Is Every Personal Interest Egoism?

Ethics
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@Johnathanrs/ Well then, my friend Johnathanse. It took me quite a bit of thought to form an opinion about what you wrote to me. And I’m not entirely sure that I understood everything you said correctly. In particular:

  • What did you mean by my “premise,” which you reject?
    I wrote:
    “A person wakes up, eats breakfast, goes to work, earns money to support themselves and their family, relaxes after work, reads, plays sports, meets with friends, and takes an interest in art, science, religion, or philosophy.
    All these actions are carried out in their own personal interest. But if, in doing so, they do not harm others and do not pursue their interests at the expense of others, is there any reason to call such behavior selfish?”
    You respond to this:
  • “The behavior you describe does not fit the definition of selfishness, since it does not specify the person’s intentions.”
    “That is exactly what I am saying—that in the situation I described, there is no selfishness (nor altruism), because, in my view, one can speak of these phenomena only in situations where a person’s interests intersect with the interests of another person, other people, or society. Therefore, there is no selfishness here, but there is personal interest. And that already constitutes ‘intentions.’” In each of the cases described, the intention is clear—personal interest: the person finds it interesting, desirable, or necessary. These are their intentions—to satisfy their own personal desires. But in doing so, they cause no harm to anyone. And I mentioned this in the text of the article.
    Furthermore, you say that there may be other intentions and motivations besides personal interest. These include the altruistic actions you cite in the first set of examples and the selfish ones you cite in “REWRITTEN.” I agree that there may be other intentions. But note that here the “other side” already comes into play: “the community, the family, those who coerce, a competitive advantage over others, a physical appearance that dominates others, individuals with high social status, forum participants, prisoners,” and so on. This is precisely what I was talking about—all of these represent the “other side.”
    In the situation I described, a person does not encounter other interests, but does have an intention and motivation—personal interest. This is the fourth situation I wrote about, and I suggested singling it out separately and finding a name for it to eliminate ambiguous interpretations.
    I gratefully accept your recommendation to familiarize myself with established fields of ethics.
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This is a rule that we can work off of to make things align easier. Actions cannot be morally evaluated without knowing why they are being done. From my viewpoint, “eating breakfast” does not provide enough detail to understand the intentions behind the character. In my previous post, the choices that I provided to you are possible examples of cases until this motive has become established. Some examples:

“I post on the forums”. (Much like schrodinger’s cat, all possibilities exist until a motive becomes established.)

I post on the forums to help myself, but not others. (Ex. Experimenting on these forums.)

I post on these forums to help others, but not myself. (Ex. Professor teaching a class for free.)

I post on these forums to help myself and others.(Ex. Professor getting paid to teach a class.)

I post on these forums to discredit these forums in order to promote a different forums that my friend owns. (Ex. Helping a community/forums over another community/forums. )

This is just a example we could keep going and build this out if needed. This becomes important especially for laws, depending upon what country you are physically visiting, as some countries will charge you more severly once a motive has been established.

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In Freud’s theory, there is a trinity driving our behavior: the ID – the physical desires of our animal nature; the Superego – the rules of family and society we internalized; the Ego – the “I” that must mediate between the expectations of the Superego and and the carnal demands of the ID. So the Ego isn’t the only player in the mind. The other two parts of the trinity are quite potent. The ego isn’t free to pursue whatever course of action it might like. It has to negotiate the minefield of social expectation and the powerful drives of the body.

I am not a Freudian by any means, but it is helpful to bear in mind that we ‘egos’ do not have the field to ourselves. And not to forget, there are also Other People who can thwart our wishes.

My personality (a complex whole) will fall somewhere between the two extremes of your posted distribution, but it isn’t just a distribution of the Ego. It’s also a distribution of what we have been taught (like, “get your’s first” or “wait in line”. “Do unto others before they do it to you” or “love one another”. As the saying goes, “A stiff prick has no morals.” But in a functioning society, stiff pricks are constrained from fucking whoever they want, whenever, wherever. How willing are you to fight for what you want (literally or figuratively) if Other People stand in your way? That’s one of the issues that lands on the Ego’s plate.

