Do you really believe people can be genuinely altruistic?

i don’t think so. i think the brain is hardwired to seek out rewards and those rewards can come in many shapes and sizes, including the good feeling that comes from doing something good. in other words, you wouldn’t give to charity if it gave you a rash.

You would have never found this by searching but you might be interested in this thread where I ask a similar question.

No. I think that even people who give ‘selflessly’ have a hint of looking for self-reward in their actions.

Nope. Just, nope.

I believe being genuinely altruistic, AKA true altruism, is inherently human. That’s to say that true altruism is ingrained into the average citizen and it is society which teaches and enables us to grasp at being selfish. I believe naturally we are humanistic, because we engage in all sorts of activities that could be immediately detrimental to us. When we see a burning house with people stuck inside, many people wouldn’t even think twice prior to entering the house, basically in instinct. I don’t believe it is until the after thought, at least in emergency situations, that people think to reap a reward. So even though the act was done truly altruistically, we wouldn’t consider it to be totally selfishless.

I had the extreme honor of knowing someone who was totally selfless their whole life. I don’t think I will ever meet or know anyone like her. She gave and gave everything she had, although she never had much monetarily to give. She did this because it was as simple as breathing for her. It’s just who she was. I was lucky to be her grand daughter.

As said, I believe that people all act in a selfish manner. Whether that leads to a perceptibly altruistic action or not depends on the character. In my case, not so much.

I’d agree that altruism is a very human quality (although it extends beyond humans), and I think that people can be consciously altruistic, not being aware of how it benefits them (ie adopting because the subconscious is still just trying to ensure the survival of humanity).

Altruism is win/win. Naive to question motive.

How is altruism win/win? How do I gain? I personally would feel like crap if I were being altruistic, because I can’t stand to sacrifice anything of my own to any other for no gain of my own. I would lose something and feel bad. How is that a win for me?

@TheKitchenSink: Altruism in and of itself (Not true altruism or genuine altruism) is a social behaviour and value orientation in which individuals give primary consideration to the interests and welfare of other individuals with or without ulterior motives. Altruism is the act of helping someone else no matter what the motive is. I believe this is what susanc was getting at. So in your situation if you only sacrifice to benefit yourself in the future this is still considered altruism.

That would be a specific form of altruism then, if it’s not true/genuine altruism, wouldn’t it? The statement “Altruism is win/win” seems like a blanket statement for all types of altruism, which isn’t the case apparently.

I suppose there’s a difference between doing a selfish act consciously, and doing it without awareness that it does, in a kind of karmic way, benefit the person doing the act.

I believe that I don’t have to know an act is selfish for it to be selfish, in that it benefits me indirectly. Helping others helps create a culture where everyone helps others. This helps you, when you are in trouble.

There are cultures right now, such as perhaps in Iraq, where altruistic behavior is taken advantage of, and then the altruist is shot. The altruist is considered naive.

So altruism works to the benefit of all, which works to build a safety net for yourself. As such, it is selfish. Yet almost no one thinks this way. They just think they are doing something good.

You could look at it evolutionarily. Genes that give us the impulse to be altruistic will propagate, if they actually benefit the culture, and help increase survival of altruistic people. I believe that altruism has been built into us through this process.

In the end, it comes down to feelings about words. We will behave the same way, no matter what we feel. Well, except maybe TKS—but, in the prisoners dilemma, you need a small portion of people who take advantage of others, although I forget why. In any case TKS could be being altruistic by being selfish. In other words, despite himself.

Anyway, “selfish” has, overall, a negative connotation, whereas “altruism” has the opposite connotation. I’m not sure if it matters what we think of how we describe the behaviors, because I suspect that won’t have any impact on the behaviors themselves. I.e., most of us will behave altruistically, whether we think we want to or not; and some of us will behave purely selfishly, which keeps us altruists in line.

Damn! I wish I could learn to make a point quickly. These things seem complex to me, I guess.

The prisoner’s dilemma is more game theory than anything else, but sure. IIRC how it works, if neither defect they both get like 6 months in jail. If both of them defect they get like five years in jail. If one defects and the other does not, the one who defects gets off scot free and the one who did not gets 10 years in prison.

Overall, defecting is a better choice IMO, since you have no idea what the other person is doing. Free and 5 years vs. 6 months and 10 years. Chances are better with “being selfish.” Kind of off-topic, but I did a paper of game theory back when, so…

@TKS, of course that’s what you think. Most people would work towards the cooperative approach, because that maximizes utility for everyone.

What do you do knowing there will be another chance at the game with the same person? If you defect this time, you can be pretty sure you will both defect next time. The time after that, you might try to cooperate, but your partner would defect. The time after that, you might both cooperate, or you might both defect, and after that, you’d never get out of jail, because you both would have learned that the one is a non-cooperator, and the other is defending him-or-herself.

