25-07-2004 22:55									#31
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quote: "People can have and act in accordance with preferences for which there is no prospect of them ever yielding any personal utility.

--"If this can help even a little those who have met with unhappiness and disaster, I would be very happy," the writer said in the letter dated on Thursday.--

	25-07-2004 22:55									#32
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Imran: I never claimed that it didn't make him/her happy. However, I think that on the long run he would've been happier if he had the money.

	25-07-2004 22:55									#33
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel quote: Utility is not simply happiness. Didn't you just get a degree in economics? It is in the ethical sense. I don't know what you econ jocks mean, in your lingo.

Utility is a term that really only fits in a economics context. It comes from the word utilize. Sometimes people do use the work inappropriately though, when they should use the word happiness.

	25-07-2004 22:58									#34
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quote: --"If this can help even a little those who have met with unhappiness and disaster, I would be very happy," the writer said in the letter dated on Thursday.--

How can he be, if he never knows about it?

What if he hopes that our descendants will enjoy peace and prosperity? How can that possibly make him happy, he'll be dead.

	25-07-2004 23:00									#35
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quote: How can he be, if he never knows about it?

So you are not happy when you give to charity, knowing that someone is benefiting, even if you don't know who or how?

	25-07-2004 23:02									#36
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You righties have to hear it from Adam Smith when you are as confused as you are now.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest."

Benevolence and self-interest are mutually exclusive, although you can benefit someone by acting in your own self-interest. In order to increase your utility you have to utilize an economic good.

	25-07-2004 23:05									#37
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quote: Benevolence and self-interest are mutually exclusive

No, they aren't. When you give, you feel good about yourself.

	25-07-2004 23:11									#38
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quote: So you are not happy when you give to charity, knowing that someone is benefiting, even if you don't know who or how?

That's a different case.

What about preferences about the fortune of our descendants? Most people have those, how do they relate to my personal happiness? I can never see them satisfied because I'll be dead. My own happiness simply cannot be a motivation for such preferences.

	25-07-2004 23:21									#39
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Benevolence and self-interest are mutually exclusive No, they aren't. When you give, you feel good about yourself.

Look at the quote Imran. Smith was the first to popularize the term. He intended it to be exclusive from benevolence, and in fact, still to this day, when properly used, it is.

	25-07-2004 23:25									#40
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I explained this in the last thread, but everyone stoped replying.

The action is the cause, and happiness is the effect. You do no help someone because you are happy, you become happy that you have helped someone.

Altruism is about actions. You judge the cause, not the effect. If the action is selfless, than the effect (happiness) inherits that value, and is a selfless happiness.

To say that giving a beggar food is a selfish act because you don't like to see people starving is absurd.

	25-07-2004 23:36									#41
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quote: He intended it to be exclusive from benevolence

Economic interest, perhaps. But he said nothing about personal self-interest in terms of happiness. It was later economists who emphasised happiness and utility.

quote: you become happy that you have helped someone.

That's right.

quote: Altruism is about actions. You judge the cause, not the effect.

Because you say so? Atruism is also about the effect.

quote: To say that giving a beggar food is a selfish act because you don't like to see people starving is absurd.

Yes, because it is self-interested, not selfish . You replace that wording and the statement is absolutely true. It makes you feel better to give, which is why you do it.

	25-07-2004 23:39									#42
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Anyone still not convinced that I'm right?

	25-07-2004 23:45									#43
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: He intended it to be exclusive from benevolence Economic interest, perhaps. But he said nothing about personal self-interest in terms of happiness. It was later economists who emphasised happiness and utility.

Happiness and utility are not mutually exclusive. You have to realize that economics was not seperated from philosophy until sometime after JS Mill. Smith was a philosopher. He wrote "Theory of Moral Sentiments," in which he described this kind of happiness (or rather satisfaction from defense from guilt) as different from self-interest, but still in line with rational behavior. It wasn't until the 19th century that econmists started calling benevolent behavour irrational for their own objectives.

I don't believe that Mill (Utilitarian) ever used the term utiliy in exchange with happiness, however, even if he did this definition is exclusive to this type of philosophy and not a generally accepted use of the word.

	25-07-2004 23:48									#44
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui quote: Altruism is about actions. You judge the cause, not the effect. Because you say so? Atruism is also about the effect.

Altruism is about doing something not out of self-interst but to benefit someone else, implying an action. But even if you do not want to seperate the action from the resulting happiness, it is still the cause that gives it meaning. Again, if the act is selfess the happiness inherits that selflessness because it is a result of the (selfless) action and is derived for selfless reasons.


Look at it this way, the act of being happy at other people's benefit is altruistic.

quote: Yes, because it is self-interested, not selfish . You replace that wording and the statement is absolutely true. It makes you feel better to give, which is why you do it.

Selfish and self-interest mean the same thing.

To say that giving a beggar food is in your self-interest because you don't like to see people starving is absurd

How is not wanting to see people starve in your self interst?

At which point, you say: "because it makes you happy!" and happily slip back into your feedback loop and refuse to acknwoledge the difference between cause and effect.


