Is there such thing as a selfless act?

Originally posted by mrstabby
Altruism i.e. living your life for others is only a degree or so off suicide, it is nothing to be proud of, or to strive for.
True for the individual in the short term, bad for the population, and possibly as a result the individual in the long term. In small doses it doesn't adversely affect the individual (such as letting someone go through a doo ...[text shortened]... o only act altruistically if you are likely to benefit in the long run.

"Acts like this will benefit you in the long run"

So you're not acting out of sacrifice, also 'shoving' is an initiation of force :^) totally opposed to that.

"Some of your colleagues may have quit when they didn't get the payback they expected."

So they weren't acting altruistically, they claimed they were but the claims were dishonest, they may have even been dishonest to themselves.

"Don't agree with that, why does calculation have to come into it?"

When we act on instinct we are less than humans, our ability to reason is what sets us aside from the other critters. What about the guy that will climb over top of his buddies to escape the grenade? Do you blame him? Do you want to use that as an example? These emergency 'adrift in a life boat' type situations are not where we should be looking when discussing whether a decision is volitional or human, all the rules go out the window. We do not live in a constant 'live grenade in a foxhole' scenario.

Originally posted by Wajoma

When we act on instinct we are less than humans, our ability to reason is what sets us aside from the other critters. What about the guy that will climb over top of his buddies to escape the grenade? Do you blame him? Do you want to use that as an example? These emergency 'adrift in a life boat' type situations are not where we should be looking when discu ...[text shortened]... rules go out the window. We do not live in a constant 'live grenade in a foxhole' scenario.

Is it possible though that we have a human instinct that naturally sets us apart from other species. Why should our ability to reason, not be an instinctive human attribute?

Originally posted by kmax87
Is it possible though that we have a human instinct that naturally sets us apart from other species. Why should our ability to reason, not be an instinctive human attribute?

Without consulting wiki or a dictionary, off the top of my head I'd say acting on instinct is acting without thought.

Originally posted by der schwarze Ritter
The U.S. servicemen fighting the War on Terror perform selfless acts every day, as do policemen and firemen. Also, what about parents who jump in to save a drowning child, or would you define these as "heroic" acts?

The military personnel, police and firemen are paid to do what they do. It is possible to be prosecuted in a court of law if you do not do the rescue. It depends on the situation.

Originally posted by Wajoma
"Acts like this will benefit you in the long run"

So you're not acting out of sacrifice, also 'shoving' is an initiation of force :^) totally opposed to that.

"Some of your colleagues may have quit when they didn't get the payback they expected."

So they weren't acting altruistically, they claimed they were but the claims were dishones ...[text shortened]... the window. We do not live in a constant 'live grenade in a foxhole' scenario.

When we act on instinct we are less than humans
Wrong there, instinct is part of what makes us human. We are spontaneous organisms, not programmed machines. People who think and reason all the time are considered to be robotic if a little inhuman. Those who allow their instincts to flow are seen as more human.
our ability to reason is what sets us aside from the other critters
Animals act on experience and have been shown to think logically to gain rewards. This is no different from human reason. As far as I know, no traits have been demonstrated to be exclusively human.
What about the guy that will climb over top of his buddies to escape the grenade? Do you blame him? Do you want to use that as an example?
Another example of instinct... I don't blame him for anything. I don't see what it has to do with the existence of altruism unless you're making things black and white. We don't have to be acting altruistically all the time for it to be present.
These emergency 'adrift in a life boat' type situations are not where we should be looking when discussing whether a decision is volitional or human, all the rules go out the window.
My point is that we go through most of our lives without directly considering what we are doing. We live in an environment of stimulus and response, and there are far too many stimuli for us to respond to everything on our own volition.

Originally posted by mrstabby
When we act on instinct we are less than humans
Wrong there, instinct is part of what makes us human. We are spontaneous organisms, not programmed machines. People who think and reason all the time are considered to be robotic if a little inhuman. Those who allow their instincts to flow are seen as more human.
[i]our ability to reason is what se ...[text shortened]... e, and there are far too many stimuli for us to respond to everything on our own volition.

Robotic to me suggests unthinking, incapable of reasoning, those that go through life on instinct I.e. eating, sleeping, bonking with a measure of work thrown in to make the eating, sleeping and bonking possible. Those that go through life on instinct are not living up to their potential, they go along bouncing off stimuli, not knowing how or why.

Where as those that do make full use of their abilities to reason and think are the interesting people, the creators, the achievers, the movers, the font of original thought, progress and innovation.

Go ahead and compare yourself to a dumb beast mcstabby but leave me out, Dangit, take a look around you, look at the water faucet, don't even start to think about the water, how it's treated and how it gets to your house. Just look at the faucet, it's made of metal, do you know what goes into digging that out of the ground (a specific locale no less) refining it, shaping it etc etc.

Your home work assignment: A short essay by Leonard E. Read

http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Essays/rdPncl1.html