Everybody is selfish?

Don't you think everybody is selfish? In every way? Literally in every way. Whatever you do (as long as you have free will), you do it for yourself. Even if you think it is for somebody else only. Even if you killed yourself to save somebody, it still would be selfish.

Let me explain.

We are born like this and stay this way. Toddler / small kid won't 'give' you anything. It will just eat, you will have to defend it from the world and you won't receive anything back for that. ( other than 'love', or more like parental instinct, which are only things that keep you from abandoning your child )

If you help somebody selflessly, everyone would agree that you are not selfish. But you are. You have this reward system in brain, and when you do something good, you feel good. So you lie to yourself that you did it because you wanted to help. You actually wanted to feel this. Or you knew subconsiously that you will feel good when you do it.

If you had no feelings, no emotions, ( no reward system ) you probably would be completly selfish because you wouldn't receive single thing for what you do.

Someone is helping animals. Why? Because he feels good when he does it. If he wouldn't, he just wouldn't give shit about them.

Maybe thats why some religions are focused on helping unconditionally.
Why do you have a religion? You need to have some rules, you need to have some way of living. So these people go through their lives, self-awarding by helping everyone. Everyone appreciates that. And they feel great. And they feel in a way that possibly everyone would want to feel. They feel fullfilled.

Last example: You kill yourself to save someone. Extreme example of unconditional dedication. Or is it? What could person like this think?
"I'm the only one who can help", "I like him alot so I'll do it" (or subconsiously "I like him a lot and I know that he will appriciate what I did")

 

To take full advantage of the fact that there is not one thing that we do not do
for our own good, our model of good must be that our needs are the same. In doing what is good for others then, we do what is good for ourselves. In this way the self serving are an advantage to all.

From the wall of a cell to the sense of gratitude, we are devoted to our own good.

 

well its a complete myth that there is anything natural about it.

there is a culture though, that is promoted by a mechanism humans have created, which benefits no one.

 

Self Interest. Every action done by an individual is with their own self interest in mind.
I believe this is true for all examples.

 

I must say Laurences point of view is really interesting and accually accurate in most cases, however me and my friend couldn't notice stage 5 at all in our past and stage 4 was more likely similar to 1, we've been obeying laws not because we though that they are good and thats the way we should live, but because we didn't wanted to go to jail / have serious consequences.

As for the description for stage 6, or 6+, I think Nietzches perception of super human would be more accurate.
-> Rules are for people which can't think by themselves
-> Rules can never be completly right and accurate
-> Therefore, a super human doesn't need a set of rules to lead his life, because he can easily determine by himself what and when is good.


But, on side of all of that, on whenever stage you are and whatever you do, you still do it because you think it is ok and it 'pleases your morals', therefore you are selfish.


About the DNA, according to that, how would you call a person, which doesn't divide people by their race and can defend both black/yellow/white/any people basing on what they are / what they do, not on their differences? Genetically-challenged?


If we assume, that being selfish (helping because you feel good when youhelp) while helping others is ok, can we say that people which don't do this are bad?
Aren't we discrimining them? It isn't like they choosen to be this way, nor that they could change it any time they wanted. Their brain just doesn't reward them when they help, so they don't.

On a side of all of that: some might be rewarded for being brutal or aggresive, so they shouldn't be perceived as bastards, but sick people, which can be chemically fixed.

Going futher, should everyone who differs be chemically fixed to behave like 'normal' person? Where 'normal' means same as majority.

If everyone likes apples and somebody doesn't, should he be 'normalised'?

 

Well, if everyone is selfish, doesn't that mean that no one is selfish? It all depends on how you define selfishness.

I don't really buy into the whole DNA stuff, since all human beings share the same basic DNA (i.e. we're all human, it's not like comparing human DNA to a chimp's)

And no, I don't think that people doing good because it also pleases them makes them selfish--it makes them empathetic. No one can be completely neutral all the time, so many times you're going to act because it feels good (feels like the right thing to do), how does this make you selfish?

Selfishness to me is when you do what feels good even if it hurts other people, and when you think ONLY about your needs, not that you think about your needs at all. There are starving people in the world, but I still feed myself, does that make me selfish? Am I supposed to slowly kill myself until the world is 100% just and right? Is the situation made worse when I steal food from someone who's starving, in order to feed myself? Where does your definition of selfishness end?

There are people who are unable to feel any empathy at all (sociopaths), THOSE are the motherfuckers you need to worry about, not somebody who's nice but may also happen to get something out of it. They're not "sick" in the sense that they have some disease and should be pitied. And they're not fixable, at least not with today's medicine. This has nothing to do with "normalcy," it has to do with empathy. Liking apples and being empathetic can't really be compared, imo...

