X-Message-Number: 17022 Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 09:08:19 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: CryoNet #17013 - #17019 Lee Corbin wrote: "You can go ahead and *call* great acts of philanthropy selfish if you want to. You can go ahead and claim that altruism doesn't exist. You can maintain that every single act done by every single organism in the universe is done because it is obeying the laws of physics and is selfish." [end] OK. I think I will. And you can go ahead and *call* great acts of philanthropy altruistic if you want to. Where's the *practical* distinction, anyway? You seem to imply that an act of kindness is diminished somehow because it's a manifestation of a fundamentally selfish act. The word "selfish" is not a pejorative in my mind, though it is possible for one to be excessively, as well as insufficiently, selfish. "You are merely making it very hard for people to understand you, and you are relegating to the dust bin a lot of words and concepts (e.g. thoughtfulness, generosity, kindness) that have been part of human languages for one hundred thousand years." and therefore we should grant that people on occasion act altruistically." [end] Yes, many people have been conditioned to put a negative spin on the concept of selfishness. I remember first seeing the title of Ayn Rand's book, "The Virtues of Selfishness" and thinking how oxymoronic that sounded. But the many words and concepts we've developed (e.g. thoughtfulness, generosity, kindness) are safe and sound. If it is true that self-interest lies at the root of all human behavior, it nevertheless appears to be the case that self-interested acts do result in the manifestation of a broadly diverse set of apparently altruistic behaviors that require specific words and concepts to define and differentiate them. Scott Badger __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Get personalized email addresses from Yahoo! Mail http://personal.mail.yahoo.com/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17022