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@Elephant.
My friend “Elephant,” I’ve gathered all your posts on my thread about selfishness, altruism, and self-interest, and now I’m trying to respond. But quite a few questions have come up, and my response has turned out to be quite long. So I’ll answer one or two questions at a time in a series of separate posts

  1. As for your view that feelings precede self-interest, I’ve already responded that I agree with this. Then you add that feelings
    are preceded by measurable brain activity.
    These two phenomena certainly pertain to psychology, as I hinted at in one of my threads. But if what you’re saying is indeed true, then this actually confirms my intuitive belief that self-interest stems from human nature. And recently, I came across a scientific article by a well-known neurobiologist, Dr. Sergei Vyacheslavovich Saveliev, Sergey Vyacheslavovich Savelyev, which states that, based on research into the human brain using high-tech equipment, he asserts that certain traits are already laid down in the human brain at birth—traits that determine whether a person grows up to be aggressive or docile, and subsequently, in our understanding, becomes an egoist or an altruist. At the same time, he also cites the works of authoritative Western researchers. This is no longer sociology but neurobiology. This is what I was referring to when I said that the prioritization of personal interest—selfishness to one degree or another, as well as, presumably, altruism—is, first and foremost, human nature. There are areas in the human brain that, from birth, determine a person’s future propensity toward selfishness. (I can cite a number of sources on such studies)
    But the fact that emotions precede self-interest in no way contradicts my assertion about its priority in human behavior.

  2. You claim: “Humans lack a foundation of self-interest; we have developed behavior that promotes the development of family ties, group and niche bonds, as well as the achievement of self-oriented goals.” ”
    Does this mean that you disagree with the actual priority of self-interest in motivating human behavior?
    Regarding the foundation of self-interest, in addition to the above references to scientific studies, I have also empirically demonstrated this using real-life examples in my separate thread, which I mentioned. And while it is true that we have “developed family and group ties,” these developed ties do not in any way negate the priority of self-interest in human behavior. Furthermore, you have not been able to empirically demonstrate that these group ties influence people’s behavior in their everyday, long-term, and social lives more than personal interest does. Nor have you cited what the scientific literature says on this topic. I would be interested in reviewing such observations.

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@Johnathanrs
“You can’t judge actions morally without knowing why they’re done.”

My friend!
You, just like Slon, constantly emphasize the moral evaluation of actions, which I cite as evidence of the priority of self-interest in human behavior.
In my “Study…” (and I see that you’ve read it), I gave real-life examples that were both moral and not entirely so.
And I repeatedly emphasized that the pattern I described is objective, stems from human nature, and can be both morally positive and negative, as my graph clearly demonstrates. I also wrote that I agree with your position that the same actions cannot be evaluated from an ethical standpoint without knowing the intentions. For your part, I would like to hear whether you agree with my point of view, as expressed in the formula for the pattern of personal interest that I presented. However, I ask you in advance not to make the mistake that most dissenters make by insisting that people have a habit of behaving ethically. I agree with that. Therefore, I ask you to reflect on the formula and pay particular attention to these words: “MOST people IN MOST situations.” This means that the formula allows for both a MINORITY of people and a MINORITY of situations in which a person sacrifices their own interests for the sake of others’ interests.

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We are going in cirles from my point of view because we are looking at different layers of your model. To be clear, I havent fully read what your model represents, I did read your initial statement and stopped due to it not being coherent to me yet. I do not reject your descriptions of human behavior such as “Most people act in self-interest most of the time” That being said, your examples still need to establish motives that you have yet to provide.

Also, the point that im raising is that it can be measured as being morally good or bad yes we agree; however, it isnt objective until you define a scope. It doesnt matter if its good or bad. These concepts will shift with the evaluator. What is required is for us to establish “why they did x” to begin with in order to draw any objective truth from it. The evaluator will most likely determine the truths for why. The why though still needs to be established for them to do just that. Until that why is established it is not objective. It only can be by mapping our scope to every possible motive possible. A daunting task.

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@Johnathanrs

  1. “From my point of view, we’re going in circles because we’re looking at different levels of your model.”
    Yes, it seems we really are going in circles. That’s because I’ve already told you, Slon, and others several times that my formula describes reality as it is, but you’re all steering me back to the issue of the morality of actions from an ethical standpoint, and saying that I haven’t provided any motives. Let me quote a part of my response to user Leontiskos:

Here I’d like to respond to your assessment of my question regarding the fourth situation:
“This is a situation where a person, while satisfying their ordinary personal needs and interests, does not come into conflict with anyone else’s interests. In such a case, it’s impossible to speak of either selfishness or altruism, even if the person is still acting out of personal interest.”
For example, a person simply wants to:
— eat, so they eat;
— go for a walk, so they walk;
— play sports, so they play;
— watch TV, so they watch
— and so on.
At the same time, as has already been said, their interests do not overlap with those of other people.
You write:
“Part of the problem is that your description does not provide us with enough information to determine whether this action is selfish or altruistic.”
But why is the information insufficient? I explicitly stated that the person acts solely to satisfy their own personal interest. At the same time, I added that I see neither selfishness nor altruism here, since her actions in no way affect the interests of other people.
That is precisely why I called this the fourth situation
and asked participants to propose a separate, appropriate term for it.
Therefore, I believe I have defined the motives clearly enough and have reiterated my request for a term.

