Altruism and egoism

A common complaint among proponents of altruistic ideologies is that their ideas would work “if only man weren’t so selfish and greedy”. But they fail to explain why selfishness and greed are bad things. Why are they bad? If altruism were human nature, would it be viewed as evil and would selfishness and greed be viewed as noble aspirations?

He who views man’s fundamental nature as evil desires death, because we all wish to destroy what we perceive as evil; thus, if we perceive man as evil then it is man we wish to destroy.

I don’t think that the ideas could ever work, if you observe the society today.
Egoism and greed are naturally. But in fact, many people suffer from it, because of havint it in the excess. I don’t think that egoism damages the person, but too much egoism and greed is an evil combination which causes ignorance and “alienation” of our society which lacks social thinking. For instance, Is it a bad thing when someone who belongs to upper class and has enough money, would contribute a few items to the Red Cross?!

I don’t think you really answered my question.

You’d make an excellent politician

Ignorance, alienation and greed are indeed problems, and as some posters have been pointing out lately they all play into each like toungue and grove gears. Basically, I think when someone behaves greedily they are stepping on their heart or running it over with a tire and that where it’s inherent “badness” comes in. Although, I do think there is also a objective good and evil and bad or good besides that which is in fact quite obvious.

I was just trying to express my opinion, because there is no proper answer I’ve found. But about a politician. I will think about it. Now I know for sure I would get one vote at least

Actually, bad and good are relative parameters.

It’s assumption that we perceive to destroy eachother or things we may observer as evil. But every individual has his/her own idea of “evil”. I needed a more exact describtion of what you mean here by evil.

What actually is evil has no bearing on the fact that people wish to destroy whatever it is they perceive as evil.

In that case I can comprehend and agree with your thesis. After reading the book “Clash of Civilizations”, I’ve realized that no matter how tolerant people pretend to be, they will always fear the unkown and try to destroy it.
My conclusion is (in general):
Western civilizations with progressive economic who are powerful, try to impose our values on non-western civilizations, because of the fear. They consider the non-western civilizations as “dangerous” and “evil”.
and at the same time the non-western civilizations asser their own cultural values and refect those imposed on them by the West.
Why do cultural differences promote cleavages and conflicts?!

1st reason is the multiple identities clash!
2nd reason is the societal level: enhanced capabilities to show “our power” (identification by reviltalization of cluture and religion)!
3rd reason is our egoism (here i come to the point) … we versus “the others”. We want to destroy what seems to us dangerous. But how should we know if we are right or not?!

btw, sorry for going a bit offtopic, I know it wasn’t about cultural differences, but it was just an example that not only the greed and the egoism should be blamed

Certain non-westerners are dangerous and evil, that should be all but fact by now, but young American and European men are dying senseless deaths everyday in Iraq, just because they don’t value individual life as much as we do. Perhaps they believe that religion is more important than people and we believe that money is more important than people. Perhaps there is a whole lot of sinning and evil going on on all sides.

theoryofexist:

like you say, many people forget about authority and are focused only on getting money

and by the way, during the war in Iraq, many citizen (who had moved away from Iraq many years ago) turned back to fight for their country… Patriotic or just sick minded?!

Ok, cause no-one has actually tried to answer your question Kurt, I’ll have a stab, and this is just the preliminary jab as I don’t have a terribly long time to think about it tonight!

I will talk about a collective pot of work and the idea of being able to put work into the pot and then take it out of the pot, it’s to try and put across the idea of co-operation, but on a non-specific activity. An example is grooming in chimps, a chimp can’t groom it’s own head, all it can do is get someone else to do it. However, a selfish chimp may get his own head groomed, and then not groom the other chimp’s head in return. This is not supposed to be an exclusive example, for example the NHS is a good example of a collective pot, or government, it’s just that many examples have little nuances in them which complicate the whole thing, so I’m trying to keep it simple.