But you, being a defector, would probably never think that far ahead, and even if you did, you would discount it as futile projections of the future that will probably never pan out. Are you a Republican, by any chance? Just testing a hypothesis.

I would have still come out on top in your scenario. There is no way for me to lose. I either tie, as I defect every time, or I win, as they do not defect once, giving me the effectively permanent advantage.

And no, I lean rather strongly Democratically. Usually Republicans are conservative and often religious, no? That seems quite the opposite of what I am. The only reason I can think of your thinking I am a Republican is because I’m acting either stupid or domineering, and Democrats usually view Republicans as such. Which I admittedly do, usually.

I think it is possible to be genuinely altruistic. I think if you know what human nature is, you can rise above it.

@TKS – altruism can be win/win because situations might occur where you hardly have to sacrifice anything, and gain a good feeling.

@critter & mzgator – nice examples. I suppose people indeed have some inherent altruism, thanks :)

@susanc – I’m not questioning motive with the accusative connotation. I’m just wondering whose win is the primary motivation.

If I already have everything I need, then I can help others find everything they need.

@TKS, I think you misunderstood. Your fellow prisoner does defect alternately with attempting cooperation until they realize you will never cooperate, at which point he always defects, and you both are screwed, permanently. The exact opposite outcome as compared to altruism.

I thought you were Republican because of the implication of your views in terms of economic activity. But perhaps it is a more libertarian position.

Democrats are much more in favor of building safety nets and social insurance programs, which are a form of cooperation and altruism. The Republicans, compassionate as they may be, don’t believe the government has any business providing safety nets. That’s to be done privately, if at all.

I thought your philosophical positions were more aligned with Republicans. Your positions are conservative. The only thing they are not, is religious, and Democrats are just as religious as Republicans; they just have less dogmatic beliefs, on average.

Isn’t that what I said? If the other person ever does not defect, even once, then in total, at the end of all the series of matches, I would win. If they always defect, then we tie. I can’t lose. I think the misunderstanding is that you’re going on a case-by-case basis, whereas I’m going in an overall basis. Case-by-case, yes, we would both be locked into 5 years each, which would suck. But in iterative prisoner’s dilemma, it’s always counted overall. If I can secure one win, then if I tie every other time, I win overall.

Okay. I don’t really follow whose beliefs are on what side much, rather they state their opinions and I agree with one of them. I happen to overwhelmingly agree with Democrats. So if you say so, then I believe you.

@TKS, so for you, winning now is a higher priority than your future?

I take your point about the prisoner’s dilemma, it’s just that for me, the goal is to stay out of jail as much as possible, not to be in jail less than the other person.

Hmmm. I suppose that makes sense. It does kind of encapsulate the huge divide in American politics between Republicans and Democrats. It’s also two different kinds of people.

Well that’s just how the game is played. It’s player 1 vs. player 2, whoever gets less jail time wins. If this were real life it wouldn’t be iterative in the first place.

Also mutual altruism over and over wouldn’t hold up, I don’t think. Once they know you’re just going to go with altruism, they’d defect and go free. Someone’s going to betray the other at some point.

That’s why it’s called “the dilemma.”

Well played.

Don’t kid yourself. You wouldn’t be able to live if you were totally selfish. First of all, people tend to catch on pretty quickly if you are a deadbeat or a backstabber, and you tend to get cut off from social networks which, after all, depend on reciprocity.

If you think you can get along by just pretending to be altruistic so as to string others along so that you can really stick it to them later, you invite a retribution that increases in proportion to the trust you betray. Any game can only tolerate just so many free riders before the players start to get really nasty. It is simply much easier, less energy consuming, and beneficial in the long run to be altruistic all the time, and even to “pay it forward” from time to time.

You do, of course, attract parasites. But Nietzsche says that one measure of a man’s greatness is the number of (human) parasites he can support.

Good reference, Monty. that’s from “Thus Spake Zarathustra” – the prophet of the Zoroastrians.
The three wise men who came to Nazareth were said to be Zoroastrians

The soul most self-loving, in which all things have their current and counter-current, their ebb and their flow:—oh, how could the loftiest soul fail to have the worst parasites?

The measure of my greatness is how many slackers can leech off me?

More like, the measure is how many slackers want to leech off of you.

“Thus Spake Zarathustra?”

Wasn’t there an epic song called “Also Sprach Zarathustra?”

Also sprach Zarathustra, op. 30 is a tone poem by Richard Strauss, composed in 1896 and inspired by Friedrich Nietzsche’s prose poem Also sprach Zarathustra. [1] It contains the World Riddle theme, a particular sequence of musical notes in the melody.[1] The composer conducted its first performance in Frankfurt.

Its introduction is one of the most recognisable pieces of music ever written; among many of its uses it includes that of Stanley Kubrick as the key musical motif in his 1968 film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. :)

Yes. Period.