Which is intrinsic, altruism or egoism?

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While I do do not like to think myself as a selfish person and by contrast of lacking social desire I do find myself concerned with the well being of society - which led me to an interest in left-wing politics. I would hold the door open for somebody or attempt to help somebody if they were in need. But do I do this because I am concerned with the other person or because it would make me feel good inside if I know I've helped that person. Is that altruism or egoism?

By harsh comparison one could consider these two possibilities. If I help a person because it makes me feel good for doing so, and a serial killer kills a person because it makes them feel good for doing so - what is truly the difference? Are we both doing it for the same egotistical reason - satisfaction?

Back to the initial question anyway as I stray, which do you believe is intrinsic, altruism or egoism (in other words, which is innate)? I would like to hear your opinions.

Neither is intrinsicly dominant, the world is just not that black and white.

You could see it as a spectrum with those who are more altruistic leaning towards leftist [collectivist, socialist, syndicalist etc] politics and philosophies and those at the egistic end leaning toward the individualist/right wing phiposophies and politics.

In your case as reported I would suspect your inherent instinctive social urges [animal instinct - not concious/experiential] are leading you to derive satisfaction from actions that enhance the social cohesion of your grouping by serving individual and group interests which [IMO] evolved as a natural human tendency as a result of it's evidenced success.

peace j

Last edited by RedHanrahan on 04 Jul 2011, 6:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Altruism is a comforting illusion. EVERY human action is the product of egoism. There is nothing else.

Oh, and the difference between you and the serial killer is functional. Your actions benefit, the killer's probably don't... even if they do, they're outside of established norms and require sanctions.

That's all there is to it.

these two are not mutually exclusive imho. altruism is a form of egoism - of a group.

both are characteristics of the human breed.

ruveyn

martyfan -

do right and don't sweat it. Analyzing past the comfort level is counterproductive.

redhanrahan / ruveyn - pretty much join you with some dubiety on jumping into behavioralk evolution.

Goonsquad, you are clear enough, you may be able to defend that stance, I am sorry for you.

anna-banana - interesting statement, I need to think about it.

That is the key.



Don't be sorry for me. I treasure my ability to see and face the truth.

I do good/nice things for people because it makes me feel good, and ultimately, so does every other do-gooder.

I'm not a nice person. I'm just wired to function in a kind and charitable way.

That's a lucky break for the folks at the Salvation Army and the homeless shelter.

I'm also lucky... lucky that I'm not wired to enjoy eating babies or setting dogs on fire because that sort of thing is not very functional and would probably earn me an unpleasant but necessary correction.

PS

Free will is the bunk too!

Hey, mon, I done pinky swear not go get into the free will discussions - hopeless toktok tangles.

So you do right by other hominids I don't care how you theorize it.

I tend to agree that true altruism either doesn't exist or is rare. Most people can't do good without feeling good. If you can't separate the act from its reward, how can you be sure the reward isn't the motivation for the act?

What is toktok, and what is takataka (the other one you use regularly)? Even Google doesn't know.

I would thing egotism for most people is more commonly intrinsic. Almost everyone goes through a phase as kids where the whole world revolves around them and it takes years of learning and growing up to get over it. Knowledge breeds altruism but before knowledge our genes are pushing for us to grab as much as we can have and, as adults, its like that in a more regulated and self-monitored sense. The bottom line of it though for any given animal is that to survive so long as it has an internal mission (procreation and gaining of power/influence), once the animal can insure its survival it then looks to insure the survival of those who add to its existence or, in the case of helping strangers, does it for the conceptual argument of helping humanity and for the reflexive and somewhat innate desire to provide.

If you would include doing what 'feels right' under 'feels good' then altruism commits definitional suicide as it then has no valid wellspring. Then again that's why I don't bother myself to look for that much distilled purity in something like that - if a word still has relative meaning in the English language why kill it.

Having selfish motivations which stay at first tier thinking and cause one to rob, steal, murder, etc., vs. having second and third tier thinking which leads to good work, integrity, self-control, and further down generosity, charity, and philanthropy, even martyrdom, these are still highly variant in quality. It also goes back to the OP's question of there's any difference between opening a door or committing a serial murder because both feel good, I might ask the same question about jogging vs. shooting up smack when you're bored, the answer is - its a general consensus of society that we want health and well being or at least minimized human suffering. We can chase all kinds of things into absurdity and nothing intellectually great or nuanced comes of it.

