Selfishness

[tramtwo]

Was taking with an old friend of mine. (Ph.D… type) Anyway they were telling me about all the great things that they had done and how much they had helped people etc.
Well I made the comment that people never do anything for anyone but themselves. Oh brother, did we get into it.

My point is that everything you do, some where deep down you know, is for you and no one else. Sure others may benefit from your actions, sometimes your lack of action(I’ll let it slide this time) but the bottom line is that you do things for yourself.

Well the conversation turned to all sorts of examples and of course I shot them all down. I kinda feel bad. Why? Well Nikky starts to cry, which really made me feel bad, and she says that she has spent 14 years in school and now her entire belief system has been shaken. You see she is in the biz of counseling people. While my stand on the issue is not a new one I managed to convince her; she said she will never be the same. I say good!

Now wait before you start to call me names, she was happy with the results and now thinks that she will be better at her job, and so do I.

Nikky mentioned how when she see’s a homeless person she always gives them a few dollars (coins into a pocket with holes) and that helps that person and she does it because she does not like to see people suffer. Well my answer was that the real reason she does it is to calm the guilt she feels for having. Also she does it to boost her ego to rise above those she sees as stuck up you know for not giving, well that just makes her stuck up in her own way. I asked her if she saw a bus full of homeless people would she empty her bank account to help them all and of course the answer was no. Well her ego doesn’t need that much of a boost! We went into much more detail point and counter point. In the end she had to agree that there was no such thing as a truly unselfish act.

While I’ll agree that there are actions that are heroic, the act itself is not performed for the other person.An act without thought is no less selfless then it is selfish. The guilt of non action will drive people to do very heroic and great things things. I think it comes from that part inside of us that feels helpless and overwhelmed with the world… we see a need and bamb we move into action, running into a burning building jumping into a frozen lake, saying “I do.” They are all selfish acts, a desire to control your situation and feel that you have some say in the outcome.

Once while at lunch with some coworkers we were witness to a really bad car wreck, without wasting a sec I took off towards the cars, (they had not even come to rest) and went to the aid of one of the drivers that I could see flying around inside. His head was split open and he was bleeding very badly, and was not breathing. I, like I said, with out much thought began to give CPR, he must have been in shock or just had the wind knocked out of him because he began to gasp for air right away. I then took off my shirt to try and apply pressure to his wounds. After a few seconds I realized that my coworkers were not there. Taking a peak over my shoulder I could see them along with a crowd that had gathered just all staring, no action. I say that what I did and what they did not do is the same, selfish. We were all doing what we wanted/had to do.

And for those would like a cite

[hawthorne]

Since you have been talking to PhD types, let me post a little from a draft of mine on this point. As you will see, I think you’re wrong, but this debate has been going on a long time.

It is usually supposed that behind an apparently altruistic act lies a more subtle selfishness. What is meant by selfishness is however not always clear.

A major difficulty for making sense of differing accounts within economics of the significance of altruistic behaviour is that there is little agreement about what self-interest means. If altruistic behaviour is supposed to be contrasted with self-interested behaviour, this presents some difficulties. As Hirschman has emphasised, this problem has its roots in the political usage of the term “self-interest” and the role it played and continues to play in public and academic discourse. The term self-interest is used both as a euphemism for narrowly selfish behaviour and tautologically. Whilst in modern economics “self-interest” is generally identified with the latter meaning, the identification by Smith and Hume with the former is plain. The “invisible hand” is associated with private vice, of avarice and love of lucre. The canonical butcher and baker quote clearly presents a view of self-interest as a motivation in contrast to benevolence. Smith’s emphasis was on public virtue from private vice, not merely from decentralised interaction.

The tautological interpretation subsumes all motivations under that of self-interest. Self-interest does not consist merely of narrowly defined “economic” or financial motives, but is an encapsulation of a number of different, not necessarily base motivations. Wicksteed, for example, refers to a householder’s decision about what to serve guests for dinner as involving considerations of social status, personal, social and ethical judgements as well as financial and taste matters, all under the rubric of self-interest. Indeed, according to Robbins, Wicksteed “shattered [the] misconception” that “the whole structure of Economics depends upon the assumption of a world of economic men, each actuated by egocentric or hedonistic motives.”

