Anti-Altruism Theory 4/27/2008

It is impossible to unselfishly care for the welfare of others. Example 1: Your friends are going
out to eat; you arent full, but neither hungry. Will you spend money anyway when it wont benefit
you? Example 2: You like to hold the door for people, but today you feel angry and feel like nothing can
cheer you up. Do you still hold the door for people today? Example 3: Your best friend dies. Do you
mourn for him, or do you mourn for the fact you will no longer be able to enjoy his company? Do you
mourn for all good people who die whether you know them or not?
If you didn't feel some reward for doing something "good" then you wouldn't do it. Why do
something that you don't find any reward in doing? So, being altruistic really should mean finding
reward/joy in giving to others. Therefore it has more to do with doing what you find satisfying rather
than being more virtuous than someone else.
-Greg dratsab Huffman

(9/23/2013) Clarification:
I am not stating that we use people to a means to an end, except that we use almost everything
as a means to an end when that end goal is happiness. I am not stating that it is impossible for people to
be moral, but rather that we engage in ethical actions because it brings us happiness, and in the end
isnt that the goal of morality? To bring happiness to humanity? Is it so bad to pick up some selfish
happiness in the process? But I am arguing against the way altruism is thought of as being selfless, as
the self is the most important factor in the equation of what actions we take.
So, why would a man sacrifice himself so that other may live? Maybe because he would rather
die a noble and meaningful death than have to endure the guilt of knowing he could have saved a
human being and thinking he will eventually die a coward. When choosing between two horrible
options, you are also going to choose the one that brings you the least pain. A lifetime of pain may not
be as bad as a death that makes you feel good about yourself.
When I give money to a homeless man, I am buying something. That homeless man has
something to offer for his fee after all I am buying a good feeling in my heart. Everyone wins it seems,
so what is the harm in that? I will never do what I dont think is in my best interest, even if what I
thought was best for me turns out to be an incorrect decision. I may think long-term happiness or short-
term happiness, but no one ever really sacrifices. All sacrifices are merely trades of time, giving up some
quality of experience now so that you can capitalize on a bigger happiness later.
I certainly am not advocating that people are inherently evil or bad. We are just incentive
machines, which I suppose can be seen as cynical. However, we have our incentives hardwired to at
least slightly be in the direction of the morally correct range. I mean, we feel guilt when we hurt people,
and at least fantasize about doing charitable things, even if we are too lazy or too busy to ever actually
go through with them. The very fact that some people mourn over the concern that human beings are
acting immorally or not as good as they should is proof of this. While everyone fantasizes about doing
charitable acts, some judge those that only fantasize by fantasizing about a world where everyone acts
out those fantasies of having the time and resources to be more helpful to other people, and claim that
people arent good because they dont actually work on bringing these dreams to reality. One problem I
believe we have is that we are always too rushed and stressed; we see people that need our help, and
want to help, but we either have to get to work on time, or we are just getting off of work and we are
too tired to help. Actually, let me phrase this better by using a quote I thought up a few months back:
If you think all of humanity is intrinsically evil and lament about this, then you have proven yourself
wrong, because if one was truly evil one would find this a joyous occasion as a victory for their side, or in
the least, not be bothered with such a state. However, you treat evil as a disease consuming your soul,
and thus to recognize this evil in yourself as a bad thing you must have goodness at your core.
If we are such naturally bad creatures, then why are we so bothered by this fact? If we were so
bad then wouldnt we be happy that we were acting in our own self-interest to successfully achieve this
result? I think we just set too high of a standard for human behavior (though psychologically damaging
in my opinion, doing so leads to progress in the long run) and we want some esoteric motivation for
ethical behavior. We dont like the idea of being able to explain things, we are afraid to unweave the
rainbow as Richard Dawkins puts it.
Though I have said this as well:
A morally correct decision should be opposed to reward, because if both line up then any selfish asshole
would make the moral decision all of the time.
I suppose this is kind of hypocritical of me, but I think the reason I said this was mainly as a
response to such things going on as companies issuing public apologies. It seems to come off as a
means to a means to an end of happiness rather than to issue a public apology because it makes them
happy to do so. I think they only issue the apology after thinking it out, and wondering how it will affect
their profits. When I mean reward here, I mean something other than the intrinsic reward of happiness.
However, is it possible that I am making an attribution error here when it comes to companies?

(10/6/2013) ADDITION:
If we want a society afraid to do the wrong thing then bring them up on the idea of external
judgment, but if we want a society that wants to do the right thing we must bring them up on the idea
of internal judgment. Why do we value money so much that we will sacrifice morality for it, but we
dont value morality so much that we will sacrifice money for it? We must anchor our self-interest to
morality the way we anchor it to material gain. Maybe guilt should be a feeling that hurts worse than
the feeling of losing all of your money. Morality must be enforced by making it in our best self-interest,
because everyone always acts in their own best self-interest. It is just that those people we call moral
are moral because it is in their own best self-interest to be so. It is not because they want acceptance
from other people, but because they want to be able to accept themselves.
Is this what Nietzsche said was bad about morality? He said that guilt was a bad thing right? A
slave morality. However, for those that argue that Nietzsche wasnt a nihilist and that he was an
existentialist, then creating your own values has got to have some guilt to follow it if you are persuaded
to act contrary to the moral system you developed for yourself. Maybe what Nietzsche meant was we
shouldnt feel guilty about not following the traditional arbitrary ethical systems we were told to follow.
Maybe he thought that people would internally not feel negative judgment, but would feel judgment
from external influences.

