X-Message-Number: 17043 Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 00:45:46 -0700 From: Lee Corbin <> Subject: What is a selfish act? Scott Badger and Robert Ettinger have made it clear that no one is going to tell them what they can and cannot *call* "selfish" :-) Here, then, is a specific challenge. You are driving on a very busy street in a huge metropolis that you've never been to before, and probably never will visit again. The traffic on this street is backed up for a block, at least. You are about five car lengths from an intersection. Now the light changes to green, and the traffic starts to move. At this point you notice someone in a car to your right trying to get out of a parking lot onto the street. Your options are to ignore this person, or allow him or her to go before you. If you ignore this person, and all the people behind you do the same, then in principle that individual may have to wait for hours before the traffic subsides to the point that he or she has the right of way. Now quite a few people, on occasion, will allow such a car to go in front of them. Would you? Whether you personally ever do such things or not, how do you explain the actions of people who do? I do not want to hear lame, unrealistic answers like "well, I might do it, but it would be for a selfish reason---if I'm nice to that person, then he or she will be nice to someone else [faulty logic!], and eventually it would get back to benefit me". No, as I said, you are in a very, very large city that you never intend to visit again (sorry to be so thorough here). Also very feeble is the reason, "Well, I did it in order to feel good." Well, duh! EVERYTHING that people do could be written off with such reasoning, e.g., "I, Sidney Carton, do willingly give up my life for my friend Entremonde---not out of love or honor---heavens no! Instead, it is a far, far more selfish thing that I do, than I have ever done before, and a far more self-interested rest that I go to... than I have ever gone before". [Absurd] Nothing is more comical than to hear libertarians try to rationalize every genuine act of kindness they do, as something committed for their own self-interest. The excuses they make! The hoops they jump through! Lee Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17043