Not surprisingly, the existence of two quite different notions of self-interest, one allied with selfishness, and one encompassing all motives, has been an ongoing source of confusion. In order to make a case for the relevance of non-selfish motivation in economic affairs, it is as though two cases have to made: one for the importance of altruistic motivations as opposed to self-interested ones; and one for the importance of a non-selfish component of self-interest itself. In reference to political behaviour, Mansbridge remarks that

“[s]ome rational choice theorists equivocate on this point, most of the time making the false claim [that political behaviour can be explained in selfish terms], and then backing off to the vacuous claim [that all motives are encompassed by self-interest] under critical fire.”

A clear consequence of an all encompassing view of self-interest is that an unrequited transfer need not be accompanied by a “warm inner glow”; that it need not be subtle selfishness. This is not to say that no apparently altruistic behaviour vanishes under skeptical scrutiny.
A “gift” from (say) a rich person to poor people may serve any or all of the following purposes in terms of the rich person’s utility :
· There may be a flow of commodities as compensation for the “gift”: that is the transfer may be a way of internalising a real physical externality.
· The “gift” may be a roundabout way of achieving some other benefit, such as status.
· The agent may receive a “warm inner glow” from giving. That is the agent’s own welfare may be increased by giving to the poor. Here, the agent feels sympathy for another, and feels better off by giving something to them.
· The agent may feel no better off or even worse off by giving, but still prefer to give. Once a distinction has been drawn between the agent’s own welfare and preferences or between their selfish pleasures and only partly selfish interests, this notion should not seem at all paradoxical.

The utility-maximising agent may quite consistently trade-off own welfare for the perceived welfare of others. That such acts involve a sacrifice does not make the act irrational: merely that what is preferred is not necessarily what maximises own welfare.

If you want to define all behaviour as “selfish” then the term loses all meaning. If you want to say that all intentional action springs from an agent’s own motives - which may be self-regarding or other-regarding - it is a mistake to call this selfishness.

[sup]Hirschman “The Concept of Interest: From Euphemism to Tautology” reprinted in Hirschman, A.O. (1992) Rival Views of Market Society (Viking, New York)
Mansbridge, J.J. (ed.) (1990) Beyond Self-Interest (University of Chicago Press)[/sup]

[Sterra]

So caring about others is selfish.

[tramtwo]

Wasn’t the word altruist recently invented to be in juxtaposition to ego? So if we say that “all have an ego” does that mean that the word ego has no meaning?

While I will agree that some of these concepts are a bit over my head, I know what I feel. I do believe that someone can give for many reasons but never devoid of helping themselves in the process. How much one gives is really a matter of how much one has, not a matter of how much help has been transferred. E.g. Give till it hurts.

[RickJay]

*Originally posted by Asmodean *
**So caring about others is selfish. **

Sort of. It depends what you mean by “Selfish.”

If what you mean by selfish is what the term is generally used for - “an overemphasis on self-interest to the exclusion of the interests of others,” then no, it isn’t.

picmr’s point is that all conscious human behaviour is directed towards maximizing a person’s utility. Utility was once referred to as “happiness,” but that’s an inexact term, so think of utility as being “anything you want to get.” You maximize your own utility by buying the thingsm you want and need and consuming them, by spending time when an where you most desire to spend it, etc.

If you buy the notion that people always want to maximize their utility, then from an economist’s point of view there is no meaningful distinction between “Selfish” and “selfless,” at least from a behavioural perspective. Those terms cease to mean anything, because what increases YOUR utility could be selfish or selfless; it depends on your own personal preferences and the situation. It doesn’t really matter; either way, you’re increasing your own utility.

To use an obvious example, a psychologically healthy human being with children is motivated to protect the well-being of their children. That is, in a sense, a selfless act; parents will go to remarkable lengths of self-sacrifice to protect their children. However, you could also argue that this is a selfish act; since it hurts a person’s feelings when their children are in distress, they are making themselves happier by making their children happy. We could argue all day whether this is selfish or selfless, but the economist will dismiss the issue and say that either way, it increases the parents’ utility. They value happy children, and so they expend effort and resources to make their children happy.

The point I think picmr was trying to make is not that some behaviour isn’t selfish, but that the definition of “Selfish” is sometimes misused. To deny that we do thinkgs because it increases our own utility is absurd; you don’t do anything that doesn’t increase your utility in some way. picmr’s example of the reasons a rich person may give to charity are the perfect example. Anyone who says they’re doing things solely for the good of others is self-deluded. If you volunteer at a homeless shelter you are, at some level, getting something out of it, be it happiness, an absence of guilt, social prominence, or whatever.

