anti altruism theory

8/11/2019 Anti Altruism Theory

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Anti-Altruism Theory 4/27/2008

It is impossible to unselfishly care for the welfare of others. Example 1: Your friends are going

out to eat; you arent full, but neither hungry. Will you spend money anyway when it wont benefit

you? Example 2: You like to hold the door for people, but today you feel angry and feel like nothing can

cheer you up. Do you still hold the door for people today? Example 3: Your best friend dies. Do you

mourn for him, or do you mourn for the fact you will no longer be able to enjoy his company? Do you

mourn for all good people who die whether you know them or not?

If you didn't feel some reward for doing something "good" then you wouldn't do it. Why do

something that you don't find any reward in doing? So, being altruistic really should mean finding

reward/joy in giving to others. Therefore it has more to do with doing what you find satisfying rather

than being more virtuous than someone else.

-Greg dratsab Huffman

(9/23/2013) Clarification:

I am not stating that we use people to a means to an end, except that we use almost everything

as a means to an end when that end goal is happiness. I am not stating that it is impossible for people to

be moral, but rather that we engage in ethical actions because it brings us happiness, and in the end

isnt that the goal of morality? To bring happiness to humanity? Is it so bad to pick up some selfish

happiness in the process? But I am arguing against the way altruism is thought of as being selfless, as

the self is the most important factor in the equation of what actions we take.

So, why would a man sacrifice himself so that other may live? Maybe because he would rather

die a noble and meaningful death than have to endure the guilt of knowing he could have saved a

human being and thinking he will eventually die a coward. When choosing between two horrible

options, you are also going to choose the one that brings you the least pain. A lifetime of pain may not

be as bad as a death that makes you feel good about yourself.

When I give money to a homeless man, I am buying something. That homeless man has

something to offer for his fee after all I am buying a good feeling in my heart. Everyone wins it seems,

so what is the harm in that? I will never do what I dont thinkis in my best interest, even if what I

thought was best for me turns out to be an incorrect decision. I may think long-term happiness or short-term happiness, but no one ever really sacrifices. All sacrifices are merely trades of time, giving up some

quality of experience now so that you can capitalize on a bigger happiness later.

I certainly am not advocating that people are inherently evil or bad. We are just incentive

machines, which I suppose can be seen as cynical. However, we have our incentives hardwired to at

least slightly be in the direction of the morally correct range. I mean, we feel guilt when we hurt people,

and at least fantasize about doing charitable things, even if we are too lazy or too busy to ever actually


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go through with them. The very fact that some people mourn over the concern that human beings are

acting immorally or not as good as they should is proof of this. While everyone fantasizes about doing

charitable acts, some judge those that only fantasize by fantasizing about a world where everyone acts

out those fantasies of having the time and resources to be more helpful to other people, and claim that

people arent good because they dont actually work on bringing these dreams to reality. One problem I

believe we have is that we are always too rushed and stressed; we see people that need our help, and

want to help, but we either have to get to work on time, or we are just getting off of work and we are

too tired to help. Actually, let me phrase this better by using a quote I thought up a few months back:

If you think all of humanity is intrinsically evil and lament about this, then you have proven yourself

wrong, because if one was truly evil one would find this a joyous occasion as a victory for their side, or in

the least, not be bothered with such a state. However, you treat evil as a disease consuming your soul,

and thus to recognize this evil in yourself as a bad thing you must have goodness at your core.

If we are such naturally bad creatures, then why are we so bothered by this fact? If we were so

bad then wouldnt we be happy that we were acting in our own self-interest to successfully achieve this

result? I think we just set too high of a standard for human behavior (though psychologically damaging

in my opinion, doing so leads to progress in the long run) and we want some esoteric motivation for

ethical behavior. We dont like the idea of being able to explain things, we are afraid to unweave the

rainbow as Richard Dawkins puts it.

Though I have said this as well:

A morally correct decision should be opposed to reward, because if both line up then any selfish asshole

would make the moral decision all of the time.

I suppose this is kind of hypocritical of me, but I think the reason I said this was mainly as aresponse to such things going on as companies issuing public apologies. It seems to come off as a

means to a means to an end of happiness rather than to issue a public apology because it makes them

happy to do so. I think they only issue the apology after thinking it out, and wondering how it will affect

their profits. When I mean reward here, I mean something other than the intrinsic reward of happiness.

However, is it possible that I am making an attribution error here when it comes to companies?

(10/6/2013) ADDITION:

If we want a society afraid to do the wrong thing then bring them up on the idea of external

judgment, but if we want a society that wants to do the right thing we must bring them up on the ideaof internal judgment. Why do we value money so much that we will sacrifice morality for it, but we

dont value morality so much that we will sacrifice money for it? We must anchor our self-interest to

morality the way we anchor it to material gain. Maybe guilt should be a feeling that hurts worse than

the feeling of losing all of your money. Morality must be enforced by making it in our best self-interest,

because everyone always acts in their own best self-interest. It is just that those people we call moral


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are moral because it is in their own best self-interest to be so. It is not because they want acceptance

from other people, but because they want to be able to accept themselves.