A poor question will have a correspondingly poor answer.

Is it altruistic of me to yield to you on the highway when it is your right, or is it merely a show of good manners stemming from a desire to appear civilized in the eyes of other drivers? Is it altruistic for me to buy a warm meal for a pan-handler, or do I just find his demonstration of gratitude to my liking? We find kindness to be abundant if we relent in our demands for "altruism" to acknowledge that a motivation is good.

The very concept of "altruism" is simply a device that unethical religious leaders use to convince good people that they are truly evil and depraved, and I quite frankly consider it to be offensive, uncouth, uncivilized and vulgar for that very reason. Human beings in general tend to be compassionate toward people they understand to be harmless, and their most usual failing is a failure to realize when a person actually is harmless...or at least mostly so.

The belief that human beings are either altruistic or terribly immoral is just something that is used to convince people that other human beings are merely an enemy lying in wait for their moment of weakness, therefore the notion is in itself evil. Again, this is to the benefit of religious leaders who elevate themselves in society by convincing good people that they are wicked and sinful. It ought to be abolished.

Without the concept of altruism and like foolishness, the world would be a kinder, more compassionate place to live in. When this nonsense has finally died its well-deserved death, it will be to the good. The most horrible evils of Mankind have come from good people who believed that other good people are in fact a wicked and destructive adversary that is somehow keen to harm, exploit or rob them. All such misguided creatures need is a tool that allows them to dismiss acts of genuine decency as paltry acts of selfishness.

Forsooth, perhaps the demand that human beings pledge eternal fidelity to one another is a like device. When two good people find they have had their fill of each other's company, would it not be to the good for them to explore other avenues of association? Yet the demands of our society tend to create a sense in them that one must have wronged the other somehow, and a sense of bitterness is left when the nigh on inevitable does finally occur. Couldn't two people who have had fifteen wonderful years together part company happily and say that it was all to the good?

And perhaps there is a handful of people who are naturally inclined to self-sacrificing behavior. Some of us are also inclined to suicide by nature. Is that laudable? Some of us may be naturally inclined to monogamous behavior. Well, some of us by nature lack any inclination to advance our careers. Is that then the height of laudable conduct? Balderdash. Some behaviors may be perfectly acceptable and harmless, even pleasant, but it is stupid to entertain notions that they are the height and limit of human decency. We can and should hold each other in high esteem without such devices.

I think perhaps I could have chosen better terminology. However I thought it might be an interesting question to postulate. I think I it is certain that we all do things for our own gratification. We each have different reasons for doing nice things - a rude obnoxious person isn't going to get very far unless they suck up to people. Whereas one might genuinely be concerned with the welfare of a stranger.

We each have different personalities and some are geared towards being selfish and others towards being selfless. I think it would be highly counter-productive as society if everybody was selfish so being more selfless would seem to be more progressive as far as the longevity of humans is concerned - but that's just my opinion. I wanted to incite and hear different opinions on the matter by the question I posed - and also to wonder which is inherent. I think techstepgenr8tion was accurate in saying that


We are generally born as 'egotistical' creatures, we then on perhaps secondarily look out for one another for our own preservation so it's a mutual gain.

Though this doesn't explain martyrdom or things pertaining - but perhaps I'm trying to be too black and white about it as RedHanrahan correctly said.

An outstanding claim. Of which you provide no evidence for.



a) You are not House.
b) House is a dumbwit.

Thanks



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The question is silly in that altruism comes with benefits to the one doing it. So both are intrinsic, in a way. And also in a way both are the same thing.

Last edited by Vexcalibur on 05 Jul 2011, 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Firstly ruveyn and myself having converging thoughts somehow unsettles me but it isn't impossible

Please could you supply a definition foxLingo came up blank and I am genuinely interested.

peace j

Laughably-false dichotomy.

Both altruism and egoism have in countless instances served adaptive advantages for our species.