From: J. Goard (wyattoil@foothill.net)
Date: Sat Apr 27 2002 - 12:34:00 MDT
At 12:16 PM 4/25/02 -0500, Lee Daniel Crocker wrote:
>> (Dave Sill)
>> If altruism wasn't one of J R Molloy's useless hypotheses, it should
>> have been. All motivation is ultimately selfish. Caring more about the
>> welfare of others is irrational, if not insane.
With all due respect to Mr. Sill and the many "psychological egoists" out
there, I believe they employ a definition of "interest" which makes their
position trivially true, but which doesn't accord with common usage. This
definiton (roughly, that interest = motivation for action) is quite useful
in theoretical economics, where interesting a priori truths can be derived
from trivial axioms. In ethics, however, I think it just leads to a lot of
talking at cross purposes. When someone believes that an altruistic act
has taken place, they don't believe that [The act was motivated by
something which is not a motivation for action.] They use a different
concept of "interest", which they may not be able to define very clearly
but which seems to be effectively used in our society, and which doesn't
yield such contradictions.
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J. Goard
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The Beyond outside us is indeed swept away, and the
great undertaking of the Enlightenment complete;
but the Beyond *inside* us has become a new heaven
and calls us to renewed heaven-storming.
--Max Stirner
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