(10/13/2013) NOTE:
Is morality about causing conscious pain in others or is it about empathizing with perceived pain
in others and making it our own? Ive been thinking about this lately and it again triggered while
watching the film Girl Interrupted today. There is a scene in which Angelina Jolies character takes
money from the dead body of a girl who commits suicide. Is this immoral? What does the dead need
with money? But yet we feel an injustice. Is this because we try to see things from the dead girls
perspective even though she feels nothing herself? Even though her pain has ended? If morality is
based on the avoidance of causing others conscious pain, then how is it immoral to do something that
only causes psychological pain in ourselves or those around us based on baseless perceptions?
I believe Michel de Montaigne said that funerals are not for the dead, but for those that are
living. Is that why we spend so much on death and coffins and funerals? Diogenes asked to be thrown
in a ditch when he was dead, but when he was dead, his friends didnt respect his wishes. They gave
him an elaborate funeral. Is this an injustice to Diogenes, or is it okay due to the fact that Diogenes was
dead and had no cares left to what actually happened to his body, so therefore his friends got the
traditional funeral rites that made them happy?
And then comes the problem of consciousness. We can only assume that other people are
conscious of pain, because most of us tend not to be solipsists? Do animals feel pain? Could robots feel
pain? Is abortion okay if the fetus/baby doesnt feel pain? Or is it misery? Isnt misery the problem?
Pain is just a physical response that can be emulated by simple computer programs, but a consciousness
of misery is what we really want to avoid right? Do cattle kept in barbaric factory conditions feel
misery? Surely if misery is the problem, then fetus killing cant be seen as immoral. However, a newly
born baby could also be quietly murdered and would obviously have no memory of it and no misery to
bring along with it. So then morality is more than just not inflicting misery on others, it is about giving
people what we agree are their natural rights.
And can one be immoral without that intent? What if years from now the vegans win and we
look upon these times as just as immoral as the days of slavery? When animals were brutally murdered
and tortured so that we could eat a living creature, how medieval! How old-fashioned! How
reminiscent of the dark ages! But, we cant pillory those who do it, because it isnt with the general
consensus of current morality. When slavery was allowed, you probably couldnt find justice in
aggressively attacking those that practiced it, but imagine if someone tried to practice it today? Surely
they we would feel justified in whatever justice we could bring them to no matter how pernicious.
Is this because of legality? Is this because of education? Or is this because of what the general
public will allow? It seems we can separate what is legal from what is moral in some cases, whether
through loopholes or just by giving people explicit freedom. Education Im not entirely sure of because I
believe most anyone who isnt educated in the ways of general morality and accepting of it is considered
insane and we make some exceptions for them. Possibly someone of another culture we may also make
exceptions for in certain cases. However, I think the main issue is just that of it being a generally
accepted morality of the time. We have to be idealists and unreasonable men first to change the
morality and we have to start soft with our punishments and become harsher with our punishments as
the acceptability rate plummets. Doesnt this mean that even the idealist has to utilize some degree of
utilitarianism? He cant punish as he sees fit until he wins the majority over to his cause, because he
lacks the power in numbers and maybe even some of the certainty that comes with the agreement of
others. So does that mean morality is relative to time period? Can we say that a slave owner in the
1800s would be more morally upright than one living in modern times? How can we ever know for sure
if we are being timelessly moral?

(2/9/2014) Marquis de Sade:
I am reading Marquis de Sades Juliette, and he is touching on some of the same ideas that I am
within this writing. He states that because one receives some vain joy at the prospect of helping
another person that that diminishes the value of the action. Not just that, but it creates a burden on the
receiver of the action so that we will start to dislike that person. The latter thing, I think Ive heard
something stated psychologically about that if the burden becomes too big then we start to resent the
person helping us, but I cant find the article right off. However, the former is what Ive wondered
myself. I feel like we should certainly thank nature for giving them a more pleasant way of receiving
happiness than the way nature curses serial killers to only derive joy from others pain, however, does
the person himself (who had no choice in his tastes) merit thanks? Though, as a determinist, I suppose if
I wanted to argue who deserves merit via that method, then I would have to to stay consistent say
that not a single person deserves merit for any action that they do, and it was only because of the
winning lottery ticket dished out by the random path of nature that any person achieved any great
position in life. Even if they showed great courage, and truly suffered through hard training to get
where they were, isnt it only because nature endowed them with a strong will and cleared their path
from those obstacles which would cut their life short on the battlefield? An injured war hero and a fool
who narrowly avoids winning a Darwin Award may both have suffered equally, so on account of merely
their hard path in life determined by nature should they both be equally as praised for what they
endured, maybe as a way to recompense what nature dished out to them? Maybe even the fool
moreso, since nature doomed him with a less noble path towards suffering.
And it is impossible to overcome this vain joy. Even if one goes out of ones way to prove this
theory false by doing something this person would never ever choose to do on his or her own, then they
have failed from the outset. Because as his reward he seeks the vain joy of proving this theory wrong.