Are Humans Inherently Selfish?

[Serioli]

Is it possible to quantify or put 'worth' on selfishness?

E.g. I spend a non work day volunteering to clear dumped items and trash from a the local canals and at the end of it I get the warm fuzzies for a job well done.

Are the minutes I feel the warm fuzzies selfish given that I have used (wasted?) ten hours helping clear up stuff.

Just saying that I think it's worth it (selfish) doesn't necessarily make it true from an inherent/evolutionary standpoint. That's ten hours I could have been finding food or breeding with a mate etc. Hell, from a survival perspective it would have been better to do nothing for ten hours as it would have used less calories

 

[000Ronald]

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

Care to...justify your opinion? Just a little, maybe?

Sorry, but it's just so...I dunno, boorish.

 

[Dr Ampersand]

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

ORLY?

Baby spiders eat one another, small tigers fight each other, if a gorilla family loses the male, another gorilla will kill the children and mate to pass on his genes rather than allow the dead fathers genes to survive. Let's not forget that dolphins are capable and have been noted to gang raping other dolphins and certain types of ducks have been noted doing that as well.

On the subject of those ducks,rape occurs so often that the females have developed vaginal traps to not allow the rapist duck's genes to pass on and the males have corkscrew penises. I'm sure we can all attest as a species that we don't rape so much that we have that.

 

[SNIPERFOX ft. Harry P.Ness]

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

Care to...justify your opinion? Just a little, maybe?

Sorry, but it's just so...I dunno, boorish.

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

ORLY?

Baby spiders eat one another, small tigers fight each other, if a gorilla family loses the male, another gorilla will kill the children and mate to pass on his genes rather than allow the dead fathers genes to survive. Let's not forget that dolphins are capable and have been noted to gang raping other dolphins and certain types of ducks have been noted doing that as well.

look through history books to see how evil we are

 

[Terminal Dogma]

Is it possible to quantify or put 'worth' on selfishness?

E.g. I spend a non work day volunteering to clear dumped items and trash from a the local canals and at the end of it I get the warm fuzzies for a job well done.

Are the minutes I feel the warm fuzzies selfish given that I have used (wasted?) ten hours helping clear up stuff.

Just saying that I think it's worth it (selfish) doesn't necessarily make it true from an inherent/evolutionary standpoint. That's ten hours I could have been finding food or breeding with a mate etc. Hell, from a survival perspective it would have been better to do nothing for ten hours as it would have used less calories

And yet your mind puts more value on giving back to the community than on the most efficient form of personal gain. Your experiences have brought you to think that the potential of reciprocation from your peer group is more valuable than short term personal advancement.

 

[Prof.Wood]

Humans are selfish its all about self preservation in some way.
I do like how when People try to explain this (at least in my experience) there are some people's heads spin it so that they cant accept that they might be genetically designed to be selfish.

 

[probunk]

Yes, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with selfishness. It's totally beneficial and helps everyone.

 

[000Ronald]

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

Care to...justify your opinion? Just a little, maybe?

Sorry, but it's just so...I dunno, boorish.

look through history books to see how evil we are

Wrong answer. I asked you to justify your opinion, not for you to point to someone else who would. I've got an opinion and I can justify it with facts, philosophies, and counter-arguments. If all you've got is a stick up your ass, you're wasting our time. Kina like a troll.

'pologies.

 

[deus-ex-machina]

I would say most humans are selfish a lot of the time. But I think a lot of people would also sacrifice the choice which rewards them the most for a compromise which also benefits their friends/family/children. A lot of choices are compromise in the end. Unless I saw good reason to, I wouldn't put a useless stranger before myself or someone I loved if it made me/my loved one worse off. I don't see the worth of making yourself worse off unless it is for the benefit of someone close to you.

If you invest in something, you may appear on the bad end in the short term, but hopefully, it works out and you end up making the person you invested in and yourself better off. While that applies to business, banking and economics, I can see it working for children and friends and family too.

I think if you look into something enough, you can always end up believing it could have been selfish, it depends how you look at life. Some people are just in it for:
-themselves
-themselves, friends and family (I would like to consider myself part of this)
-people of the same alignment, be it city, country, political party, religion (a scale bigger than the immediate friends and family)
-the world, as in the human race as a whole.

The greater the degree of the population you aim to look after, I think you end up compromising your individual efforts because you spread the same contributions between more people. If you invest in one person, they receive in all the money (ie yourself), but invest in a 1000 people and they get a fraction. But it depends on how you feel about the rest of the population. I know people who would die for their country. I wouldn't. But I would die for my friends and family. Inevitably, we would both die for the same reason - because we would rather die than let those people we love die. By choosing one option over another, it could be argued that it was a selfish choice because for your own peace of mind, you break the hearts of the people you left behind with your own death.

 

[Dr Ampersand]

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

Care to...justify your opinion? Just a little, maybe?

Sorry, but it's just so...I dunno, boorish.

yes human beings are the most selfish evil creature in the universe

ORLY?

