[MD] Altruism

[pholden at davtv.com]

Quoting Ben Golden <theplaidninja at hotmail.com>:


> [Ham, repeated by Platt]
> 1. Because man values his own life above all, it is the nature of man to be 
> selfish.  Therefore selfishness cannot be immoral.
> 
> [Ben (trying again)]
> Platt directed to me an article that I read, but which didn't answer my 
> question.  Allow me to pose this scenario:
> 
> 1.  John robs his neighbor's home.
> 2.  John is acting selfishly.
> 3.  John is acting immorally.
> 4.  Selfishness cannot be immoral.
> 
> Is one of these statements incorrect?  Are they logically consistent?

Depends on your definition of "selfishness." In the article I directed you to, a
truly selfish person was defined as "a self-respecting, self-supporting human
being who neither sacrifices others to himself nor sacrifices himself to others."
I agree. A robber hardly qualifies as a self-respecting, self-supporting human
being who refuses to sacrifice others to himself.

> [Platt]
> Charity is OK by me in the case of natural disaster to help people get back 
> on their feet. But,
> there is overwhelming evidence that long-term public altruism creates 
> dependency and anti-social behavior.  So we agree that an "altruistic" 
> public policy is largely ineffective, like the War on Poverty which failed 
> utterly at humongous cost to us taxpayers.
> 
> [Ben]
> You seem to, like Ham, be objecting not to altruism but to forced altruism.  
> I'm assuming that when the Gates Foundation spends money installing 
> computers in public libraries and investing in research to cure diseases, 
> you don't condemn this obviously altruistic behavior. 

Since no sacrifice is involved, I don't consider these examples altruistic.
They make the directors of the Gates Foundation and perhaps Gates himself
feel good about themselves.

> I agree there are 
> some public policies that are launched in the name of altruism that create 
> dependencies/welfare traps.  However, I think there are also altruistic 
> public policies that don't create these problems.

Examples?

> [Platt]
> To give a hungry man a fish is altruism. To teach him to fish is 
> enlightenment.
> 
> [Ben]
> They're both altruism.  If I spend my time teaching someone to fish when I 
> could be fishing for myself, I'm putting someone else's interests above my 
> own.

If putting someone's interests above your own gives you a good feeling, that's
selfish. Incidentally, I'm using the dictionary definition of altruism: "unselfish
regard for or devotion to the welfare of others." 




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