Is this what Nietzsche said was bad about morality? He said that guilt was a bad thing right? A

slave morality. However, for those that argue that Nietzsche wasnt a nihilist and that he was an

existentialist, then creating your own values has got to have some guilt to follow it if you are persuadedto act contrary to the moral system you developed for yourself. Maybe what Nietzsche meant was we

shouldnt feel guilty about not following the traditional arbitrary ethical systems we were told to follow.

Maybe he thought that people would internally not feel negative judgment, but would feel judgment

from external influences.

(10/13/2013) NOTE:

Is morality about causing conscious pain in others or is it about empathizing with perceived pain

in others and making it our own? Ive been thinking about this lately and it again triggered while

watching the film Girl Interrupted today. There is a scene in which Angelina Jolies character takes

money from the dead body of a girl who commits suicide. Is this immoral? What does the dead need

with money? But yet we feel an injustice. Is this because we try to see things from the dead girls

perspective even though she feels nothing herself? Even though her pain has ended? If morality is

based on the avoidance of causing others conscious pain, then how is it immoral to do something that

only causes psychological pain in ourselves or those around us based on baseless perceptions?

I believe Michel de Montaigne said that funerals are not for the dead, but for those that are

living. Is that why we spend so much on death and coffins and funerals? Diogenes asked to be thrown

in a ditch when he was dead, but when he was dead, his friends didnt respect his wishes. They gave

him an elaborate funeral. Is this an injustice to Diogenes, or is it okay due to the fact that Diogenes wasdead and had no cares left to what actually happened to his body, so therefore his friends got the

traditional funeral rites that made them happy?

And then comes the problem of consciousness. We can only assume that other people are

conscious of pain, because most of us tend not to be solipsists? Do animals feel pain? Could robots feel

pain? Is abortion okay if the fetus/baby doesnt feel pain? Or is it misery? Isnt misery the problem?

Pain is just a physical response that can be emulated by simple computer programs, but a consciousness

of misery is what we really want to avoid right? Do cattle kept in barbaric factory conditions feel

misery? Surely if misery is the problem, then fetus killing cant be seen as immoral. However, a newly

born baby could also be quietly murdered and would obviously have no memory of it and no misery tobring along with it. So then morality is more than just not inflicting misery on others, it is about giving

people what we agree are their natural rights.

And can one be immoral without that intent? What if years from now the vegans win and we

look upon these times as just as immoral as the days of slavery? When animals were brutally murdered

and tortured so that we could eat a living creature, how medieval! How old-fashioned! How

reminiscent of the dark ages! But, we cant pillory those who do it, because it isnt with the general


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consensus of current morality. When slavery was allowed, you probably couldnt find justice in

aggressively attacking those that practiced it, but imagine if someone tried to practice it today? Surely

they we would feel justified in whatever justice we could bring them to no matter how pernicious.

Is this because of legality? Is this because of education? Or is this because of what the general

public will allow? It seems we can separate what is legal from what is moral in some cases, whetherthrough loopholes or just by giving people explicit freedom. Education Im not entirely sure of because I

believe most anyone who isnt educated in the ways of general morality and accepting of it is considered

insane and we make some exceptions for them. Possibly someone of another culture we may also make

exceptions for in certain cases. However, I think the main issue is just that of it being a generally

accepted morality of the time. We have to be idealists and unreasonable men first to change the

morality and we have to start soft with our punishments and become harsher with our punishments as

the acceptability rate plummets. Doesnt this mean that even the idealist has to utilize some degree of

utilitarianism? He cant punish as he sees fit until he wins the majority over to his cause, because he

lacks the power in numbers and maybe even some of the certainty that comes with the agreement of

others. So does that mean morality is relative to time period? Can we say that a slave owner in the1800s would be more morally upright than one living in modern times? How can we ever know for sure

if we are being timelessly moral?

(2/9/2014) Marquis de Sade:

I am reading Marquis de Sades Juliette, and he is touching on some of the same ideas that I am

within this writing. He states that because one receives some vain joy at the prospect of helping

another person that that diminishes the value of the action. Not just that, but it creates a burden on the

receiver of the action so that we will start to dislike that person. The latter thing, I think Ive heard

something stated psychologically about that if the burden becomes too big then we start to resent the

person helping us, but I cant find the article right off. However, the former is what Ive wondered

myself. I feel like we should certainly thank nature for giving them a more pleasant way of receiving

happiness than the way nature curses serial killers to only derive joy from others pain, however, does

the person himself (who had no choice in his tastes) merit thanks? Though, as a determinist, I suppose if

I wanted to argue who deserves merit via that method, then I would have toto stay consistentsay

that not a single person deserves merit for any action that they do, and it was only because of the

winning lottery ticket dished out by the random path of nature that any person achieved any great

position in life. Even if they showed great courage, and truly suffered through hard training to get

where they were, isnt it only because nature endowed them with a strong will and cleared their path

from those obstacles which would cut their life short on the battlefield? An injured war hero and a fool

who narrowly avoids winning a Darwin Award may both have suffered equally, so on account of merely

their hard path in life determined by nature should they both be equally as praised for what they

endured, maybe as a way to recompense what nature dished out to them? Maybe even the fool

moreso, since nature doomed him with a less noble path towards suffering.


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And it is impossible to overcome this vain joy. Even if one goes out of ones way to prove this

theory false by doing something this person would never ever choose to do on his or her own, then they

have failed from the outset. Because as his reward he seeks the vain joy of proving this theory wrong.

anti altruism theory

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