As I have been following and reading the blog entries people have made, a question has been brought to the forefront of my mind. Many of the posts concentrate on compassion, empathy, and the like emotions.
I have always believed that it doesn't matter why someone is empathetic, compassionate, or does a good deed; what matters is they act in that way and someone is postively impacted. However, do we do good things because they are just that, good? Or do we do good things because we want to feel good about ourselves?
Is it possible that we have a selfish motivation in selfless acts?
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I think your right. I think that sometimes we do good things because we want the people who see us to believe we are good people. In reality we are self serving.
ReplyDeleteI'm not saying that every act is selfish.
We may feel that it is more a duty.
I have yet to experience a truly unselfish act of selflessness. There are the obvious cases where "return on investment" is something physical in return. Then there is some of the less obvious cases such as loving one's family, or saving someone that's about to be hit by a car. A sense of love in return could be the desired result. Perhaps in the case of saving someone from getting hit by a car there is an inner sense of doing something good. Even if one doesn't care if other people notice, is that inner sense of self-confidence or knowledge that one did something good not just as much of a payoff.
ReplyDeleteThen, perhaps it doesn't matter what one's motives are as Harrison said. Maybe it matters more whether or not a positive impact is being made. How can we accurately know such things though? That innocent little boy that you just saved is gonna grow up to kill hundreds of thousands of people. Perhaps that man you shot to protect your family was actually going to discover a method of creating a true utopia based on his knowledge of the "dark" things in life? Classic cliche, but it demonstrates the point. There is no definitive way to measure the "positiveness" of anything. Religious beliefs are a common way to explain what is good or bad, right or wrong; yet, they carry just as much bloodshed, if not more, than any other subject of belief. Is this positive?
What does it matter what we think the right, wrong, positive, negative, bad, or good thing is when we do something? My experience is that people are always doing the best they know how in dealing with others and themselves. Bottom line, we all want something out of everything we do. Otherwise, we wouldn't do it.
Harrison poses a question that I have thought about a lot in the past. Samuel I enjoyed your response- I was wondering what you meant by "his knowledge of the "dark" thing in life?"
ReplyDeleteAlso I agree that we are self-serving beings, whether we like it or not and some of us are more than others. With that- I have one thought or phrase, I guess- "How do youn live your life when nobody's watching?" That is something to think about when thinking about Harrison's question.
Further more concerning Samuel's response- about positive effects. I strongly believe everything and I mean everything can have a positive purpose- yes, some things are truely awful- but some how in the long run they will be positive.
-Sarah
sorry if this is scattered and doesn't make sense.
I would have to agree that for the most part the things we do in life are for #1, ourselfs. I can't say though that all actions follow this course. I believe there are some things that can be done that are completely selfless. Imagine seeing an accident while driving down the freeway. It happens two cars ahead of you. Do you stop and help the family trapped in their car because you want to be the hero on the 10 o'clock news, or because you know it's the right thing to do?
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