutory" in my scenario instead of just plain "rape" and that I must have missed the part of the thread where you demonstrated that your definition resolved these issues of intent which I have been bringing up rather than simply dismissing them.

Good show man.

 

[JoeDawg]

I suppose I forgot that I had used the qualifier "statutory" in my scenario instead of just plain "rape"

The problem with your scenario is that it introduces problems... like legal definitions... which have nothing to do with the question at hand.

and that I must have missed the part of the thread where you demonstrated that your definition resolved these issues of intent

I've never resolved anything about intent. I said intent was not part of a basic understanding of altruism, and therefore it only complicates the issue.

Good show man.

Wish I could say the same, man.

 

[magpies]

Some times the thing that you think is just a complication of the equation is actually a vital part of it. :)

 

[noblegas]

The act of putting the lives of others first, is altruism.

If it is motivated by a self-interest that you value more than your life , that's up for debate . Certainly, you are not always in situations of seemingly acts of altruism when you self-sacrifice yourself while inadvertently or intentionally sacrificing the lives of others around you to carry out your cause. Self-sacrifice is not synonymous with altruism.

This is patently false you can observe inter-species acts of altruism even amongst lower forms of life that have no concept of 'legacy'. In fact you can observe acts of altruism directed towards nonliving things. Altruism is an instinct. Its not logical or rational.

If they absolutely have no concept of 'legacy' you would see mother wolves sacrificing themselves for baby chicks rather than their own pups , and vice versa. If they did not have any concept of legacy, then you would not see only observed this consistent pattern in nature where wolves are sacrificing themselves for their young rather than other non-related animals. The legacy doesn't have to be genetic, for you see soldiers dying for their country's government to see that the country's goals get accomplished ; Otherwise , there would be no reason for them to die if their country did not want them to fight for them.

 

[DanP]

A quick google search says different, man:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/special_report/1999/02/99/e-cyclopedia/437789.stm

"The implication of the rule is that anyone who has sex with a girl under 13 is committing what is termed "statutory rape". There is no defence to this charge - even if a boy says the girl was willing or that he thought she was older than she was, it would not matter."

It doesn't say different. I think you are not understanding what the word "intention" mean. Everything you wrote here in this message has no link whatsoever with the concept of intention. Because you are linking an article which doesn't really discusses this concept, and you pretend it does.

Show me where that article discusses the concept of intention. Please do it.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

The problem with your scenario is that it introduces problems... like legal definitions... which have nothing to do with the question at hand.

I think that it poses problems with your argument and so you wish to dismiss it. Legal definitions need not apply. Rape is not merely an act defined by its legality. Your objection is a strawman.

I've never resolved anything about intent. I said intent was not part of a basic understanding of altruism, and therefore it only complicates the issue.

The "basic understanding of altruism", which you can find in any dictionary, includes intent. Your version of altruism does not. You have yet to demonstrate that your definition eliminates the complications which you so disdain in any other way than by simply defining them out of the equation. Your definition is jargon particular to a field of science dealing with issues at a genomic scale where intent is not considered and you are applying it to a discussion of psychological and sociological issues where intent is a major concern. It is incumbent upon you to illustrate its virtue in resolving the conflicts that are at the root of discussion. Your argument thus far to any attempt at having you oblige us has been on par with placing your hands over your ears and shouting "LALALALA" or rather "ITS IRRELEVANT BECAUSE MY DEFINITION SAYS SO".

Wish I could say the same, man.

Yes, I am becoming a bit embarrassed that I keep responding to posts by someone who seems nothing more than a baiting troll.

 

[DaveC426913]

Yes, I am becoming a bit embarrassed that I keep responding to posts by someone who seems nothing more than a baiting troll.

Don't make that mistake. JoeDawg is a shrewd debater, blunt as he may sometimes be.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

Don't make that mistake. JoeDawg is a shrewd debater, blunt as he may sometimes be.

Then he should be better than strawmen and flat dismissal of complications.

 

[apeiron]

.This is patently false you can observe inter-species acts of altruism even amongst lower forms of life that have no concept of 'legacy'.

What examples did you have in mind here?

 

[ThomasEdison]

I've been reluctant to include a scenario that am reminded of about intent and altruism because it mentioned two different religions so I didn't know if it would be blocked.

My wife used to work with a very strict Pakistani Muslim named M. Khan.
Khan once had this story about begging.

Khan and his coworker were walking to the entrance of a factory located in India. There were two beggars outside. Khan gave money to one beggar but not the other.
Khan's coworker said "Why did you give money to the Hindu but not the Muslim?"
Khan "Because I know these two. If I give money to a beggar then I own them. I would never do that to a fellow Muslim."

