Rational agent. Self Interest.

[Solly]

Giving money to a beggar is not a self-interested act

Then why do it?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Park Avenue


Then why do it?

Becuase you don't like seeing people starve and want to help someone. ie, because of altruism.

[Solly]

Becuase you want to help someone

Why do you want to do that?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Park Avenue


Why do you want to do that?

Becuase you don't like seeing people starve

[Solly]

Becuase you don't like seeing people starve

Seeing people starve gives you a kind of negative utility/happiness?

[Imran Siddiqui]

Comes back to your interests again, eh?

[Solly]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Comes back to your interests again, eh?

So it does

I don't see how they are being so numbskulled here..

They've got either accept that

i) Altruism doesn't exist

or ii) Altruism makes the giver feel some satisfaction too (so it is thus in his self-interest)

[Whoha]

Why was the topic changed? why not change it to bovine feces?

[General Ludd]

Originally posted by Park Avenue


Seeing people starve gives you a kind of negative utility/happiness?

I suggest you go back and re-read my post. I already covered your reacion of "because it makes you happy!" to my hypothetical scenario.

They've got either accept that

i) Altruism doesn't exist

or ii) Altruism makes the giver feel some satisfaction too (so it is thus in his self-interest)

What needs to be accepted is that satisification can be derived from doing things not in your self interest.

From my previous post:

But even if you do not want to seperate the action from the resulting happiness, it is still the cause that gives it meaning. Again, if the act is selfess the happiness inherits that selflessness because it is a result of the (selfless) action and is derived for selfless reasons.


Look at it this way, the act of being happy at other people's benefit is altruistic.

[Kidlicious]

Hobbes is the first to use the term self-interest I think. From there it went in two different directions. To Hobbes didn't really consider whether benevolence was self-interest because of warm fuzzy feelings. He just assumed that people didn't get warm fuzzy feeling from giving. This is selfishness.

Hume created the definition of self-interest to include benevolence, stating that warm fuzzy feelings are in our own interest.

Adam Smith (strangely very close to Hume) created a different defintion of self-interest, excluding benevolence from self-interest. Economists took this definition and then started making up all kinds of words that only fit in the context of economics because economists are the only ones who use them that way.

[Solly]

"What needs to be accepted is that satisification can be derived from doing things not in your self interest."

This just doesn't make sense..if you deriving satisfaction from something (eating nice food, giving money to beggars), then those things are in your self-interest.

[Kuciwalker]

He chose the happiness of others over his own ( Imagine what he could do with all that money! ) The fact that he enjoyed it, doesn't mean that he didn't sacrifice his own happiness.

He sacrificed one form of happiness to gain another.

After all, he recieved less happiness than he could've. ( Living la vida loca with a million bucks >> feeling good after giving a way a million bucks )

Maybe to you, but obviously not for him.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Kidicious
It's simply not included. It's not necessary to state the exclusion. It doesn't even make sense to include atruism in with self-interest.

Of course it does. There's no inconsistency in having your own utility function rate itself based at least partly on others' utility functions. In fact, this is what vengeance is, just with someone becoming happy due to another's loss. In fact, this is what utilitarianism is! The total utility is the sum of everyone's happiness!

[Kuciwalker]

Yes, but the "Self Interest" people claim that one wants to maximize one's own utility function. I fully agree that giving away that million dollar, instead on wasting them on boozing etc. is an increase in the overall utility ( Which is a sum of individual utilities), however that is not the maximum increase in his own utility that he could've achieved.

Why not? Why can't I become happy by making other's happy? In fact, I know lots of people who do this - they're called parents. Do you think a parent's' happiness isn't based at least partly on the happiness of his children?

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Azazel
Imran: I never claimed that it didn't make him/her happy. However, I think that on the long run he would've been happier if he had the money.

Ah, so he's just incorrect over whether it would make him happy or not so he's acting in his perceived self-interest, and happens to have faulty perceptions.