A Truly Selfless Act

[addy]

Is an act of true altruism possible? Or is even the kindest act doomed to have a selfish motive?

[srijantje]

It might depend on reaction time
if you grab someone from the front of a speeding car the selfish motive factor might not have had time to kick in

[Touchstone]

If you reduce it to that level I think the answer is no, even in the speeding car scenario. Some people would do it, some wouldn't. The ones who would, even if they sacrificed their own lives in the process, would do so because they (even if it's just instinctively) believed that it was the "right" thing to do.

To be absolutely altruistic it would have to be something you believed should definitely not be done, so that you couldn't possibly derive any satisfaction from having done the 'right' thing.

[Having said that, I don't think that feeling pleased at having done a good deed is in any way a bad thing.]

[srijantje]

no,in the end the important thing is that the deed gets done and people derive benefit from it
the giver as well as the receiver.

as for the first part of your post,who knows what's the 'right' thing?

[Touchstone]

It doesn't matter whether it is objectively 'right' or not. It's simply that if you do something which you think is right (or even just 'not wrong') then you (unless you're a psychopath, or whatever the correct psychological term is for someone with emotional dysyfunction) can't help but derive some degree of satisfaction from it. In which case it's not 100% altruistic since you've gotten something from it.

[srijantje]

my point is,if you instinctively save somebody's life,the satisfaction comes afterwards,you didn't do it for a selfish reason

[addy]

What makes the discussion more confusing is that evolutionary behaviorists would argue that even instinct doesn't necessarily count as motiveless. A mother who by instinct protects her child without a fleeting thought to herself is acting on biological impulse to protect her DNA. A person who by instinct moves to save a stranger is merely acting to preserve an implied social structure where, should he be endangered, he will also be assisted by other individuals within the society. Or so the theory goes.

Personally I can't be very fond of a school of thought that completely discounts kindness as a reality, or at least reduces it too much

[Touchstone]

Instinct is either motiveless or not.

If it isn't, then it's not altruistic.

If it is, then since altruism is putting the interests of someone else before your own I don't think an action taken without any thought as to the consequences could qualify as altruistic. If it happened to have a positive outcome then that would be merely coincidental.

[I think the problem with the discussion is that it's attempting to pin down real world examples of an ideal--an abstract concept which can ever truly exist in reality. It's like freedom of speech--if you give two people "total" freedom of speech (and really can anything be free if it's not total?) then one could shout whenever the other tried to speak--preventing him from ever expressing himself to his desired audience ie. circumscribing his freedom of speech. Unless you tell the second guy he isn't free to express himself in that particular way in which case you've circumscribed his freedom of speech. ie. Genuinely free speech cannot ever exist.

[addy]

Good point about instinct... intent must be present

Personally though I didn't think altruism has the same real-world difficulties as free speech... total free speech is impossible because the free speech of one could negate another, but I don't think the same conundrum applies in altruism. I believe it can exist fully and purely in the real world, its just damn hard to prove

[billy]

i think we first have to decide what a selfless act consists of.
would mother theresa be classed as committing any truly selfless acts.
are people capable of putting another before themselves without pride
or motive and in the knowledge that it could be harmful to themselves.
without being a masochist or deriving pleasure form the fact before hand.
i don't see instinct as being selfless.

what about a young woman giving birth, only one can live and the mother chooses it should be the child simply because the child is helpless and can't make a choice,