You do believe in psychological egoism, right Veeky Forums?

I disagree and I can already predict your explanation and have a rebuttal for that as well

But go ahead

Delete this tread this topic is fucking pointless.
You can interpret egoism in the conventional way and then it is obviously false. You can also interpret it as "Humans fo what is best for them > what makes them feel the best > what they want to do" which basically renders the statement true but pointless.

That's one way of putting it yes. But on a psychological level, he has been tempted by the idea of honour. And honour is an idea that we associate with people (including women) liking us. It's associated with greater reproductive success.

Ultimately I would say that is some of the psychological reasoning behind why he jumped on the grenade.

Fair enough. Some people disagree though, they think altruism is somehow inherent. I disagree with them. But such people exist.

Can you give me a short summary? What's his main claim?

Look at my first reply in this post where I have given my rudimentary psychological analysis of why a soldier would jump on a grenade. Is this the sort of reply you predicted? Also please do present a rebuttal.

>You can also interpret it as "Humans fo what is best for them > what makes them feel the best > what they want to do" which basically renders the statement true but pointless.
It's not pointless when some people genuinely think that we have evolved some innate capacity to act selflessly.

And they think that "genuine" selflessness can exist. They think there are some actions which can't have had a selfish motivation whatsoever.

And they're wrong, in my view.

you didn't get my point (I'm the last post)
These terms like sefless or egoistic are so arbitrary that you can find any answer just because of the definition you choose.
You could say they are wrong because in the end you do what you want to do and that's egoistic or you could say someone who gives all his property to ithers and lives a poor life is not egoistic and they are right.

>These terms like sefless or egoistic are so arbitrary that you can find any answer just because of the definition you choose.
But they're really not, they are obviously meaningful terms, because we use them all the time, and when somebody says "I think true altruism exists", their statement is meaningful. We know what they mean. And when someone says "a soldier who sacrifices himself for his comrades is purely selfless - there is no selfish motivation for that action whatsoever" - again that is a meaningful statement; we all know what they mean by that claim.

>You could say they are wrong because in the end you do what you want to do and that's egoistic
That's a very shallow analysis and sort of meaningless. Because those who object to psychological egoism would say that sometimes you want to do things that are altruistic.

>someone who gives all his property to ithers and lives a poor life is not egoistic and they are right.
But the claim of the psychological egoist is that, no matter what you do, you are always being selfish. Those who object say this is not the case - that genuine selflessness, which isn't ultimately explained by selfish motivation, exists.

You seem to think it isn't a meaningful debate. I think it is.

okay so you are going the route of regarding the way the words are generelly understood to be their meaning. In that case the soldier isn't egoistic. You could do a representative poll but you know too that the result would be that the soldier is not acting egoistically at all.
As a counterexample has been found the proposition that everyone always acts egoistically has been disproven.

is that an ironic title? that's schubert

apologies if i missed a joke

Its a pretty well established fact that helping others makes you feel good.

So if you take that to mean people only help each other because it makes them feel good, then I suppose it would be true.

Or maybe its because he's acting in the interestof his friends, at his own expense, because he has a bond and brotherhood with them, and the idea of him "upholding his honor" is the last thing on his mind. Do you really think his last thought would be "im doing an honorable thing right now"? No, it would be "my friends cant get hurt". It doesnt make any sense from his perspective at all, being perceived as honorable after death for a short period of time is not a worthwhile trade off for an entire life lived honorably and filled with pleasure.

This is stupid. Also it isn't testable, so its meaningless.

Then again, "psychological" is in the name so we already knew this to begin with. This is like sociology tier bullshit.

All choices should be rational from the perspective of the person taking the action. If they are purposely trying to make an irrational choice, then they would be irrational people that probably belong in a mental institution. I view everyone as egotistical. I think it is the achilles heel of humanity.

This type of question can drive people insane. George Price committed suicide after concluding that no one could escape his mathematical equation that suggests that altruism does not exist.

The Radio Lab is really fun to listen to,

radiolab.org/story/103983-equation-good/

>okay so you are going the route of regarding the way the words are generelly understood to be their meaning.
That's how words usually derive their definition, yes.

>In that case the soldier isn't egoistic. You could do a representative poll but you know too that the result would be that the soldier is not acting egoistically at all.
His act is one we would call selfless, yes. But the question is whether it is *ultimately* motivated by selfish reasons or not. And my contention is that it is. But others disagree. Some people think there are selfless actions that are not at all motivated by selfish reasons.