An important part of picmr’s essay is this line:

The utility-maximising agent may quite consistently trade-off own welfare for the perceived welfare of others. That such acts involve a sacrifice does not make the act irrational: merely that what is preferred is not necessarily what maximises own welfare.

In economics, you are forever studying how people trade off one thing for another to maximize utility; this is related to the concept of **indifference[/B.] Given a choice between two things, you will choose a mixture of those things that maximizes your utility. I won’t get into indifference curves and tangency to budget constraints, because then I’d be drawing graphs and killing you with boredom, but let me use an example; if you could work any amount of hours and make X for every hour worked, you wouldn’t work 24 hours a day, would you? But then, you wouldn’t work 0. You’d choose a middle point at which the amount of free time you have balances off with the amount of money you can make; whether that’s 8 hours a day or 12 is your preference.

So it is with altruistic behaviour. People will choose a mix that best suits their preferences. Some people will volunteer 10 hours of their time a week, some 10 hours a month. At some point you will arrive at a point where you are giving up exactly the right amount of time and money to maximize your utility between what you get out of selfish behaviour and what you get out of selfless behaviour. Few people will give up NO time and money; if you did, you would probably be motivated to give some up. Few people will give up ALL their time and money; if you did, you would probably be motivated to take some back and spend it on yourself. Unless you’re Mother Teresa.

This is not to say you can’t be a selfish bastard. If you increase your utility by volunteering and being nice to people you meet and not kicking puppies, that’s obviously more useful to the species than if I increase my utility by stealing everyone else’s money and beating old leadies.

The reason we react negatively to selfish behaviour is that extreme forms of selfishness reduce society’s welfare on the whole; if I engage in purely predatory behaviour, stealing and robbing, I will cause more loss of utility in others than I will gain myself (and that’s a mathematically demonstrable fact, at least to economists.) If we all spent our time robbing one another we’d all be dirt poor. On the other hand, if everyone was Mother Teresa, we’d all be poor, too; unless SOMEONE’s working to make money we’re all screwed. Clearly, society requires a relative balance of selfish behaviour and selfless behaviour, and we are conditioned to find an overabundance of one or the other distasteful.

[tramtwo]

The reason we react negatively to selfish behavior is that extreme forms of selfishness reduce society’s welfare on the whole…

If the last family on earth is in a cave, man, woman, and child, and they are about to be attacked by a bear, would not the sacrifice of the child be the correct action to increase society’s chance of welfare? While some may view this act as selfish. Without this action society would cease. For society it was a selfish act for the parents it was selfish act, for the child it was a selfless act forced upon him. Some would say that the parent’s act was selfless and I can see that as well, I am sure they would not see it that way.

I still feel as though there is nothing that you can do that is devoid of gain for yourself, and thus may be making the meaning of the word moot.

[tramtwo]

The reason we react negatively to selfish behavior is that extreme forms of selfishness reduce society’s welfare on the whole…

If the last family on earth is in a cave, man, woman, and child, and they are about to be attacked by a bear, would not the sacrifice of the child be the correct action to increase society’s chance of welfare? While some may view this act as selfish. Without this action society would cease. For society it was a selfish act for the parents it was selfish act, for the child it was a selfless act forced upon him. Some would say that the parent’s act was selfless and I can see that as well, I am sure they would not see it that way.

I still feel as though there is nothing that you can do that is devoid of gain for yourself, and thus may be making the meaning of the word moot.

Mother Teresa was a Saint but her acts, in my mind were not altruistic. …As close as a human can get but not devoid of gain for herself, some would say she was the richest person on earth during her life.

[jmullaney]

*Originally posted by RickJay *
On the other hand, if everyone was Mother Teresa, we’d all be poor, too; unless SOMEONE’s working to make money we’re all screwed.

Well, I imagine you mean to say: unless someone’s working to create value we are all screwed. Not that Teresa’s work wasn’t valuable, but if we did all sit around all day helping the dying die in peace instead of helping the living live then the world would have a problem.

But plainly complete selflessness would not work. If everyone stood around waiting to be asked to help another accomplish a task everyone would be just standing around waiting.

Complete selfishness without virtue doesn’t work either as your case in point of the short happy life of a thief indicates.

But a form of “selfishness” ordered by virtue would be a fair model for humanity.