  1. “…your examples still require confirmation of the motives, which you have not yet provided.”
    Once again, I reiterate that in my thread I wrote that I provided the empirical research and the motives for the actions, as well as evidence of the objectivity of the law I proposed, in the “Social Philosophy” category under the thread “Research…” and there I noted that without reading it, users might feel that there isn’t enough evidence or justification.
  2. To be honest, I didn’t understand your comments about the “limit” and “why,” so if possible, please try to explain to me in what sense you’re using those terms.
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@ BstterCrank
Yes, that’s a new perspective on my question.
Just two days ago, I stumbled upon a YouTube video about Freud’s views on selfishness, and today I found what you’re writing about: the Id, Ego, and Superego—and I asked myself, why didn’t I read this sooner? After all, this directly relates to my reflections on self-interest. To be sure, in my paper on the nature of self-interest—written more than 30 years ago—I noted that it was inconceivable that no philosopher had ever paid attention to this.
Now to the point.
The Truth, I understand that human behavior is shaped not only by the desire to satisfy one’s personal interests but also by the fact that, as you said, “…there are also other people who may stand in the way of our desires,” as well as physical impulses and circumstances. Nevertheless, I continue to stand by my formula:
“Most people, in most situations, are guided by personal interest and personal gain.”
All the factors you mentioned may constrain a person or alter the way they pursue their interests, but that does not mean that personal interest itself ceases to be their primary motive.
By the way, I’d like to know how you feel about what’s stated in my formula?
I’m glad you noticed my graph and that you identified your place somewhere in the middle of it. It is precisely this part that I attribute to rational egoists, who, in my opinion, make up the majority of people—and that’s a good thing.

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It is axiomatic that we pursue self-interest. Maybe we can say that is the case across all species.

Does pursuing self interest always means satisfaction at the expense of other people / society? In famine, it applies: if I eat, you starve. If the lifeboat is full, we survive, you drown.

When there is enough to go around, we both satisfy our need–self interest doesn’t mean a zero-sum game. In societies that are functioning at least moderately well, people can satisfy their needs without depriving others. In no society can people satisfy any and all their wants and wishes without sacrificing others. The very wealthy possessing many millions, billions, or trillions of dollars have outsized means to satisfy their wishes in ways that practically require the sacrifice of others’ interests.

Maybe that seems too remote. If I can afford an extremely loud sound system, I can enjoy an intense dance thump which everybody else in the neighborhood will have to list to whether they want to or not. On the other hand, I can add sound insulation to keep my disco beat at home, or I can use headphones (though I won’t feel the beat that way).

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@Bitter Crank.

Thanks, buddy! You’re actually giving examples of how my “Law of Personal Interest” plays out in various situations and evaluating them.

But, as Shelmenko , the hero of an old Ukrainian play, used to say: “It is so, and yet it is just a little bit not so.

  1. “Most people, in most situations, are guided by personal interest and personal gain.”

In my view, this law is practically an axiom, although many forum participants disagree with it. You, however, seem to be calling the pursuit of one’s own interests at the expense of others an axiom. That’s not true because a significant portion of people satisfy their own interests without infringing on the interests of others—first and foremost, altruists

  1. You yourself mention this in the following example: “In societies that function at least relatively well, people can satisfy their needs without depriving others.” I agree—they can, but it doesn’t always work out that way.

But you immediately contradict yourself in the following two examples:

“In no society can people not satisfy all their needs and desires without depriving others.”

And right after that: “The very wealthy, who possess many millions, billions, or trillions of dollars, have excessive resources to satisfy their desires in a way that practically requires sacrificing the interests of others.” ”

In the fourth example, about loud music, you cite two variants from my classification of selfishness:

  • aggressive selfishness, when everyone else in the neighborhood doesn’t want to hear it;

  • and reasonable selfishness, when you compromised and limited your interests by using soundproofing or headphones. Here, you have preserved your personal interest, but you have still partially sacrificed it at the expense of sound quality.

In the examples involving starvation and the lifeboat, there is practically a dilemma: it’s either you or them. Here, selfishness works to one’s personal advantage and, formally speaking, comes at the expense of others.

But:

  1. Here, the primal instinct for self-preservation is at work (from which, incidentally, the law of self-interest derives its roots)
  1. These situations are extraordinary, but nonetheless, they do not contradict the formula, as they fall within the minority of situations it anticipates.
  2. Again, “but”: Even in such extraordinary and dire situations, some individuals found the courage—while starving themselves—to give starving children even a single potato or a beet, thereby giving them the chance to survive another day. Such examples occurred in Ukraine during the Holodomor.

And in the example with the boat: in the movie Titanic, if I recall correctly, the main character displayed heroic altruism and sacrificed his life for his girlfriend’s sake when he refused to save himself on the floating door on which she lay helplessly.

