I am willing to speculate that even mother Teresa got total satisfaction from helping those in the black hole of Calcutta. And I think those that contribute to and work for charities are being self-fulfilled.
I just wonder if anyone has an example of a totally unselfish act by one or more people.
A couple hundred TM’s didn’t respond to your “Don’t view this…” post in MPSIMS. (More luck for the rest of us.)
Under the definition you’re using, probably not. Unless you’re a Buddhist closing in on Nirvana, every voluntary action is motivated by some desire you have, and performing the action provides relief from the desire. Wholly apart from the merits of the act itself, relief from the desire to act is inherently personal to you, and thus, is always in your own self-interest.
With a broad enough definition of “self-interest,” it is possible to categorize even self-destructive desires as being self-interested. My desire to end my life is in my own self-interest because I want to silence the voices in my head, or relieve my friends and family from the burdens I place on them. Falling on a hand grenade to protect the other soldiers in my unit is in my self-interest because I (posthumously) obtain a reputation for honor and bravery from doing so.
In essence, it’s a paradox: if you do something out of unselfishness, you obtain the benefit of being viewed by others (or yourself) as unselfish. So long as you define selfishness to exist when the actor obtains any benefit from the act, no matter how disproportionate that is to the benefit others receive, you will be able to characterize any action as selfish.
Matt Ridley does a great job of exploring the evolutionary basis for altruism and cooperation among humans in his book The Origins of Virtue: Human Instincts and the Evolution of Cooperation. The basic answer is that what looks on the surface like altruism is in fact self-interested, since humans have evolved to exploit ecological niches that can only be exploited by social animals cooperating with one another. He makes a compelling argument that this is not as depressing or cynical a view as one might imagine. Even if the ultimate wellspring of altruistic behavior is that it in some way enhances the likelihood of reproduction of the genes that created the individual, the benefits derived, both by the helper and the helpee, are just as real. This is one of the few books I’ve ever re-read almost immediately after finishing it the first time.
The last few sections of the book venture on a couple of political implications of the picture of human behavior built up in the previous sections: that pre-industrial societies (aborigines of the Americas, Australia, and Pacific islands being the usual exemplars) are not at all better stewards of the earth than industrial and post-industrial societies, as is often maintained, and that the best way to ensure appropriate and sustainable use of natural resources is to establish and maintain some type of private property interest in the resources and rely on the “instinctive” ability of human societies to ensure cooperation and prevent abuse. Readers who are not of a conservative or libertarian mindset will likely bristle at some of the conclusions Ridley draws about the optimum ways of conducting societies and his mistrust of governmental interference in the interactions between individuals, but even if you disagree with Ridley’s conclusions you’ll learn a great deal about human behavior and its evolutionary origins.
…we’re giving serious answers! Sorry.
There’s a philosophical view that human behavior cannot be fully explored except in the context of the social organism (read The Lucifer Principle by Howard Bloom). Individual acts of selflessness, or cruelty, or even blatant self interest (according to this point of view)can almost always be seen as acts that further the survival of the individual’s social group, either on a grand scale (all of humanity), or more likely on a more local scale (family, town, genotype, etc.).
Let’s assume “totally unselfish act” to mean “something that is done on purpose by an individual to benefit others, but for which the individual cannot conceive of a benefit to him/herself.” In that case, I can imagine very special cases where that would be possible (boy raised by wolves wanders into the city and pushes the first human he encounters out of the path of a bus and gets smashed), but I think the average member of society would rarely be presented even with an opportunity for such an action.
In other words, “Yes, but it’s not likely.”
Indeed we are getting serious answers.
Since this is the Pit, I must say that I think Mother Teresa was a scumbag who had no interest in ending the suffering of the poor, just an interest in treating their topical wounds and fraudulently converting them as they were expiring…
Anyway, the important distinction is between selfishness and self-interest.
Anything you wish to do that your involves your brain (i.e is intentional) is self-interested: what you regard as your interests may involve the welfare of others. That you wish to do it means that you regard as in your (various) interests, not that you regard it as subtly benefiting you.
However this does not have to be to your benefit: you may give for a “warm inner glow” but you may give for other reasons which are self-interested, but not selfish (with regard to your own benefit).
picmr
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huh? say what?
At night, if I see a car without its headlights on, I will flick my lights on and off to get it’s driver’s attention. Since I have already seen the car, it’s lack of headlights on poses no danger to me. Thus, I feel that I am performing a purely selfless, altruistic deed.
I have done that too…however I distinctly remember getting a “paul revere” type of stroke for doing it. In other words, I feel very briefly as if I have contributed to the safety of that driver and others, thus giving me a good but fleeting feeling of unselfishness.
Jesus died…
A comment and an example:
1.) This post assumes that because one gets satisfaction from an act, that the altruistic nature of the act is no longer sincere. I find this point of view unecessarily argumentative and exclusionary. Usually this comes from psychological researchers who get glee by insisting people have no real good qualities.
2.) I am swimming in a swimming pool. I see a struggling bug float by. Without much though I flick the bug to safety. This sort of thing would have no emotional impact (I would get no rush of personal satisfaction) and in fact is so inconsequential, I will probably have forgotten I did if a few moments later. thus by all accounts this act is “selfless”
But wouldn’t you get a flicker of some satisfaction from the actual “flick” itself? Making the bug fly by your hand from the water to dry land? Kinda of like making a basket in basketball. Not trying to be argumentative here but I think I would. Although I may just have to try that sometime.
I think Ultress may just have a point here. Rebuttal anyone?
No I think I can honestly say I don’t get that flicker.
Well, if I follow this line of reasoning correctly…
Joe CHristian gets a special feeling in his heart when he gives money to a homeless person on the street, and it makes him feel good.
Larry Hedonist walks past the homeless guy, and spends his money on beer and pizza. That makes him feel good.
Eddie Sadist gets a sexual thrill out of beating women and picking the wings of flies.
Now… you’re saying that, since Joe, Larry and Eddie are all the same, since they all do the things that make them feel good. You’re saying that feeling good about helping an old lady across the street is no different from feeling good about raping and killing her.
By that warped reasoning, there are no moral people anywhere.
Well then why do it at all?
Astorian:
I’m pretty sure I wasn’t trying to make that generalization. At least not by your examples.
It’s entirely possible that your example Eddie doesn’t feel pleasure at all. A tortured unbalanced individual such as he, might then or eventually, feel frustrated sick and suicidal after satisfying those urges to pull wings off of flies or beat women. Psychopaths are hard to figure.
Whereas Larry Hedonist is merely scratching an itch that feels good with no moral implications whatsoever and Joe Christian is exhibiting a sense of altruism which does demonstrate morality… at least by many of todays standards. None of those examples however defer to the original post which is:
I wonder if anyone has an example of a totally unselfish act by one or more people.
Seems like a simple question prima facia but perhaps I have unthinkingly aimed my OP in the direction of Skinner’s stimulus and response as opposed to learned behavior theories which have already been discussed to death in collegiate literature.
You got this topic from “friends” didn’t you…admit…I saw the episode! Where Joey and Phoebe compete to do the selfless good deed?
Here’s my example… not a real-life example, but it’s highly possible that it would arise…
A guy gets his testicles removed so his girlfriend can have contraceptive-less sex without worrying about getting pregnant.
If that’s not selfless, nothing is.
In answer to “why do it at all”…I shoot back the ubiquitous “why not” The bug is benefited and I am in no way harmed. I’ve never contest the merits of bug rescue so hotly before. 
*{**was pun intended?? **…
OUCH … :eek: :eek:
Nope, no pun intended… though I usually catch things like that… dammit, I’m losing my touch! Curses!