Why it is bad to be selfish:

There is (usually) a greater overall gain in co-operation. So though everyone puts in an imaginary 2 units of work in to the pot, they get out 3. Now if one is selfish, one can put no units of work into the pot, and still get out 3 by taking advantage of everyone else’s work. This is great for that one person, but to everyone else’s detriment, though a small detriment. However, if everyone started acting selfishly then no-one would put any work into the collective ‘pot’ and hence no-one could take any out. Thus selfishness is bad because firstly it takes advantage of other people and is in all but name stealing and secondly it can collapse a good system as it tends to be infectious.

Why it is bad to be greedy:

1. There are only a certain amount of resources in the world, and not enough to go around at that.

2. I take it that greedy literally means taking more than you actually need.

Add those two together and that means being greedy is literally denying other people resources that you have no real need for, just a desire. For every fat american, there are, say, 19 starving Africans. Share the food a bit better and you may have 3 healthy people and 17 starving ones. There are still people starving, but there are three times as many happy people in the world.

Were they the kind of replies you were looking for Kurt?

Matt said:

“There are only a certain amount of resources in the world, and not enough to go around at that.”

This is not necessarily true, it is fear that tells people there is not enough good to go around when if they actually worked for it they would get it in some measure, maybe not necessarily a ton of it but enough.

To return to the chimp analogy, would it not be more selfish for the chimp to return the favor? If he doesn’t comb through another chimp’s hair, then no one else will bother combing through his hair ever again, whereas if he returns the favor it’s more likely that other chimps will be willing to go through his hair, resulting in the our chimp getting more of what he wants for himself–in other words, the greedy and selfish course of action is to return the favor.

Does anyone disagree that it is man’s fundamental nature to do what is in his own best interests? If you do not disagree with that and you also find egoism to be evil rather than virtuous, then you desire death–because evil is what any man desires to destroy, and destruction of man results in death.

I don’t object to egoism, but I do object to the form it usually takes in political philosophy. Adopt Ayn Rand’s form of egoism and you’ll probably end up successful (in a very, very limited sense), but you’ll have left social relationships and other human needs by the wayside. You’ll end up rich, friendless and unhappy. Is that in your self-interest? Consumerism is a trap, I’ve said elsewhere why true self-interest cannot be served by material possessions.

This statement is very superficial. You might more accurately say that those who perceive people as evil wish to destroy man as we know him currently, or alter human nature. The degree to which human nature can be altered is a separate debate.

How did you reach that conclusion?

I don’t see how Randian rational self-interest precludes interpersonal relationships.

It doesn’t necessarily, but the emphasis it puts on capitalist economics and greed means that followers of her philosophy aren’t as likely to interact informally as equals as they are to as buyer and seller, or employer and employee. This view of objectivism is, admittedly, more derived from my observation of its followers than the philosophy itself.

(edit)

I found this on an objectivist website, it fairly neatly illustrates my point. Note how happiness as the goal of life isn’t mentioned, only survival and productivity.

You can’t be happy if you’re not alive (dead people don’t experience emotions) and you can’t be alive unless you produce what you need to remain alive (or produce something that others are willing to exchange what you need to remain alive for).

But does an increase in happiness follow from an increase of productivity?

Grave,

I think that the point being made is that, productivity is needed for living and living is needed for happiness. So to answer your question: yes.

Dark,

Rand asserts that selfishness is the basis for survival. A freedom to persue happiness is generaly a theme in all of Ayn Rands writings, both fiction and philosophy. So I would not make the claim that objectivism doesn’t support personal relationships and happiness. On the matter of human relations in buissiness and personal life, Rand has written exstensively. It can be sumed up in many quotes, but basicaly it comes down to no man is a slave to another man, nor does he make a man a slave to himself.

Of course, how is a mother looking after a child in the mother’s best interest? She has to spend time and resources looking after the child, quite often being supported by a man who is also not acting in his own best interest.

More on the chiump thing when I’ve got an hour or so spare.