X-Message-Number: 17052 Date: Sat, 21 Jul 2001 22:07:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Scott Badger <> Subject: Re: What is a selfish act? Lee Corbin challenges me to explain the apparently selfless act of letting someone into traffic and limits my response as follows: "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)." OK, I won t use that one. Even though there s some truth to it, it s not the best argument. Lee goes on with: "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, " Exactly!! By George, I think he s got it. J Actually I would suggest that random acts of kindness and acts of civility are rather easily explained. People differ with respect to the degree to which they are willing to make personal sacrifices for the benefit of others from letting someone into traffic to sacrificing one s life. Those differences are a function of multiple factors, but primarily reflect an effort to meet one s social needs (i.e. I feel better about myself when I satisfy my sense of responsibility or my sense of obligation to the welfare of others). For some, this means joining the peace corps, for others it means dropping a quarter in the Salvation Army bucket. It boils down to behaving in a manner which is congruent with and which reinforces one s (perhaps idealized) self-image. IOW, I like to think of myself as a kind, generous, and thoughtful person. Consequently, to behave in a contradictory fashion would cause cognitive dissonance while performing an act of kindness tends to support/reinforce my belief system. Again, I m not denying that people behave in kind, generous and thoughtful ways. I just don t think they act in "self-less" ways. Lee then summarizes by saying: "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!" Well, I consider my argument to be neither comical nor of the hoop-jumping variety. To me, it seems that you are the one who is stretching to find an example that cannot be reasonably explained by my hypothesis. In addition, I have yet to hear your hypothesis for how it is that self-less acts occur. I m enjoying the debate though. P.S. I had not heard of the email hoax either, and I d like to think that I would ve checked my sources before posting such a message. OTOH, some of the cryonet replies struck me as overly critical of Natasha. Suggesting that she and the organizations to which she belong are now suspect as a result is just taking it too far. After all, tolerance and forgiveness may just be in your best interest? J Best regards, Scott Badger "Vita Perpetuem" __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Make international calls for as low as $.04/minute with Yahoo! Messenger http://phonecard.yahoo.com/ Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17052