>Its a pretty well established fact that helping others makes you feel good.
That's true although I think it's more interesting to think about why it makes you feel good. And usually it's because you know that you have gained respect for acting morally. You have gained social currency. Which is of course valuable.

>Or maybe its because he's acting in the interestof his friends, at his own expense, because he has a bond and brotherhood with them, and the idea of him "upholding his honor" is the last thing on his mind. Do you really think his last thought would be "im doing an honorable thing right now"? No, it would be "my friends cant get hurt". It doesnt make any sense from his perspective at all, being perceived as honorable after death for a short period of time is not a worthwhile trade off for an entire life lived honorably and filled with pleasure.
You are misunderstanding how the mind works. We make split-second decisions. Soldiers are trained to suppress their survival instincts, to act selflessly, to act in the interests of the unit / their country, rather than themselves. This training manifests itself in split-second decisions. And I disagree with your characterisation - I think he does think about honour when he jumps on the grenade, although as I say, it's a split-second decision.

But ultimately they only agree to such training because they believe that it benefits them. People only become soldiers because they are attracted by the salary, the prestige (or maybe they're conscripted by force, and they want to avoid jail / execution for not signing up).

>Also it isn't testable, so its meaningless.
>Then again, "psychological" is in the name so we already knew this to begin with. This is like sociology tier bullshit.
Again, completely false. Psychology is a scientific field, based upon scientific testing of human behaviour.

Many psychological tests show that we essentially always act selfishly, and that we only act selflessly if we have an incentive to do so. You could construct many more tests as well. It certainly is testable. I don't know why you think it isn't.

I would say that the reason we feel good when we help others is because it is evolutionary advantageous, seeing as we existed as social groups.

In the same way that a mothers love and selflessness is evolutionary advantageous.

I think theres a lot more at play than just people fueling an ego.

>All choices should be rational from the perspective of the person taking the action. If they are purposely trying to make an irrational choice, then they would be irrational people that probably belong in a mental institution.
Intuitively that seems correct, yes. But some people think that altruism is in itself rational. Because they think being kind to others is itself a rational goal, because it creates good in the world... or some shit like that (this isn't my view)

>This type of question can drive people insane.
Probably yes.

>George Price committed suicide after concluding that no one could escape his mathematical equation that suggests that altruism does not exist.
Well I would say altruism DOES exist, otherwise the word is meaningless. Perhaps actions which materially benefit someone else, rather than yourself, are altruistic.

But my contention is that even these acts are *motivated* by ultimately selfish reasons, otherwise they are - like you seem to think as well - irrational.

Come back when you have a neuroimaging study that isnt totally contradictory, then we can talk about your "hypothesis", which is totally unsubstantial at this moment.

Ultimately it comes down to you trying to explain all human behavior as the result of one impulse, which is beyond a bold claim to make, especially without any evidence to support it. Can you do a neuroimaging study on the guy jumping on a grenade to illustrate your point? No, you cant, and I would be willing to bet anything that the pathways in his brain at that moment would absolutely not link to whatever center is associated with selfishness.

Its an interesting opinion and a question to ponder, but this hardly even amounts to a hypothesis because the claim is A. way too overarching (all behavior) and B, nearly impossible to test in the manner you propose.

Meaningless.

>I would say that the reason we feel good when we help others is because it is evolutionary advantageous, seeing as we existed as social groups.
To who? It isn't advantageous for a person to care about anyone other than their children (their genes).

>I think theres a lot more at play than just people fueling an ego.
You're right because human psychology is complex, but ultimately all motivation is selfish, in my view.

>Ultimately it comes down to you trying to explain all human behavior as the result of one impulse
No it's not, it's just a very simple, and very BROAD, categorisation of all human behaviour as being motivated by self-interest.

>Can you do a neuroimaging study on the guy jumping on a grenade to illustrate your point? No, you cant, and I would be willing to bet anything that the pathways in his brain at that moment would absolutely not link to whatever center is associated with selfishness.
You can do PSYCHOLOGICAL TESTS to establish whether this man would act in this "selfless" manner if he had not had selfish motivations to do so.

