trc@houti.UUCP (T.CRAVER) (08/17/83)
A response to Paul Torek: {RE "Byron Howes is right", "What I mean by altruism"
"purpose vs reason"}
Say, Paul - dont you think you are getting a bit carried away? Sending
across so many notes makes it difficult to respond, and for any reader
to really make sense of the discussion - not to mention that it makes
a lot of people's "n-key" finger numb!
I agree that I mis-understood your use of 'contradictory'. However, I
would say that, unless one uses a discrete set (EG {Male, Female, neuter}),
the only way to accurately specify the contradictory to "A" is to call it
"all not-A". I think it is more useful to think of the problem as a linear
scale of purposes - with pure selfishness at one end, and pure altruism at
the other. At any point, there is a mix of the two that adds to 100% of
the purpose behind an action (EG 20% selfish, 80% altruistic). Unless you
can point out (as no-one has yet) another dimension to the question, I think
that this is the appropriate model for the problem we are considering.
Utilitarianism might lie someplace near the 50-50 mark, from what you have
said. In light of this model, I think my argument about contradictions
arising still applies. One end is right, and the other is wrong. The
middle is exactly a mixture of right and wrong. The fact that the "ends"
are not contradictories by your definitions does not affect my argument.
I disagree with your attitude towards definitions - if we cannot agree
at that level, and choose not to try to find agreement, there is no point
in continuing the discussion! For example, on the word "benevolent".
We disagree on whether it is a proper subset of "altruism", because we
still hold different ideas of what altruism is.
If I thought it would make a positive change to the discussion, I might
give up the association of the word "altruism" and my definition. However,
I think that the result would be one of two things - to either imply that
I am not talking about a common matter, or to lead the discussion away
from discussing what I have been trying to define. I would object to
both - since I claim that my definition of altruism has common application
to how people justify their actions. Your definition of the moral code
of utilitarianism is one of the best evidences of this - it is defined
in terms of the *balance* of self-concern and self-disregard. I am
trying to discuss a very common concept here - that one's actions are
justified, in whole or in part, because they are for someone else.
I hate to have to keep pointing this out, but neither you, nor anyone
else, has given me any any reality-basis for the idea that it is moral
to have the purpose of benefitting others. I have re-presented the
equivalent basis for selfishness, though you may not completely agree
with it. Can you now do the equivalent for altruism?
As long as we are dropping words from our vocabulary ("reason" - I agree
that it is ambiguous, and we should try to use "cause" or "purpose"),
we should also drop "motivation", since it can be taken to mean "cause"
or "purpose" - as in "Benevolence is...motivated by the ...other person".
If one means "cause" - OK, one could see someone's suffering, and react
to that. If one means "purpose", I disagree. As I have said, benevolence
need not (and in fact does not, anytime one does it *willingly*), have the
other's benefit as one's fundamental purpose. One might claim that as one's
*declared* purpose when one acts unwillingly, only to satisfy a moral code.
(By the way - a thesaurus is no substitute for a dictionary - it can only
provide words that are *commonly* considered synonyms or antonyms. We
should judge that for ourselves on the basis of the words' definitions.
I freely admit that "selfish" has been given the wrong connotations in
common usage - and that altruism has been misrepresented as benevolence.
I see this as merely a sign of decay in verbal accurracy.)
As for your being a hypocrite, I did not intentionally aim at calling you
that. Since you brought it up, however, I will ask - what is your
current standard of living, relative to the most "needy" (or deserving,
under utilitarianism) person in the world, or even in your nearby area?
Are you really consistent - giving away your "surplus wealth", giving
all your "*really* free time" in service, etc? A selfish person would
not have to answer these questions. But someone who claims to be acting
for the purpose of summed benefit (with equally weighted concern) of everyone,
must answer them "yes, or nearly so", in order to claim any real degree of
morality under their own system. (Hypocrite is a label whose meaning is so
harsh that I dont want to apply it without strong evidence.)
You ask why another person might be valuable to one. What do you suppose
love is, if not valuing another? One values them because their "sense of
life" embodies (or nearly so) one's *subconscious* ideal. One cannot
force oneself (consciously, in other words) to love someone - the reaction
has to come from one's own sense of life, which is the sum of one's *implicit*
philosophical outlook. The pleasure that one gets from such love is intense,
and provides the valid (selfish) purpose for valuing the other.
You ask about "willingness to forgo part of your own welfare" with regard
to benefiting a (presumably loved) other. The answer is that it is no
sacrifice to give up a lesser value for a greater one - for example to
give up one's money for one's precious but ill wife.
Tom Craver
houti!trc