Baby spiders eat one another, small tigers fight each other, if a gorilla family loses the male, another gorilla will kill the children and mate to pass on his genes rather than allow the dead fathers genes to survive. Let's not forget that dolphins are capable and have been noted to gang raping other dolphins and certain types of ducks have been noted doing that as well.

look through history books to see how evil we are

We have no comparable history books for animal groups and colonies. A lack of equal recording of each types of animals renders comparison impossible.

Not saying we've done bad things just that we can't compare ourselves and proclaim ourselves as the worst. It's saying person A is worse than person B because person A was recorded all throughout their life and was noted to swear at someone once. Without similar recording on person B, that person could be a murderer for all we know.

Besides we've been nice and chummy in history as well.

 

[Serioli]

SNIP

And yet your mind puts more value on giving back to the community than on the most efficient form of personal gain. Your experiences have brought you to think that the potential of reciprocation from your peer group is more valuable than short term personal advancement.

ARE YOU SAYING MY FRIENDS ONLY LIKE ME BECAUSE I VOLUNTEER!?!111

Seriously though, It could well be the truth (I have no psychology training) however there are plenty in my peer group who don't volunteer for things and are (to my knowledge) treated equally to myself. (E.g. I don't get shiner christmas/birthday presents, I don't get preferential help or more drinks at the pub, I'm married so I don't get more 'evolutionary benefits' from more partners...)

Ooh, Grenade chap may just be a reflex action due to training. I.e no time for higher brain to think about selfless/selfish side of things (doesn't help the debate really I know)

 

[ScruffyTheJanitor]

Slaves to instinct. Only thing people can do is stuff that;s "less selfish" than other things.

 

[Raticate5]

Depends on how you define the word selfish. If you mean selfish in that sense, yes, everybody is selfish. However, selfish with that meaning loses it's negative connotation. Therefore destroying any reason to make the argument.

What it boils down to is words, their definition, and how people interpret them.

 

[000Ronald]

Altruism, http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10750-why-altruism-paid-off-for-our-ancestors.html, is programmed into you. Making others feel good and helping others fulfills the 'smug' requirement of the human needs

I also have a theory that self destructive altruism (b) is simply a lack of foresight or utilitarian thought process. In that example diving on the nade might be an act of desperation thinking its better that only he die since their all gonna die anyway, without thinking escape is a valid route. The same rational of the utilitarian.

Also entrenched thinking that keeps the grenade divers options limited, ie jump out of trench until one heres a muffled thump and then jump back in

A selfless act is impossible to anyone bar a sociopathic individual. As any act that helps otheres triggers a reward for doing so.

Hey, cool. Someone worth debating.

Your logic is flawed for two reasons:

1) Not everything a person does benifits them (a person accidentally burning down their house), and not all benifits are considered benifits by said people (a person having free time because they were expelled from school). What's more, something may benifit someone in the short run, but have consierable drawbacks at some time. Drinking soda/beer is the simplest example, but the circumstances leading up to the recession and even suicide can be considered examples of this.

and, more importiantly

2) Your argument is not an argument, but a non-argument. If it is impossible for a person to be selfless, then it is just as impossible for a person to be selfish. Ideals like that go both ways; you can't say that these people are like this, while these people, who are exactly the same, are not.

'pologies.

 

[GundamSentinel]

- snip -

It's what I've been trying to tell my parents for years. Glad I've finally found someone who agrees. I have yet to find a single human act for which selfishness is not at the base (that is to say, not just selfishness for oneself, but also for the collective you belong to. Like having kids, or fighting a war for your country, or making friends. You do it to serve you and yours).
That may seem depressing, but if you look around most people have pretty ok lives. I'm happy with such selfishness.

Thank you for this!

 

[oppp7]

Ya, I agree with your post. But it's not that simple. Those instincts and emotions exist in the first place so that organisms will help each other.

 

[JokerCrowe]

Well, since to you, you're the most important person in the world, humans are selfish, but not in particularly bad way. But humans are teamworkers by nature, so you might benefit from having the people in your group feeling good. And that is what makes you say nice things, humans depend on other humans. And since you are more important than anyone else (if you got to decide who would live; you or a complete stranger, who would you pick?) you would probably do everything you can to make life as comfortable for you and your group.

My answer is "yes, humans are selfish by nature."

 

[Jroo wuz heer]

yes they definitely are

 

[Jedoro]

Soo...you are trying to convince us that it is pointless to search for answers, because we will never be sure if the ones we arrive at are the real ones? I say we, by the way, not out of some sense of arrogance towards you, but because it seems that most of the people on this thread seem interested in searching regardless of the results. Even the act of searching can reveal answers to questions unasked.

Either way, though, you are correct in that from an objective perspective answers are completely useless. All meaning is meaningless (?) out of context. In this case a human one.

It's not quite pointless, as there is much comfort in at least thinking you know the truth, and it can be thought-provoking to merely search. You can find an answer, you just won't ever be 100% sure it's the truth unless Helios was involved.

By all means, search for an answer, and my contribution was that I'm an inherently selfless person, so I disagree with the OP on that viewpoint.