File spoon-archives/phillitcrit.archive/phillitcrit_1997/phillitcrit.9711, message 722


Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 11:35:46 -0330 (NST)
From: Walter Okshevsky <wokshevs-AT-morgan.ucs.mun.ca>
Subject: Re: PLC: Arguing for Altruism


Chris --
A very thoughtful and well-written account. Thank you.
Bestest,
W

Walter C. Okshevsky
Memorial University
========================================================================
On Fri, 14 Nov 1997, Chris Jenyns wrote:

> 
> Regretfully, I did not keep one the responses to my query on altruism 
> and so I shall have to paraphrase (apologies to whomever it concerns). 
> The two points made were (and here's the test):
> 
> 1. The relationship between egoism and altruism may be viewed much 
> like one views hot and cold. Accurately speaking, any temperature is 
> a degree of warmth - no matter how cold we feel it to be; but that 
> doesn't undermine the concept of hot and cold. So to with altruism, 
> why else would we have a word for it?
> 
> 2. Egoism and altruism do not necessarily have absolute meanings 
> (something about being value laden?), we use them to describe certain 
> actions as distinct from others (a point made by S.N. also I 
> believe). When we admire someone for being altruistic we do admire 
> them for something, but this couldn't be the case if we thought 
> everything to be purely egoistic.
> 
> While I understand that these are very practical answers, there is 
> something about them that seems to take the fizz out of the whole 
> issue. Essentially it says "okay, so we're ultimately selfish but 
> who cares as long as someone else benefits occasionally" which is 
> fine, I recognise that a very good solution would be to redefine 
> altruism as: feeling good about doing good for someone else.
> 
> In a way, it sounds like an objective account of altruism. That is, 
> an action in which the cost to an individual is physicaly unrepaid. 
> To an observer, so long as you're not a skeptical egoist (but damn 
> it that's the point), this is all that matters. Unfortunately, I take 
> it personally. When someone says "you can't act altruistically" they 
> are making an accusation against the genuine nature of my motives. 
> Subjectively then, to say that I have suffered more than I gained 
> isn't enough. On that point, concerning the relative amounts of cost 
> and gain, surely we run into another problem of defining what is and 
> isn't altruistic. Something is hot or cold depending on how hot or 
> cold you feel and then there's warm, but there's no such word for 
> altruistic-cum-egoistic (nice?). However, if we could firmly 
> establish that altruism was possible we might easily say "that is why 
> I did it, therefore it was altruistic".
> 
> Besides, it doesn't sit well with a few things I'd like to be able 
> to believe. The egoist claim makes a stake on human freedom, 
> admittedly it needn't hinder us much (since the explanation is 
> *supposed* to fit existing behaviour) but as far as my self 
> perception (that's right, my ego) is concerned I don't like it. I like 
> to think that we are as much rationally capable as we are emotionally 
> and if the egoist is right, we are rational in a limited capacity. 
> Not only are our criteria very biased to begin with, but it would 
> seem that certain conclusions are impossible to make. Rationality 
> serves us little if answers reached through it must be scrapped for 
> being incompatible with our own selfishness (there's an argument 
> against rationalising in there somewhere). Perhaps my notion of 
> rationality is muddled but it would be nice to think that (we in a 
> society of judges and politicians) are capable of making a genuinely 
> "right" decision and emotive concerns blur that possibility.
> 
> Egoism also makes the odd suggestion that we should feel good about 
> acting altruistically, or at least expect to feel good. This goes 
> against my intuitions because self sacrifice can be at a high price 
> and even with a view to inevitable failure. I would suggest that it 
> can also be made with no such expectation (which is why I drew on 
> instinctive behaviour). 
> 
> But all this is just talk. What is needed, now filled with a desire 
> to do away with this egoist domination, is just one clear cut 
> example or explanation that allows us to justify a claim to altruism..
> 
> Stirling Newberry:
> 
