From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sat Jun 22 2002 - 08:57:24 MDT
Jef writes
> Altruism, and niceness, do exist as real discernable behaviors, but at root
> they're motivated by intrinsically "selfish" concerns. Even when a person
> willingly sacrifices his life for another, it's done to satisfy his own
> needs at the time, based on his own values, interpreted by his own wetware.
> I agree that natural selection and societal rewards have developed that
> behavior trait, but even then it's the "selfish meme" that's responsible.
> [R. Dawkins]
Dawkins is best known for the selfish *gene*, of course. I
don't recall him taking any stand about "the selfish meme".
Your point---basically everything anyone does is for a selfish
reason---is an old argument, and has never struck me as a useful
position. Yes, *everything* we do is in accord with the laws
of physics, and as you say, is to satisfy one's own needs at
the time...interpreted by his own wetware.
We all understand the facts of the situation. All you've done
is to remove a useful concept from the English language: since
everything is selfish, it no longer serves a role in description;
nor do words such as "philanthropy", "unselfish", and "altruistic".
A philanthropist gives a million dollars, anonymously, to charity.
Yet, as you say, he was driven by his own wetware to do it, and
had to be satisfying internal needs.
But how do we more usefully describe someone who admires a certain
waitress, or appreciates her service, and leaves a large tip in a
restaurant he or she is certain never to visit again? It is
pointless, IMO, to analyze this as a *selfish* act.
> I'm a nice person -- because I like to believe it's the best long-term
> strategy, it has worked for me so far, and it matches my existing
> programming. I can easily imagine being placed in an environment where that
> would be a recipe for a quick demise, and in that case I'd be working very
> hard to change my programming. In other words, I'm nice because it suits
> me, not for other people.
You are a nice person because (i) it's a good long term strategy.
Yes.
You are nice because it's a habit (has worked for you so far and
matches your existing programming).
Yes.
But your last sentence "I'm nice because it suits me, not for
other people", may or may not be true. The way to determine this,
if you are game, is my thought experiment: if you learned that
for sure you were the only real person, would your behavior change
in any ways over time?
Lee
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sat Nov 02 2002 - 09:14:58 MST