I do not believe it is possible because we are often selfless because it gives us reason to respect ourselves and for others to respect us. Hence, there is essentially it is self-benefit motivating the act of being selfless.
That said, I do not consider self-benefit to mean complete selfishness. I consider the line to be drawn when the person is unwilling to yield or even value the benefit of others entirely.
There is no such thing as selfless. The self makes the decision to do an action, therefore the self is doing it out of it's own motivation.
I think there is confusion between selflessness and doing good. In our society, for some reason, it is admirable to be selfless. But why is it good to abandon one's self? Why is that ever good?
If you let go of the self, you can't do ANYTHING, therefore you cannot do any good. Ultimately, when someone does something selfless, it is uncharacteristic.
Selfless = FAKE
Selflessness is fake because if there is no self conducting the action, there is no motivation, no purpose.
Without the self, actions are meaningless.
How do you feel when you do something you don't like? You feel awful because you don't immerse yourself in it, you do not put your heart and soul into it. That is a "selfless" action.
I have to agree almost perfectly with La Papillon on this one, all acts are fundamentally selfish. As such, no act could then be selfless. essentially my point is, if your doing something, then you must have some motivation to do it, meaning that is must therefore be selfish.
There is however a caveat to this, in the form of the idea of "rationality." because we are all individuals we all have our own hierarchy of principles and so we weight factors in a decision differently, and hence two rational, selfish people could come to different conclusions on any subjective decision. This is not to say however that there is never a "right" empirical answer. An oversimplification being that 2+2 will never be equal to 34 no matter the hierarchy of beliefs used in rationalizing a solution.
I do not believe it is possible because we are often selfless because it gives us reason to respect ourselves and for others to respect us. Hence, there is essentially it is self-benefit motivating the act of being selfless.
ReplyDeleteThat said, I do not consider self-benefit to mean complete selfishness. I consider the line to be drawn when the person is unwilling to yield or even value the benefit of others entirely.
There is no such thing as selfless. The self makes the decision to do an action, therefore the self is doing it out of it's own motivation.
ReplyDeleteI think there is confusion between selflessness and doing good. In our society, for some reason, it is admirable to be selfless. But why is it good to abandon one's self? Why is that ever good?
If you let go of the self, you can't do ANYTHING, therefore you cannot do any good. Ultimately, when someone does something selfless, it is uncharacteristic.
Selfless = FAKE
Selflessness is fake because if there is no self conducting the action, there is no motivation, no purpose.
Without the self, actions are meaningless.
How do you feel when you do something you don't like? You feel awful because you don't immerse yourself in it, you do not put your heart and soul into it. That is a "selfless" action.
I took that very literally.
I have to agree almost perfectly with La Papillon on this one, all acts are fundamentally selfish. As such, no act could then be selfless. essentially my point is, if your doing something, then you must have some motivation to do it, meaning that is must therefore be selfish.
ReplyDeleteThere is however a caveat to this, in the form of the idea of "rationality." because we are all individuals we all have our own hierarchy of principles and so we weight factors in a decision differently, and hence two rational, selfish people could come to different conclusions on any subjective decision. This is not to say however that there is never a "right" empirical answer. An oversimplification being that 2+2 will never be equal to 34 no matter the hierarchy of beliefs used in rationalizing a solution.