An argument can be made that all actions people take are for their own self-interest. Even things like helping the community is done for reciprocal benefits for yourself plus the general increase in respect.
Another point is that if all people just act for their own self-interest, they will have a better life themselves, and if everyone does the same, some sort of proper balance will be achieved.
I have been having some occasional discussions with my friends over this. I personally disagree, but would love to hear what others have to say. Feel free to discuss!
Is acting only according to your self-interest a good strategy in life?
Not if you plan on living in a society.
Most people don’t have the brain power to actually know what’s in their best interest.
At most, they can handle very simple situations.
To really make choices in own best interest, your have to think long term, at a broad scale. Unfortunately, we can’t see with certainty beyond maybe a few steps from our present time and place. So we would also have to think out layers of possibility with each decision.
If you can’t do that quickly, you’re fucked because you’ll always be reacting instead of planning. Since even the smartest people on the planet can still only handle as much planning as a chess game takes, we’re all fucked.
And yes, I’m including myself as not having the brain power to properly act in my own best interest long term. Being able to see the problem doesn’t mean you’re immune to it.
most people have a completely flawed understanding of their own self-interest so this question doesn’t make a lot of sense imo
Our decisions are heavily influenced by emotion. We have the sense of empathy, which is an adaptation that makes communal living work. Empathy motivates us to do things for other people sometimes. You can say, “you do helpful things to satisfy your own emotional needs.” But that’s pretty much saying, “you do helpful things because you want to.” I think self-interest is a big factor in how we act, but I don’t think it’s the only factor.
Some people completely lack any empathy at all.
and if everyone does the same, some sort of proper balance will be achieved.
What makes you think that logically follows? Why would it not create competing self-interests that can’t coexist?
Even if you broaden it to acting for indirect reciprocal benefit plenty of people act in ways that don’t have a reciprocal benefit. Just look at the Madleen flotilla, everyone there is putting themselves at personal risk for no personal tangible benefit - the position of self interest would be to stay safely away from the war at home. Look at all the local charities that help vulnerable members of their communities for no personal benefit. Look at people acting against their self interest just within their own families, like supporting elderly parents despite the costs and even though their death would speed their inheritance. There is a huge range of actions that fall outside of both direct and indirect self interest that people take every day.
I think that you might be ignoring “spiritual” self interest. It deeply upsets and enrages me (and every other reasonable person) to see people brutalized like in Gaza. My mental health would literally be better if such atrocities weren’t happening.
It deeply upsets and enrages me
But why? It doesn’t affect you. It isn’t in your self interest to be upset by those things, it just makes you feel bad. Wouldn’t it be more reasonable to say that you are simply able to feel and act selflessly rather than invent a form of self interest that involves caring about other people?
I think i get what you’re saying but isn’t empathy a basic human emotion. Obviously stronger in some people then others but it’s not something that can be just switched off. I suppose i could willfully ignor what’s going on. Which in someways i guess i am doing…
Absolutely it is, and it even seems to be hard coded in many non communal species, like the wombats that open their burrows to other animals during Australian wildfires, but empathy isn’t powered by the idea of reciprocation. It’s an inherently selfless feeling that doesn’t consider either direct or indirect benefits for the self, and it doesn’t make sense to say that acting on those selfless feelings, against your self interest, is itself selfish.
I’ve often thought about the idea that there is really no such thing as true altruisim. Because no matter what, you feel good about doing good. Even if you don’t tell anyone about the good thing you did, you still get a good feeling from it, therefore there is some inherent selfishness involved no matter what.
Of course there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. People should absolutely being doing good things and get to feel good about it.
Autistic people will often do the right thing simply because they were taught it is what they are supposed to do - with no consideration of how they’ll feel about it.
And ADHD people don’t get to feel good about anything they do.
Combine the two and you get the ultimate altruists!
(this comment is meant as a joke)
When it’s trash day on my block (city life) and the collectors leave a trash can in an open parking spot and I move that can to the sidewalk, you’re claiming that I’m doing this because it makes me feel good to be helpful to someone I’ll never encounter, and that this isn’t “true altruism”.
So, should we be discussing why we don’t do things that make us feel bad? “True altruism” can’t exist because we don’t go around helping people commit murders or because we’re not voting for a politician we dislike? I don’t think that’s the intent of the word.
I mean, there’s ‘doing things because they make you “feel good”’ and there’s altruism. These are not the same nor are they mutually exclusive.
I think perhaps the word you’re trying to shoehorn into altruism is heroism - when you do something for the benefit of others knowing it’s detrimental to yourself. Or, if you really want to dig into doing things that make you feel bad, I’m not really sure what word that would be. Idiocracy?
Do as you will as long as you harm none.