> > Anything is egotistically justified, even acts which don't
> > seem so, because convincing others that you are not acting out of 
> > self interest is a benefit of itself. Any attempt, therefore, to 
> > convince oneself of altruism is therefore merley self-deception 
> > which you are pursuing because ti makes you feel bad to think of 
> > yourself as egotistical.
> 
> This holds up only while altruism is forced out of the picture. If 
> there was even just one tiny case of genuine altruism then the whole 
> egoistic picture breaks up. This is because egoism holds that 
> altruism is just not possible, if it were, and provably so, then that 
> possiblity would at least make actions questionable. That is, if 
> altruism were possible then any evaluation of an action would be 
> speculation only, for the testimony of the agent is the total 
> evidence open to scrutiny.
> 
> Stirling Newberry:
> 
> > The egoists argument against altruism:
> >
> > 1. All acts are done from self-interest.
> >
> > 2. Acts which are done in self-interest are rewarded.
> > 
> > 3. If an act is done that is perceived to be altruistic then there 
> > is some covert gain which overcomes the perceived loss from the 
> > altruism.
> 
> I would like at this point to attempt a metaphor using sex (there 
> you've been warned). Essentially, this is just a reiteration of my 
> point about the motivation behind a given act. It seems to me that it 
> is quite possible to have sex just for sex's sake (I hope there's no 
> one with a lisp reading this), that is, we do not necessarily have 
> sex for the sake of the inevitable outcome of children. The accident 
> children in this analogy are the emotions, the result leading on from 
> sex which may be in no way anticipated (or even desired). If only 
> there was a condom handy to block egoistic arguments..
> 
> The problem is that this is just a metaphor so arguing on it won't 
> yeild the same success as a tight analogy. I might like to take 
> one possible objection though, the evolutionary claim that we only 
> desire to have sex because we need to propagate our particular gene 
> string. This objection leads me to ask a pertitent question: could we 
> act genuinely altruistically if we had no concept of what altruism 
> is? In terms of the metaphorical example, does someone genuinely 
> desire sex for sex's sake if they are ignorant of the hidden motive 
> that is propagating one's genes?
> 
> Walter Okshevsky:
> >
> > let's stay with the hard case. Would the following example work? Example:    
> > 
> > Mine
> > is already trained on Hitler.  I squeeze the trigger. (No, I didn't
> > forget to load it.) Hitler falls dead to the ground. The next 
> > morning, The Daily Blab reads: "PURE ACT OF ALTRUISM PERFORMED IN 
> > MUNICH." Is the headline false?  
> 
> In thinking about this example and the halfway solution mentioned 
> above (altruism is about feeling good doing good for other people) I 
> realised that there is one more question we need to ask. Why is 
> altruism a good thing? Why, if egoism is all there is, do we not feel 
> good about egoism? Perhaps its a point about social conditioning but 
> I think there's more to it.
> 
> If we choose a value and act on it instinctively regardless of the 
> consequences, it might be said that we have not acted 
> altruistically because we have chosen that value for egoistic 
> reasons. However, to choose that value we must first decide that a 
> given value is "right" must we not? The only other possible 
> alternative is that that value is "right" because it feels good but 
> if this were true then ethics would never have varied from the "do 
> what feels good" line of thought. The fact that someone said "just 
> because it feels good doesn't mean its right" means that somewhere 
> along the way someone decided that "I'm going to do what's right" and 
> hence felt good about it. In other words, deciding to act 
> altruistically is a genuine decision which instills its own criterion 
> for feeling good.
> 
> If I am right then even though we may act altruistically because we 
> feel good, the fact is that it feels good because we decided it 
> should. That makes altruism a little bit more acceptable doesn't it?
> 
> 
> 
> <><>><><><><><><<>><><<>><<><><><><><><>><<>><><<><>><><<><>><<><>><>
> 
>   Chris J.
>   Monash University
>   <cjen2-AT-student.monash.edu.au>
> 
> 
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