Is everything we do self serving?

Wasn't it Kant that said something about people only give gifts and do good deeds for others, because it makes them feel good about themselves? Its been a long time since I've read any Kant, but I think it was him. I always welcome corrections and constructive criticism that enlightens.

Quite so. Unpalatable though it may be, everything we do to help others can be explained by a desire to satisfy our own emotional needs (which is not to say that this is necessarily the case - but it is a sufficient explanation). This can be understood on the level whereby we help someone in order to feel self-worth or avoid guilt, and on the evolutionary level whereby feelings of self-worth or guilt have evolved because it helps the group survive if individuals in the group get gratification from helping others.

Simpleliving apologises for being too simplistic, but I think on the contrary he and Cogito et al are being too complex - or at least they need to explain why we should believe their complex explanations when there is a simpler one. Philosophers even up to the time of Adam Smith did not have the benefit of Darwin's evidence or more recent knowledge of genetics and psychology. There is no longer a need to come up with elaborate explanations - except of course the emotional need that some people have to believe they are somehow 'good'!

Altruism is not only satisfying to emotional needs, it is also logically conducive to the survival of genes of which individual reproducers are carriers.

Define self-serving? If self-serving just means trying to do something you want or get something you want in some way, then of course by definition everything is self-serving, which turns the entire concept into a relatively meaningless tautology.

In more everyday terms, the term self-serving as in 'that Joe sure is a self-serving guy', is used to distinguish one set of people from other on certain characteristics that differ between people, namely by being selfish rather than kind. In that case, the answer is no, not everyone and every person's action is self-serving.

Looking at various dictionaries it's well defined, so I don't understand this illogical question.

Not all our actions are self serving, comrads in arms throwing themselves on grenades to save the others, isn't self serving.

We must distinct between self serving as the counciously calculated or subconciously, and the compulsery stimulation of our instincsts.

HexHammer
It could be argued that the soldier that dives on the grenade to save a comrad is doing it for himself also. Maybe he was going to die anywas because of the proximity and so at least if he saves someone doing it, he will die knowing he was courageous and that his action will be known by others.

HexHammer
It could be argued that the soldier that dives on the grenade to save a comrad is doing it for himself also. Maybe he was going to die anywas because of the proximity and so at least if he saves someone doing it, he will die knowing he was courageous and that his action will be known by others.

No, usually the love for their comrades are stronger than their self persevation instinct. Ilike surviving ship mates will feel guilty of surviving a disaster.

I was wondering. Is everything we do, even good brave deeds self serving. Like I am thinking about good things we do, even those where it seems like we are geting nothing in return. Like giving money to a person that is beging, like someone in a wheelchair who you might never see again.

Is even that in a way self serving? It makes you feel good about yourself if you are a non believer. If you are a believer than you either score points with God or you end up good wich leads to peace in next life. I suppose those things depend on what you believe.

At wich point are shure that you are good enough and all you do is maintain good because that's what you have become. At wich point are you certain that all you are doing is because you don't want nothing in return because you already have what you want?

I think that it takes a lot of work on arriving at that point and once you are there you still can't rest but you know that you have either come close to or have fully disolved your ego.

Thanks

I think it would greatly depend on the situation. For instance, if you are a politician who donates money to the homeless every time a camera is present, you are self-serving. If you are walking down the street with someone on a first date, and you give the beggar money to show your date what a good person you are, you're self-serving. If you're all by yourself, with no one there to pat you on the back for your good deed, you're probably doing it for the genuine purpose of helping someone out. I imagine that whether or not you would consider that self-serving would greatly depend on your outlook, and how you've come to interact with the world around you.

As far as feeling like you are 'good enough' goes, I'm not sure you can ever truly reach that point. In fact, if someone is trying to reach it at all, they probably have a lot of learning left to do. Goodness is not a quota. You can't just try really hard and get your whole lifetime-worth of goodness out of the way in a few years so you can screw off the rest of your life. Good people can turn into bad people over night, and vice versa. The only way I would be confident in knowing that I was "good enough" was if I were absolutely certain that I tried my best in every situation that was presented to me, and helped as many people as I could along the way.

I respectfully have to disagree with thinking cat...on three basic premises.

One, the concept of reciprocation, in the case of a stranger, does not hold. If I do give money to a homeless person, first, what is the chance that I will see that person again (I live in a rural area, so it would have to be on a trip) or second, that that person will ever be able to do anything to enhance my survival? On that note, it brings me to the second point of disagreement.

Darwin, sociology tried to borrow the notion of, by coining the term social Darwinism to explain these same things, improving survival. Which seems lacking, for we know that humans a species that is capable and often do fornicate not out of need but pleasure, to the contrary we have devised methods to fornicate and halt reproduction so, for me the Darwinian argument does not describe human behavior sufficiently.

Finally, no science truly deals with what we call “life.” Give a scientist all the parts to make a plant, animal, or human, and there is still life that is unexplained and unaccomplished. Give a mechanic all the parts to make a car and they can make it run. Further, though psychology in name is the connected to the study of the psyche or soul, again they do not study it they do study the brain and emotion, but truly the results they have are as individual as those they treat. To hook "probes" to a person's head and chart activity and think this is understanding the mind vs. brain I believe is a mistake. (Which, naturally, then could call to question of whether the soul and mind are one in the same or two different.) Regardless, I believe that the best study of either is found in philosophy. Further, as an example, a child with one or more parents that is an alcoholic is ‘likely’ to develop what genetics and psychologist deem a predisposition, yet this does not account for an individual who ends up being contrary to the disposition- that is to say, one who does not become an alcoholic. Nor do any of them sufficiently explain "exceptions to the rule." All it explains is that humans have the ability to mimic behavior.

It is not that I don’t have an appreciation of science, I do. I just don’t think that it really explains all that it claims to any better than I think Descartes really solved anything in his Meditations, but it does make for interesting reads.