 

That's equivalent to saying there are degrees of selfishness. But with the sociopath, isn't it his/her inability to feel empathy which makes him selfish, like the animal? Empathy raises our estimation in the opinion of others, so we judge it beneficial. The sociopath, unlike the rest of us, in his poor judgment simply lacks the ability to take full advantage of his selfishness.

 

Even the sociopath conforms to his own model of good. We are hard wired to find our good.

For a social animal, cooperation would be an advantageous evolutionary adaptation, i.e., genetic disposition.

Having made these observations it still may be said that innovation/adaptability is a contributor to the evolutionary process of growing from simple to more complex, so the habits of the individual contribute to diverse emergence of species.

Selfish in any guise then, can be beneficial to the species and is not necessarily in conflict with altruism, etc..

 

I watched something a week ago that posed a similar question. It was more about if altruism exists or is it all just selfishness.

I believe their conclusion was, based off fMRI studies, that altruism can be genuine because it apparently lights up different parts of the brain than general selfishness does.

I'll see if I can find it. I'm not all that great at memory and articulation.

 

I find it hard to believe there is a specific part of the brain for all forms of selfishness - donating to the homeless is a different form of pleasure than stealing a car, which is again different to the pleasure gained from praying for salvation.

 

we do things for other people

things that don't make us feel good

on a daily basis.

i know you will suggest that

"but regardless of the act itself - the very fact you helped someone
and had some amount of pleasure from doing so
underlays it"

but if this is true

this would suggest it overrides the degree of unpleasantness the act may account for.

in my opinion - this cannot always be true.

 

Yes, we are predominantly selfish. The difference is the wide variations of outcomes. Our own drive to "help" the homeless might be for selfish reasons such as to feel nice, be better than others, show off, get attention, be admired, alleviate guilt, find tax shelters etc, but ultimately the homeless are assisted. Very rarely do we do ANYTHING for a single reason. And amongst those reasons are at least one that is self-serving.

 

Think this was some of it: http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2007/06/14-01.html

 

Perhaps there are things about the research that the article doesn't cover but since we cannot account for the degree that nurture is involved in the development of brain patterns of association, I think their conclusions or line of reasoning is flawed.

 

You mean like work?

Simply as a matter of opinion or is said opinion informed in some way?

 

I just hope they won't donate all my money to make me feel good...

If no one is selfish, then selfishness doesn't exist.

We share small part of it. Other are just variables that plausibly are changeable. Like already you can choose color of your kids eyes before it is born. Soon it might be possibile to even choose his character.

What if both of you are starving, but suddenly he gets food from somewhere. Do you take his food and let him die, or you don't and die by yourself?

I'm not trying to change anybody. That's nearly impossible I'm trying to understand them. As long as I would also want to do bad things to such person, I put my personal feelings away and try to be reasonable.

I believe human is a bag of chemicals and it can be changed this or the other way. Maybe not today, but thats how it works.
It might be not the nicest scenario, but the most plausible one.

I think, empathy and selfishness aren't so close to eachother. You might know that person is not ok with something, but still don't give shit about it.

Pleasure is pleasure. But thing that triggers it may be different. So I guess they are wrong on this one, as there is no part responsible for selfishness, but part for pleasure which is active when you do something selfish. ( or something other )

I guess free will doesn't apply to this one

 

the myth that people are selfish, is a whole load of bullshit that has been propagated since mid 19th century, with a combination of darwinist propositions being exploited to create a perception for justifying the capitalist system, imperialism, wars atrocities exploitation - whatever you can imagine.

it is only natural that, in a society which not only rewards, but actually enforces being selfish (capitalism ; more more more, or someone else will get ahead and diminish you and your freedoms/security), even very good people will have to act selfish - even those very good ones who cannot even act selfish, will have to act cautious and take care of their survival issues first.

so, it is a self-reinforcing bullshit : the system enforces selfishness. and then its propagators tell people that people are selfish by nature, reinforcing the enforced selfishness from the earlier stage. and it repeats itself.

in nature, in environments that are isolated from the current society, you will find that people behave very differently. you can see sacrifice. actually you can even see sacrifice in society, if the situation really requires it.

 

True, but you don't see sacrifice for people or things we don't care about. Why is that?

 

there are many variables effecting that. even in that, the conditioning of society plays a big role.

for example, people are conditioned to perceive sacrifices for family as acceptable, and in many cases, compulsory. similarly, they are conditioned to perceive sacrifices as 'strangers' as unacceptable or foolish.

individual's own perception and understanding overrides these as much as the strength of his/her own will and understanding of his/her self.

the average 'good' person behaves in a much more all-encompassing manner and thinks about the good of entire social group, when s/he is out with a small social group far from civilization or social circumstances. like, camping etc.

the same individual may slide into a more selfish attitude when back in the city, and may not do the same things s/he has done for the rest of the social group while out camping.

so, the 'care' factor changes depending on circumstance.

society is a strong force, and its conditioning(s) have strong effect on individuals.