Was Khan being altruistic?

 

[kote]

This is an old debate in ethics. Selfishness is known as egoism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethical_egoism). Many people have argued that altruism is an expression of egoism. Over 2300 years ago Plato (Socrates?) addressed this exact issue with Gyges' Ring. Socrates concludes that it is always in one's self-interest to behave justly (altruistically), despite the social consequences.

More recently, Nagel's "The Possibility of Altruism" influentially argues that altruism is egoistic.

Despite thousands of years of explicit academic debate, this one still doesn't have a general solution. Moral theory is tough like that.

 

[ThomasEdison]

I should read Nagel's paper.

Including animals really muddies up the debate for me.

On one hand I will defend earnestly that humans are animals, I never want to be in the camp that says humans are not animals; on the other hand I know there are some huge differences between humans and other animal species.

This murkiness is that I have not been reasonably convinced of how that difference is defined. I could say "humans are different because they know better" but I can't imagine trying to prove that.


So I will admit that mentioning spiders dieing for their babies backs me into a corner and perhaps I should have read closer into the OP about evolutionary altruism.

I hate to single humans out as being unique above other animals; I can't completely accept that they are the same either. I am unresolved so I don't have the strongest perch with which to enter this conversation. I could claim that animal morality derails the thread; but evolutionary altruism is the crux of the argument because it was mentioned in the OP.

I ignored the evolutionary altruism part and dove into this debate for what it appears that Kote said above:the argument that altruism is egoistic. On that debate alone then I take the side that it is egoistic... in people.

Bringing animals into this confuses me.

 

[kote]

One bit of warning about Nagel is that he did change his views since writing that in 1970 .

Including animals definitely stretches the debate to include aspects of free will and psychology. Ethics is tough because of the is-ought problem. No amount of psychology, biology, evolution etc can tell us anything about how we ought to behave. They only describe how we do behave.

I've given up on studying ethics for now because it is so shaky epistemologically. Maybe once I figure out free will I can feel confident getting back into ethics .

 

[apeiron]

Ethics is tough because of the is-ought problem. No amount of psychology, biology, evolution etc can tell us anything about how we ought to behave. They only describe how we do behave.

I would argue that science can tell us what is natural and therefore what a natural ethics would look like.

For example, if you felt that evolution is summed up as survival of the fittest, then that becomes your ground for judging.

And if you felt Darwinian selection is only a small part of the actual story of biology, and that also adaptedness is an equilibrium balance rather than a naked competition, you would come up with a different set of ethical outcomes.

Either way, views on what is natural - taken from science - would seem a proper grounding for ethical thinking. And then you just have to find a broad enough scientific view to be credible.

Perhaps I say this because I do see teleology and purpose in nature - the "ought", as well as the is.

The second law of thermodynamics would seem to be the great ought of nature - the prevailing "purpose".

Interestingly, taking the second law as the ground for ethics leads to a surprising result perhaps. The heat death of the universe seems its natural goal.

Life and mind certainly exist in the first place because they accelerate that death. The order of dissipative structure can arise because overall it produces more entropy or disorder faster than would otherwise happen.

So human wastefulness would be highly ethical - as altruistic as it is egotistical - in this light.

Anyway, so long as you agree that ethics ought to be based on natural systems rather than unnatural, or otherwise arbitrary or localised choices, then science should in principle offer a grounding for ethical philosophy.

 

[kote]

Perhaps I say this because I do see teleology and purpose in nature - the "ought", as well as the is.

...

Anyway, so long as you agree that ethics ought to be based on natural systems rather than unnatural, or otherwise arbitrary or localised choices, then science should in principle offer a grounding for ethical philosophy.

But is this viewpoint a scientific one? What evidence do we have that what nature appears to have as its purpose is what it should have as its purpose? I still see a required, unscientific, "leap of faith" here to bridge the is-ought gap.

As far as I can tell, ethics necessarily depends on a leap of faith. You can't get get from descriptive science to meaning and purpose without unscientific assumptions. I'm perfectly okay making a leap of faith, since it is necessary for our actions to have meaning or purpose. I do think that it makes ethics very difficult though.

I'm not a fan of completely naturalized or descriptive ethics, because without a conception of what should be that is separate from what is, there is no room for purpose, meaning, good or evil, etc. Unless all of my actions are completely meaningless and arbitrary, which may be the case, naturalized ethics doesn't cut it for me.

 

[apeiron]

But is this viewpoint a scientific one? What evidence do we have that what nature appears to have as its purpose is what it should have as its purpose? I still see a required, unscientific, "leap of faith" here to bridge the is-ought gap.

