Is all altruism selfish?

I'm studying this in my degree right now, but I'm interested to hear what everyone else thinks.

Do you think that any act of helping another can ever be truly selfless?

In short, no.

We are all one. To give to another is to give to oneself. It is unavoidable

i like Streens answer and i agree with it - we are all connected

and we cannot remove our self from our self, therefore we cannot act on behalf of anyone other than our self

but - this does not mean that we cannot also act with sincere intent and desire for the well being or betterment of others, or simply of something other than ourselves

the idea of selflessness is valid

it is about acknowledging the world around us and the other people in it as being equal to and independent from us and being equally valuable in their own right

how selfish is it for a soldier to smother a grenade with his body, or for a parent to spend 20 yrs at the factory so their kid can go to the prom and study medicine?

only the individual can determine if their own "altruism" is selfish or not

It is a question in moral absolutes. It's not something that one encounters out in the wild.

I agree with the last two. And if I did good for you that actually harmed me, who knows if that is good for you in the long term? Consequences are hard to know.

It's a valid enough question, but I most often see it employed for shabby reasons. "Can you be perfectly good? No? Then I no longer need to defend my harmful behavior." As if the fact that one cannot be perfect is a good reason to be terrible.

I suppose my response would be, "does it matter? Just do your best to be kind."

Does anyone think that maybe motivation is a factor here? If someone gives money to a charity helping starving children, can it be altruistic if you care, but you also feel guilty because it's happening, at the same time?

Can you be altruistic if you think you're being altruistic, or does it then become a factor of ego?

Just questions really.. thoughts.

As I think about it, I guess we have to decide on selfless. If we say that it involves no good to the self, that's one thing.

What if we employ the word differently. If I operate without thought to the self, naturally, unselfconsciously? If one does good almost as a reflex? One could cultivate such actions until they become automatic. Would that be more useful to the question?

Myself, I figure if one does their best for others with the intention of relieving suffering, that might be enough. There will always be mistakes. Unintended consequences. But we have to start somewhere, don't we.

As an aside, I wonder if the need to be heroic can get in the way of being merely good for people.

Thanks for bringing this up.

Cabur Senaar wrote: As an aside, I wonder if the need to be heroic can get in the way of being merely good for people.

That is something I had considered...

imo motivation is the decisive factor - the only factor really if the question is "is altruism selfish?"

for instance if i make a public display of my charity work so that it looks good when i run for senator, which i need to do to become president, which will allow me to declare martial law and hire Brain, Lex Luthor and Dr Evil as the ambassadors of my administration

then clearly this charity work ive done was completely selfish

i dont think its so bad that one does something good out of a sense of guilt that something bad is happening

i think that the truly selfish do not feel much guilt at their lack of participation towards a solution

not at a very meaningful level anyway - not at a level that they cant just dismiss at a thought

unless of course they are obsessing over "not being good enough" in comparison to others

but an honest self evaluation should let one know what it is they actually care about in these cases

basically, i think that if youre feeling like you should be doing more to help because you see how much the work needs to be done, then youre probably not as selfish as you think you are

whereas if you ONLY want to be recognized for your efforts (in the sense that you really dont care if anything changes so long as people see that youre involved) or you want to be involved as a way of being "better" than all those other common rabble folk

then your motives are pretty selfish

and forgive me for the use of the word "you" - im not directing this at any particular person

Altruism for altruism's sake is probably anything but altruistic ... :huh:

If one is not selfish because it feels better to not be selfish than to be, then I would just say that is the effect of going with nature ... (the human animal is, after all, an empathic creature - as are all the great apes)

If one is not selfish to be considered unselfish, by public or private identity/image ... then it is self-ish. :blink:

One just does what presents itself to be done ; once the task is done, one forgets about it ...

Or, perhaps I didn't understand the question ....

Man. Streen, that really hit me hard. Very nicely done.

We ARE all connected. So, Altruism is a necessarily selfish thing. We all work for the better of all of us. But, it is our perspective and motivation that can lead us to greater possibilities. Mmm. Thank you.