You feel good helping other people. You want to help other people. Altruism.

	26-07-2004 00:00									#45
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God, this claptrap again- good posts Ludd

Most people would not know "happiness" if it came and bit them in the ass.

Self-interest has nothing to do with "feeling happy" in the "aww, I did good, I feel warm and shinny inside" way- it has to do with your relation vs other individuals and within the system. The obvious cases of self-interested charity would include corporations giving away stuff in order to claim the tax breaks, or things like that.

Giving money to a beggar is not a self-interested act- aftyer all, you could in theory keep that money, invest it, and make sure your kids will be rich latter in life, securing your heritage and genes. That is self-interest, NOT a temporary and wanning emotional sensation like "feeling happy about giving charity".

	26-07-2004 00:07									#46
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quote: Giving money to a beggar is not a self-interested act

Then why do it?

	26-07-2004 00:09									#47
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quote: Originally posted by Park Avenue Then why do it?

Becuase you don't like seeing people starve and want to help someone. ie, because of altruism.

	26-07-2004 00:11									#48
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quote: Becuase you want to help someone

Why do you want to do that?

	26-07-2004 00:14									#49
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quote: Originally posted by Park Avenue Why do you want to do that?

quote: Becuase you don't like seeing people starve

	26-07-2004 00:15									#50
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quote: Becuase you don't like seeing people starve

Seeing people starve gives you a kind of negative utility/happiness?

	26-07-2004 00:15									#51
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Comes back to your interests again, eh?

	26-07-2004 00:18									#52
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quote: Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui Comes back to your interests again, eh?

So it does

I don't see how they are being so numbskulled here..

They've got either accept that

i) Altruism doesn't exist

or ii) Altruism makes the giver feel some satisfaction too (so it is thus in his self-interest)

	26-07-2004 00:19									#53
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Why was the topic changed? why not change it to bovine feces?

	26-07-2004 00:33									#54
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quote: Originally posted by Park Avenue Seeing people starve gives you a kind of negative utility/happiness?

I suggest you go back and re-read my post. I already covered your reacion of "because it makes you happy!" to my hypothetical scenario.

quote: They've got either accept that i) Altruism doesn't exist or ii) Altruism makes the giver feel some satisfaction too (so it is thus in his self-interest)

What needs to be accepted is that satisification can be derived from doing things not in your self interest.

From my previous post:

quote: But even if you do not want to seperate the action from the resulting happiness, it is still the cause that gives it meaning. Again, if the act is selfess the happiness inherits that selflessness because it is a result of the (selfless) action and is derived for selfless reasons. Look at it this way, the act of being happy at other people's benefit is altruistic.

	26-07-2004 00:34									#55
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Hobbes is the first to use the term self-interest I think. From there it went in two different directions. To Hobbes didn't really consider whether benevolence was self-interest because of warm fuzzy feelings. He just assumed that people didn't get warm fuzzy feeling from giving. This is selfishness.

Hume created the definition of self-interest to include benevolence, stating that warm fuzzy feelings are in our own interest.

Adam Smith (strangely very close to Hume) created a different defintion of self-interest, excluding benevolence from self-interest. Economists took this definition and then started making up all kinds of words that only fit in the context of economics because economists are the only ones who use them that way.

	26-07-2004 00:40									#56
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"What needs to be accepted is that satisification can be derived from doing things not in your self interest."

This just doesn't make sense..if you deriving satisfaction from something (eating nice food, giving money to beggars), then those things are in your self-interest.

	26-07-2004 00:40									#57
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quote: He chose the happiness of others over his own ( Imagine what he could do with all that money! ) The fact that he enjoyed it, doesn't mean that he didn't sacrifice his own happiness.

He sacrificed one form of happiness to gain another.

quote: After all, he recieved less happiness than he could've. ( Living la vida loca with a million bucks >> feeling good after giving a way a million bucks )

Maybe to you, but obviously not for him.

	26-07-2004 00:42									#58
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quote: Originally posted by Kidicious It's simply not included. It's not necessary to state the exclusion. It doesn't even make sense to include atruism in with self-interest.

Of course it does. There's no inconsistency in having your own utility function rate itself based at least partly on others' utility functions. In fact, this is what vengeance is, just with someone becoming happy due to another's loss. In fact, this is what utilitarianism is! The total utility is the sum of everyone's happiness!

	26-07-2004 00:43									#59
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quote: Yes, but the "Self Interest" people claim that one wants to maximize one's own utility function. I fully agree that giving away that million dollar, instead on wasting them on boozing etc. is an increase in the overall utility ( Which is a sum of individual utilities), however that is not the maximum increase in his own utility that he could've achieved.

Why not? Why can't I become happy by making other's happy? In fact, I know lots of people who do this - they're called parents. Do you think a parent's' happiness isn't based at least partly on the happiness of his children?

	26-07-2004 00:45									#60
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quote: Originally posted by Azazel Imran: I never claimed that it didn't make him/her happy. However, I think that on the long run he would've been happier if he had the money.

Ah, so he's just incorrect over whether it would make him happy or not so he's acting in his perceived self-interest, and happens to have faulty perceptions.