If someone volunteers their time helping others is this selfless…or by doing it does it not make the volunteer feel good about themselves…thus sliding into the selfish mode. If one donates an organ for transplant, true it makes the donor feel good that he/she helped a person survive death…but it goes back to…I did a good thing it makes me feel good…or a tad selfish. Is there such a thing as martyrship?
Probably not, but you’ve got to atleast hope that there is. Otherwise the world becomes a really nasty place. Well, more so.
My personal opinion is that the answer is yes, although I think many disagree with me. The usual argument against me is to list a bunch of counterexamples, like you did in the OP. However, this hardly constitutes proof that such a thing is impossible, even if it is rare. Humans are very versatile and flexible creatures, capable of a great many things; that they are incapable of this is a serious claim, which requires some serious evidence. Thus I think the burden of proof lies with the “no” camp.
That’s what I said in Philosophy class, anyway. The teacher agreed with me, which pleased me much; seldom do I say anything right in Philosophy. 
It depends on why you did such a thing.
If you donate an organ because you want to save someone’s life then feeling good about it is just a side benefit. It isn’t beling selfish. It is only selfish if the only reason you did it was to feel good about yourself.
I am of the opinion that it doesn’t really matter anyway as long as the good deed gets done.
No. There’s alway a personal expectation even if that expectation isn’t for the self.
If you want to donate an organ to save someone. You’re doing it because you want that someone to be saved. If it doesn’t go that way, you’re disappointed.
A truely selfless action doesn’t exist.
Sure. Even if the actor does derive some benefit from the act, if the reason they performed the act was to benefit someone else, that meets the definition. You could take it further, and insist that it’s not selfless unless there is no benefit to the actor, but I think that’s going too far. As long as the cost to the actor is greater than the benefit, and the intent was to benefit someone else, I’d say it’s selfless.
Let me correct that a bit.
A selfless action can occur due to apathy but not sympathy.
I think it was Freud who opined that “there is no true altruism.”
I have helped strangers and have been helped by strangers, people I will never see again and have no plans to find. Sometimes you see someone that needs help and you give it, no cost no benefit. It may even, usually does, cost the helper in some way.
If it makes you feel good so what? If you go bragging to everyone though it isn’t selfless. You have then done it for some reward such as acknowledgement from peers.
Soldiers have thrown themselves on hand grendades to protect their buddies. Kinda hard to rationalize this behavior as “well, it made him feel good about himself*”.
I’ve read numerous account of dangerous rescues where afterwards the rescuers describe how frightened and unhappy they were to be helping the victim but they felt compelled to do it anyway. A common response is “I was terrified I would die too, but what else could I do? I couldn’t just leave him there!”
What if you surrendered a child for adoption?
And you did it for the child, not for yourself. And you certainly didn’t feel good, in fact you never felt so awful. But you did it anyway.
Isn’t that a truly selfless act?
Personally I say an altruistic act is one with no reward <i>except the knowledge you’ve done the right thing</i>
Just because one derives some personal satisfaction from performing an act to benefit another, possibly at some material cost to oneself, doesn’t mean that one’s action was motivated by the satisfaction. If the act was motivated by the benefit to the other, then it was an act not aimed at one’s own good, but at the good of another, and therefore is appropriately described as altruistic or selfless. The production of personal satisfaction is an unintentional byproduct, and in no way decreases the altruistic nature of the action.
It’s possible to argue that such actions don’t exist, but I think they not only exist but are commonplace.
This is my take on this. Acts are neither selfish or selfless. Acts are interactions of living forms with other living forms/non-living forms. Its the anticipation of the result of the act that makes an act selfish. Judging strictly by definition even breathing is a selfish act.
Having said that, it does’nt means that people can’t do good deeds. Different regions of the world have different philosophy on it - I present the “Hindu” philosophy:
What is karma (action or inaction) ?
People are bound by their acts or non-acts (karma). Non acts are also included in karma because a person who does not nothing is shirking his/her duty. Karma is the essense of life because you have to at least do the basic things to survive.
Now what is good karma and bad karma ?
There is nothing like good karma or bad karma. Actions in themselves are not good or bad, its the result that the actions lead to that are good or bad. Its the mind’s character to anticipate the result of the actions.
A balanced person is detached from the results of his/her actions. He/She does (or doesn’t) what his/her duty is without the attraction of good results or the fear of bad results.
So thats the basic philosophy. I don’t know if that response is fit for GQ - so mods feel free to move it if you want to.
So, let’s see if I follow the OP’s logic.
Joe spends his last 5 bucks on beer. Bill gives his last 5 bucks to a homeless guy. Drinking the beer made Joe feel good, and giving the 5 bucks to a homeless guy made Bill feel good. Therefore, Joe is really just as good a person as Bill.
Sorry, I don’t buy it.
I have helped strangers and have been helped by strangers, people I will never see again and have no plans to find. Sometimes you see someone that needs help and you give it, no cost no benefit. It may even, usually does, cost the helper in some way.
If it makes you feel good so what? If you go bragging to everyone though it isn’t selfless. You have then done it for some reward such as acknowledgement from peers.
I don’t think there is a factal answer to this.
I’m moving this thread to Great Debates even though I expect nothing in return.
Off to Great Debates.
DrMatrix - General Questions Moderator
andy_fl :
You beat me to it. I was going to say that, but was too lazy.
Shade :
Personally I say an altruistic act is one with no reward except the knowledge you’ve done the right thing
But you want to do the right thing. You also expect a certain outcome, which is why you do it. If a substance abuser uses your donated money to buy more drugs instead of using it for better purposes, you would hesitate to donate money again.
While performing these “selfless” acts, you do indeed desire something, a consonant outcome. You may think you did “the right thing”. But all that means is that you followed on with what you thought was the right thing. Feelings of and by the self are very much a part of it.
A truely selfless act would be an apathetic one.
Person notices child (unrelated to self) standing in middle of the road.
Person notices truck approaching.
Person only has time to fleetingly think “that child needs to be moved out of the way of the truck”
Person acts to make it so, possibly endangering their own life in the process (although of course this is not logically necessary, just a possible outcome of this particular scenario).
So what did I overlook?
The person has no aspirations toward heroism - there simply isn’t time to think of it.
‘Selfish genes’ can’t be blamed; the child is a stranger.
these acts are motivated by something.
people (in their posts) seem to be focused on the reward for the act rather than the motivation for it. I think this is a mistake.
The motivation is what proves the act to be selfish.
The motivation that comes before weighing the consequences of the action.
Risking one’s own life to save that of a child, well, The reason may be “because it needed to be done” or “because that kid was going to die” good, selfless reasons; but those reasons are borne out of an internal need to know that things are right in the world, safe, whatever north the internal moral compass points toward.
selfish.
maybe not as selfish as drinking the last beer, but still…