For example. I bet that if soldiers are paid poorly, and have to live in bad conditions, and morale is low, then they are probably statistically much less likely to act heroically / selflessly. Yes this is pure speculation - but you could do a psychological test/study to show whether this is true or not. So as I say, I disagree with your assertion that it's not testable.

>Its an interesting opinion and a question to ponder, but this hardly even amounts to a hypothesis because the claim is A. way too overarching (all behavior) and B, nearly impossible to test in the manner you propose. Meaningless.
Again, for the reasons I have given, it IS testable, using psychological studies. Psychology studies behaviour under certain circumstances, and then draws meaningful conclusions.

just the fact that you had to use asterix to express what you meant shows the issue.
You are not talking about the conventional definitions. You are talking about the *ultimate* motivation behind an action. People agree that the soldier is not egoistic but is he also "*ultimately* not egoistic"? You are using a different property here which is not defined by how it is generally understood because it is not used. So it boils down to a lack of definitions again.

Oh whoops, the last two points are a response to this post:

It is advantageous for a person to assist their society. Humans are not solitary creatures, we evolved to live in societies. We could not function properly on our own in the wild, not for long anyway.

This isn't psychology as much as a philosophy of psychology. It has no real definition for self interest. Is it long term? Short term? For just his own pleasure or for a more evolutionary reasoning?

In other words it's pseudoscience. It is too flexible and obscure to be testable, makes no falsifiable claims and would simply rearange the meaning of the words whenever something contradicts the statement.

I have a major in psychology by the way. One of the first things you learn in psychology classes is how to call bullshit on things like this. By far more so than any other undergraduate field.

It's obviously wrong. Humans act against their own (perceived) self-interest all the time, may it be out of boredom, laziness, love or addiction. People know what they are doing is wrong, but they do it anyway 'because fuck it'.

This kind of BS only hold up if the individual doesn't realize their trust self.

If you are one with the universe, other people are also you.

>It has no real definition for self interest. Is it long term? Short term? For just his own pleasure or for a more evolutionary reasoning?
Short term. Always short term. Even when we do stuff to satisfy our long term goals, we also satisfy our short term needs. It is impossible to think absolutely in the long term without short term satisfaction whatsoever.

τbh

Wrong. People choose to loaf around, indulge in drugs, etc. because they like it. Self-destruction is still self-interest...the consequences are merely viewed as secondary to the pleasure (or numbness, I would argue)

What kind of egotistical jackass made this shit up?

Thomas Hobbes

Then any possible action can be self-interest?

>Human beings always act in pursuit of (what they see as) their self-interest
What use is this observation then?

Every action IS on some level, in your own self interest.

The other point is that people are rational and usually are aware of the positive outcome they feel for their actions

It's a tautology.

>Be soldier
>Want to kill myself but can't because social injunction
>grenade incoming
>jump on it
>???
>prophet

I don't get it. Do you not understand the assertion as he has presented it? I think you can assume he meant what is generally understood about both words "ultimately" and "ego".

Or are you saying he changed what he was saying? Could be. Let's discuss this assertion now.

I'm still arguing that this question's answer solely relies on the way the words are defined. And they are not defined clearly enough.
Everyone knows what "egoistical" means and answering the question if everyone is acting egoistically is easy becaude the word is pretty well defined.
But the question asks if actions are "ultimately egoistical" or whichever way to phrase it. This term is far too vague to come to a consistent conclusion.
But to elaborate, there are 2 extremes in which it could be interpreted.
At one extreme it is identical to egoistical which means the answer is obvious.
At the other extreme, if you go "upwards" through the different intentions someone might have for an action you realize that in the end humans just do what they want to do and they do it because somehow they think it's the best thing to do (otherwise they wouldn't do it). So in the ebd you could say they acted egoidtically because in some super indirect way they judt made themselves feel better.
Here the question is pointless again as the answer is obvious but meaningless.
But his understanding of ultimately egoistical doesn't need to be at the extremes. It could be somewhere inbetween, at some specific level of indirectness. But that's not defined. I don't if the thought of personal glory still counts to him for the judgement of the action or if it is too indirect.

>Wrong. People choose to lo
I agree.
OP is a faggot.

I dunno why my school PCs do that...

Either the proposition is true, in which case it's trivial, or it's false.
If it's only conditionally true, then it can't describe human psychology in general.

You'd be hard pressed to convince me that a mother who gives her life to save her children is being selfish.