These two examples also fit the formula—not only as isolated situations but also as individual members of a minority.So, I think I’ve demonstrated the universality and accuracy of the formula. And finally, I have a question for you: do you agree with it, either in whole or in part?

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Just out of curiosity… do you live in Ukraine or are you part of the Ukrainian diaspora? I ask, since I haven’t seen references to Stalin’s starvation of Ukraine on the current TPF. (in the previous incarnation there was discussion of the “holodomor” but, as I recollect, nobody used that term.)

Like the sheep, I have gone astray in my response. Mistake #1 was using the term “axiomatic”. “The sun rises in the east” is axiomatic. “Some sunrises are more beautiful than others” is true, but not axiomatic (as I understand axioms). It’s more of a commonplace, common sense, or obvious statement.

So let me rephrase: “All species, including humans, pursue self-interest in order to promote self-survival. Sometimes some species, including humans, forego strict self-interest and act in favor of their species or kinfolk to their personal detriment.”

And as King Mongkut (Rama IV), the anti-hero of the Broadway musical, The King and I, sang:

“When I was a boy, what was so was so; what was not was not. Now I am a man, world has changed a lot. Somethings ‘neeeerly’ so, others ‘neeeerly’ not!”

So, open your mouth and say something obvious, like 1+1=2, and somebody will object, “Not in binary!”

Animals, among them humans, pursue self-interest because it is an installed feature provided by evolution. Animals, including humans, have no choice about possessing the very strong urge (imperative?) to preserve self. But some animals can override self-preservation to preserve the species. Being able to do this isn’t a choice–it’s another installed feature that can be summoned.

Evolution is subtle and provides balanced drives. Yes, we do try to preserve our selves, but we also have drives to cooperate, curry favor, build social networks, develop insight into other minds, and so on. We don’t cooperate just because it’s the moral thing to do; we don’t build social networks just out of love. We are nice to one another, not just because it’s a commandment, but because it’s a basic drive.

How well humans collectively manage their competing drives is the story of civilization. At times our performance is/has been a colossal failure; other times it is reasonably successful (which, imho, is about as good as we ever get).

We can more predict, less expect, that on occasion people will behave altruistically. $5 will be handed to a beggar. A beet will be given to a starving child. (Not in the US; Americans don’t seem to like beets very much.) We can also more predict, less expect, that people will resist altruistic impulses sometimes. The worst child starvation event is happening in Sudan, and humans are effectively resisting doing much about it.

There is a common assumption among reasonably comfortable Americans that people who beg for money or panhandle are part of an organized racket. In some cases that might be true. “They make a lot of money doing that!” people say. Some studies show that an average panhandler generally makes between $2400 and $6000 a year. I’d say they worked fairly hard for that – standing in a hot shopping center parking lot for 5 or 6 hours a day, or in the cold. Maybe they also get a small general assistance or disability payment; with that they might have enough to live life under rather mean circumstances. My guess is that significant personal problems are keeping these people (mostly men) from working in ordinary jobs.

The point is, a lot of people rationalize their weak altruistic urges when the opportunity to act kindly is standing in front of them.

A lack of altruism is a lesser problem. A much greater problem is the decision (drive?) to pursue virtually unlimited self-enhancement (wealth) far, far beyond what is required for even extraordinarily comfortable survival. They might have psychopathic characteristics which prevent them from judging their wealth-seeking behaviors in a moral context.

Unlimited wealth distorts the function of a normal economy, diverting a significant portion of a society’s wealth from normal production / consumption into highly segregated enclaves. It’s a situation where the idea, Property = Theft seems to apply.

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What I’m about to say may seem very nihilistic or extremist but I believe every single action or decision a human performs comes from a subconscious form of egoism. The results of the action can be helpful or harmful to others but the origin of the action was out of selfish/egoistic intention. You can apply this logic to any act. For example, if you’re a dad and you’re caring and sacrificing time, effort, and money for your son, it’s obviously a helpful action but subconsciously you’re doing this because you feel like you need to fulfill the role of a father and can’t disappoint. It’s not a negative action but it’s a subconsciously self-serving action. When you pursue hobbies such as philosophy, art, or etc, you are trying to improve and build yourself which is centered around and egoistic need of wanting to traverse the rungs of society. Art makes one creative and expressive, philosophy makes one thoughtful and introspective, all of these tasks contain benefits that we selfishly but not harmfully desire to claim.

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The problem with Psychological Egoism is that it turns the concept of self-interest into a vacuous, unfalsifiable tautology that strips language of its actual meaning. Obviously self-interest is involved in every action we take to survive.

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Truly selfless acts are very rare. They’re not performed to make oneself feel good, but must be an act of love … unconditional love.

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