Fair point. But doesn't that become like cartesean doubt. Whatever scientific model seemed sufficiently final could still in principle be doubted as "not the whole story".

I think in practice it would be enough to show that it makes sense to speak about nature as having an "ought". The fact that it might concievably have other oughts could be a debate that followed.

The idea that nature even has an ought, rather than merely just is, would be contentious enough of course. But I think that argument can be made from a self-organising systems perspective where from many initial conditions, the same self-organised outcome is inevitable (the argument based on attractors and chaos theory).

I'm not a fan of completely naturalized or descriptive ethics, because without a conception of what should be that is separate from what is, there is no room for purpose, meaning, good or evil, etc.

Again, it is true that meaning has been removed from scientific descriptions by reductionist modelling approaches. Which is why I like Peircean-base semiotics approaches that are all about modelling the meaning within systems.

Yes, it could be said the modelling is still rudimentary. But if nothing else, considering the ethics of self-organised systems, or autopoietic systems, would give that branch of philosophy something new to talk about after all these years?

Actually, thinking about it, almost every systems scientist has tried to draw some kind of moral conclusion from their systems approach. Mostly of the save the planet, anti-technology, variety.

Check Erich Jantsch, Conrad Waddington, Gregory Bateson, Fritjof Capra...

Koestler too. And spiral dynamics, a trademarked approach to ethics!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiral_dynamics

It is interesting that the dichotomy here is in the form of is~ought. Substance and form - the materials and the organisation - as usual. Or information (the local constructive stuff) vs meaning (the globally constraining context).

Information just is and meanings is about ought. The systems view is about how the materials and the organisations are actually not separated. Even if they are distinct as levels in the hierarchy, the system arises via their interaction.

Unless all of my actions are completely meaningless and arbitrary, which may be the case, naturalized ethics doesn't cut it for me.

I would argue that the problem lies with reductionist science which is based on excluding meaning from its discourse, leaving just the information. This was a powerful simplification tactic but left the job of modelling reality half complete.

 

[TheStatutoryApe]

I should read Nagel's paper.

Including animals really muddies up the debate for me.

On one hand I will defend earnestly that humans are animals, I never want to be in the camp that says humans are not animals; on the other hand I know there are some huge differences between humans and other animal species.

This murkiness is that I have not been reasonably convinced of how that difference is defined. I could say "humans are different because they know better" but I can't imagine trying to prove that.


So I will admit that mentioning spiders dieing for their babies backs me into a corner and perhaps I should have read closer into the OP about evolutionary altruism.

I hate to single humans out as being unique above other animals; I can't completely accept that they are the same either. I am unresolved so I don't have the strongest perch with which to enter this conversation. I could claim that animal morality derails the thread; but evolutionary altruism is the crux of the argument because it was mentioned in the OP.

I ignored the evolutionary altruism part and dove into this debate for what it appears that Kote said above:the argument that altruism is egoistic. On that debate alone then I take the side that it is egoistic... in people.

Bringing animals into this confuses me.

I think that the issues come in when we are muddying the waters with other than the standard definitions to which we are accustomed without any qualification of their aptness for the discussion and making assumptions about the capacities of animals.

It has been asserted that animals do not possesses the capacity for intent, that we can see altruism in animals and so intent is irrelevant to the issue of altruism.

At its base intentionality seems to be purposeful action. I believe that we can observe purposeful action among animals. The issue with intent among animals seems to arrive due to the human habit of rationalizing and justifying actions. We seem to connect intent with rationalization when we do not necessarily have any reason to. Without an observed capacity among most animals for rational contextualizing of its actions we rob it of simple intent. This does not seem to me a justifiable conclusion.

We can perhaps consider the existence of a simple intent among animals (and even among humans at times) devoid of rational contextualization. An intent without appeal to rationalization, justification, or contextualization that is simply action with purpose. This is only problematic if we believe that purpose is an illusion or product of rationalization, again something I think is not necessarily a justifiable conclusion.

Aside from intent the other issue I see is the perceived self. Most animals do not appear to be possessed of a perceived self and seeing as how we are discussing selfishness vs selflessness it would seem to be a primary issue of concern for the discussion of altruism perceived in animals. Without a perceived self the actions of animals would appear to be selfless by definition.

As Joedawg points out the issue of intent complicates things. Tying in rationalized context complicates things even further for rationalization influences intent and the whole issue snowballs. To me the notion of self appears to be the lynch pin in the tangled mess.

These are my opinions. I do not believe they are necessarily, or even likely, correct. And I am willing to discuss any reasonably argued complications or dissent regarding them.

 

[DanP]

Use the definitions I provided in a post above for the two kinds of evolutionary altruism, and you are out of trouble. Those are used in mainstream evolutionary psychology.