From: Colin Hales (colin@versalog.com.au)
Date: Fri Jun 21 2002 - 23:36:42 MDT
Jef writes
> What is this "altruism" that you speak of?
Tricky. A well worn subject but I had another think and this is
it's blurt in my current mentalese.
The key to altruism is, I think, in recognising the difference
between the 3rd and 1st person viewpoint. Altruism is usually an ascription
by a 3rd party. A particular class of apparently unselfish behaviour
could be described as altruism by a 3rd party, but
nevertheless be the result of what is ultimately selfishness on the part
of the observed. Mother Theresa's 'good work', interpreted as pure
altruism to the point of sainthood, is a 3rd party view. The 1st person view
of M.Theresa will never be known. What can be said is that
motivation can be tuned from selfish to unselfish and back again
liguistically.
Some 1st person views:
eg. I, Saint Theresa, behaved apparently altruistically, to help others
because:
* (unselfish) I truly wanted to relieve suffering
* (selfish) I feel better in the presence of people who weren't
suffering.
* (unselfish) I believe in setting a good example to others
* (selfish) that others (the 'believers in the presence of altruismness')
behave in ways beneficial to me personally (I get the warm fuzzy
kickback)
* (unselfish) I believe in the dictates of my God.
* (selfish) that I need to score God brownie points
for the purposes of dealing with the pearly gate situation.
The extent to which the 1st person altruistic behaver is deluded about
the unselfishness of the situation is all that may be arguable.
Colin Hales
*I think I've been possessed by Daniel Dennett! Eeek!*
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:57 MST