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

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