So reading the title I came to say yes with a caveat but you included the caveat. The thing is self interest is ultimately about happiness but humans don’t always understand what brings it. Drug use is sorta the basest level. Chasing literal physcial sensation of pleasure. Sex addiction would be next which is really just chasing drugs that our body naturally makes. Same with danger addiction and such. Then you get to like food addiction. Next is money addicition which is sorta looking at it as a gateway to everything. Recognizing how important others are on different levels means a lot. Its a bit like the hierarchy of needs. You can maybe get physiological on ones own but after that any increase in actual happiness involves having to improve your environment and society and ultimately the earth. So I guess Im saying yes but people can pervert it for not seeing the forest for the trees.
It is in your self interest to be a part of prosperous society and treated with kindness and respect. Which means the collective interest overlaps with self interest quite a bit.
I think it’s a bit fatuous to argue that altruism is just self-interest. Sure, people who volunteer or help others in distress usually get some kind of benefit. They feel good about themselves, or they get to live in world that is one trillionth of a percent kinder/happier because of their good deed, etc. But the self-interest argument falls apart when you look at it from a cost/benefit standpoint. Suppose a person spends 2h raising money for the food bank. The hungry people who gets to eat and feed their children benefit the most. The local community benefits a tiny bit, and maybe the volunteer gets a small self-esteem (and other-esteem) boost. On the other hand, if that person were to spend the time earning money for a nice sweater, say, they might get a bigger self esteem boost, a few compliments, and a warm fuzzy garment that lasts for years. The hungry person is still hungry, but remains an abstraction. I would argue that the sweater earner benefitted more than the volunteer. Yet, people still volunteer.
Some people make anonymous donations. Do you really think the self-esteem boost is more valuable than the literal money that person donates?
The argument that the world would be better off if everyone acted in their self interest is ridiculous. That inevitably leads to a might-makes-right system of oppression. The only reason this argument is still being circulated is because shitheads like elon musk, who already has a huge amount of wealth and influence, spam this shit everywhere (on Twitter, Fox News, etc.) to legitimize their undeserved status and evil power.
But the self-interest argument falls apart when you look at it from a cost/benefit standpoint.
I agree, and this is a much better way to define “self interest” too.
If you look at it from the political side that this is the basic idea of liberal democracy.
Everyone votes in their best interest and especially in proportional representation you get some compromise of the interests.
Right now at least in politics people act less in their own interest but more of what they emotionally feel like their interest.
Actually voting itself is against your best interest as the bebefit of your vote is so minuscule that it does not warrant the severe disruption of voting.
I got handed an Ayn Rand sandwich,
Straight from a can, it tasted so bland,
I asked the lass to pass me a glass,
of Engels’ Conditons of the Working Class…I think that as long as people’s individualism does not override the freedoms of others, then the pursuit of self-interest frees the mind to explore all kinds of avenues of spiritual discovery.
That’s a big ask though, and most people have different ideas of what is fair when expressing their individuality, so I do think that there needs to be a mediator of sorts to balance the more extreme aspects of our self-interest, and make sure that no one is fully happy but that we’re all kinda happy, in order for us all to progress, even if it’s at a snail’s pace.
That’s where the term “Enlightened Self Interest” comes from.
Naive short-sighted stupid self interest is destructive - both to the community and even to the self interested individual.
But self-interest doesn’t have to go away. We all have wants and needs, and most of our wants and needs are (mostly) harmless.
Instead, self interest can be enlightened - seasoned with understanding of the bigger picture, and with the wisdom of other’s experiences.
Agreed!
I might think it is in my self interest to lie, cheat and steal, but if I do that, my community and my reputation are worsened, and I may have a harder time getting a better position in a crappier world.
If instead I think it in my self interest to volunteer at the local food bank, I might see my community and reputation improved, and by demonstrating a commitment to community, perhaps I will get a better job offer.
More basically: civilization has figured out that fair trade benefits both the farmer who needs tools and the blacksmith who needs food. It is in everyones’ self-interest to support things like: rule of law, commerce, and education.
Define self interest.
It is in your best interest to invest heavily in childhood education and recruit young people in to the agricultural sector. That is also in society’s best interest. As it happens the only people doing that are those who can see the problem even with short sighted goggles on.
Most people do not look beyond their short sighted goggles. Most of those goggles come with blinders on the sides.
Human civilization as a whole is maintained by people with blinders and goggles on, and we were trucking along just fine, and will continue to do so until we’re standing in ruins of our own making.
The contextual and memetic aspect of what constitutes a “person’s self interest” far outweights the person’s actual decision and the individual actor cannot be removed cleanly from the wider discussion envelopping what this “self-interest” even is.
The “law” and its detterence logic shapes what “self-interest” is. Talkibg heads shape your understanding of reality and anchor what your self-interest is and means.
Nobody has self-interests in a vacuum.
I wonder if the fact that human civilization has lasted and flourished for so long is just a stroke of luck then…
Of course, but their self-interest need not be shortsighted and materialistic. A man who willingly walks into certain death to save those he loves/to stand for righteousness is 100% doing it out of selfishness, as it is in our own interests to live with self-respect, self-esteem and few/no regrets.
