June 30, 2008
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motives
Since my thinking was all screwed up this night and I suddenly realized the totally obvious error of my reasoning I figure I’ll share my new found wisdom with you. Don’t worry this’ll be quick. (this’ll should totally be a word!)
A lot of times you read about how human beings are inherently selfish. That we’re always basically in it for ourselves. All our choices are considered at their heart selfish choices.
People bring up counterexamples of this or that unselfish choice done for this or that unselfish reasons of course. But the argument goes that they are really being done for selfish reasons too! You are doing it so that you will be liked, or so that people will praise your, or even in the hopes of getting something out of it down the line. Selfish right?
Wrong.
Merely the hope or expectation that some benefit will be derived from an act of benevolence is not enough to prove that you are inherently selfish. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing! The fact that you want to look good in front of other people does *not* wholly override and invalidate any of the other reasons why you might be choosing to do a thing. Maybe you want people to pay you on the back, AND you honestly want to help someone else.
And by that logic then there’s a fairly simple test. Imagine if, given a choice you are about to make, that no one will praise you for and you’ll never get any positive benefit from it whatsoever. Now ask yourself, would you still do it? If the answer is yes then that act is altruistic not selfish. So in that case, it’s still fine to hope and wish or dream of good or pleasant things coming to you as a result of the decision. Just so long as you are true to your beliefs and are not doing it *just* to get those things out of it.
So we should probably just be honest with ourselves about all of our motives for a given choice, the selfish and the selfless. And not feel bad about ourselves just because we have selfish motives. It doesn’t make us bad guys just because when we are doing the right things we are sometimes selfishly motivated.
Comments (4)
But isn’t virtue its own reward?
Ha, that axiom might chase more people away from doing good than anything else. The fact of the matter is that the universe is GEARED towards rewarding the altruistic- the benefits may not be recognizable to the more selfish among us, but benefits there are.
And naturally we may find ourselves craving those rewards. As you said, longing for a little praise doesn’t negate the real decency behind the good deed. If someone is doing good ONLY so they will benefit, they will be found out eventually. I mean, if they keep it up over a long period of time.
Yes, it is true that you can hope for reward and not be selfish. But this only applies to yourself as we can not know what peoples’ motives truly are.
Well, no one’s perfect.
As Ambrose Bierce said:
SELFISH, adj. Devoid of consideration for the selfishness of others.