Orthodox answers

[Elok]

You are missing the point. I'm not making a moral argument here, but a psychological one; in practice (and as a general rule), our conduct is not governed by what we say we value, but what we perceive as furthering our own interests, with the decision-making occurring on a largely sub- or unconscious level. This is true regardless of what principles we profess, and tends not to be noticed because, in today's society, most grossly immoral behavior runs strongly against our interests anyway.

[giblets]

I've never really thought about whether I could get away with mugging someone

[Elok]

IE, you've never needed cash (and lacked better options) badly enough for that thought to enter your conscious calculations. That's the point. You don't refrain from mugging because your mother taught you right, you refrain from mugging because WhyTF would you mug someone anyhow? Most genuinely immoral behavior is not all that profitable under most circumstances.

[Berzerker]

You are missing the point. I'm not making a moral argument here, but a psychological one; in practice (and as a general rule), our conduct is not governed by what we say we value, but what we perceive as furthering our own interests, with the decision-making occurring on a largely sub- or unconscious level. This is true regardless of what principles we profess, and tends not to be noticed because, in today's society, most grossly immoral behavior runs strongly against our interests anyway.

avoiding the regret I'd have if I mugged someone furthers my interest

[Elok]

By the time you got desperate enough to do it, you'd have reoriented your values to find it much more acceptable. Which isn't to say you wouldn't regret it at all--I'm sure many do--but our values tend to follow our actions much more than vice versa.

[Berzerker]

I've been desperate for money, you dont know the half of it

mugging people never crossed my mind

[Aeson]

I think ego/guilt and personal philosophy/morality play a large role. Not that people ignore self interest because of them, but because they can very heavily affect perceived self interest.

[Elok]

You mean in the sense of convincing oneself that events will work out otherwise if you do X, or believing in heaven/karma, or something else entirely? I admit that it is a two-way street; I just think most of the traffic is in one direction, for essentially Darwinian reasons.

[The Mad Monk]

The Stoics argued that everyone strives for the good, but not everyone understands what the good actually is.

[Aeson]

Well, for example ... my parents taught me to be generous, that it's more important what you do with what you have than what you have. They would take us out to do things like anonymously drop off Christmas presents to families which were struggling financially. So for me there's an actual physical joy (various hormones/chemical reactions) that comes from helping people, from seeing your loved ones proud of you, living up to the example set by a role model, etc. This is ingrained in my psyche, and even if intellectually I can understand that it's just some hormones triggered by relating to memories ... it still affects my decision making process.

My ideology is heavily influenced by that, as is my perceived self-interest. But it was the ideology and morality of my parents being instilled into us as children, not just some base survival instinct. I could have essentially retired by now. Instead we lose about $1000/mo on businesses here that take up a lot of physical discomfort, time, and effort to run, but it's much more rewarding than having more and/or nicer "stuff". Most of my 20's I had little to no money. The first few years here I was living on $400/mo income, much of that going to help out with the farm and Net's family. There never was any temptation to do something bad for money, even at times when I was facing losing even that $400/mo and medical expenses were piling up. Due to how I was raised.

Maybe there is a level of depravity where my own morals/ideology would be thrown out the window by base instinct. You never know until you're in that situation. (Starving on a mountain after a plane crash ... imprisoned and tortured ... that sort of thing.) Some people in those situations maintain their humanity even when it clearly (to them) will lead to their own death. So at least for some of us ideology and morality is an even stronger influence on perceived self-interest than survival instincts or physical self-interest.

[Sir Og]

It's probably genetic. Maybe you were not "taught" by your parents to be generous and feel good when you are but rather they gave you the same generous genes (that they have too) which make you feel good when generous and make it possible for you to be taught to be generous. It is a lot easier to teach someone to do something which triggers the feelgood chemicals in his/her brain.

I think it is not possible to be unselfish. It is not possible to do things that your brain doesn't like. At the end of the day your brain always chooses selfishly what to do. There are people out there however who feel good when they help others and we call them selfless, generous etc.

[Aeson]

I'm not saying it's not selfish. I'm quite clearly defining the perceived reward system (eg. showing how the act is self-ful).

It's EXTREMELY OBVIOUS that environmental factors affect decision making processes. There are genetic factors as well, but claims it's all genetics are easily disproved. Drugs (or other chemical exposure) disproves it. Twins studies disproves it. Child abuse (and the effects on the child) disproves it.

[Aeson]

The role model aspect is very important. There's a reason why kids in China grow up speaking Chinese, kids in England grow up speaking English, etc. It's not genetic. It's because the human mind is designed to learn from and often mimic what it observes. My parents acted a certain way, and of course I would be influenced by that. My dad being my primary role model given the social structure I was born in had the greatest influence on me. (In other (sub)cultures the social structure can be very different, thus culture influencing who your role models are, and thus what you are taught to be.) If he had been absent or a criminal, I probably would have turned out very, very different. This would hold true whether he was my biological father or not.

[Elok]

I don't think of it as genetic so much as a rational reaction to circumstances, subtly instilled in us over a lifetime of choices. To some extent, values can be inculcated, but we have developed, in many cases, elaborate ways of appeasing those values without doing anything meaningful to obey them. Witness the farce we've made of charity, for example: there are any number of organizations which exist to sell people little branded tchotchkes (e.g. bracelets) and have some sad little pittance of wealth flow to a good cause. The real point being to ostentatiously advertise your benevolence with said gewgaw, or to latch onto a trend for doing so. In the same vein are all the inspirational books and magazines about "real people doing real good," which AFAICT exist primarily to allow readers to vicariously experience the little glow of satisfaction without the effort and sacrifice of doing good themselves.

Likewise moral cowardice in the face of evil can be dressed up as respecting others' autonomy (predatory lenders, lotteries, homeopathy and other frauds, tobacco, ludicrously lenient gun laws), while conversely attacking a hated tribal enemy can be made into a noble exercise in protection of vulnerable third parties ("If I allow this baker to refuse to bake a HOORAY FOR GAYNESS cake, it will inevitably lead to lynchings in the streets!"). Possibly these are all actions specific to our own decadent culture, but I think of them as our own version of medieval nobles burning a village and then going to mass. We don't do much of that anymore, because times are much more settled. When Cortez invaded Mexico, he enslaved the populace; that kind of large-scale chattel slavery is no longer profitable, so when we invade a country the reward mostly comes from war profiteering (which is much more profitable than it used to be).

As for the heroes from the end of post 55, it should always be noted that such people were/are the exception, not the norm. For every one person hiding Jews from the Nazis, there were twenty who shrugged and went along with it; for every one who retained his humanity in the camps, there were twenty more who broke.

[BeBMan]

I think it is not possible to be unselfish. It is not possible to do things that your brain doesn't like. At the end of the day your brain always chooses selfishly what to do.

I'd say it depends how you define stuff. You might always say action X perceived as selfless still gives a *certain benefit of some sort, so is selfish in the end. However, when the cost of doing X is far greater than the benefit I'd say it's justified to label it as selfless act.


Example: during the sinking of HMS Hood 1941 there were only a few survivors. One told in an interview he only made it out alive because another guy stood back allowing him to get out of the ship - this one died.

There might be some psychologic interpretation saying "the guy who stood back acted acc. to his own belief of what *should be done", which could be warped into "it was selfish", but he's paying a heavy price and does not get any reward/benefit for himself when he dies, so I'd rather say he acted not selfish in this moment.