In this following chapter we are going to be delving into the possibility of the altruistic act; of whether a human being can act in a completely selfless way for no self serving reason nor for glory, riches, fame, monetary gain or even social praise and acceptance. This question is not only of tremendous philosophical importance but in terms of the everyday life, understanding this issue could help us explain a huge contributing factor in our behavior, knowing if we live purely for ourselves or for others.
A great example for the case of human kindness below:
There are many perspectives to this debate biological, cultural and psychological and so with that in mind I have included some of thought on the subject in an attempt to shed some light on why we do the things that we do. Perhaps in the process being able to reconcile it within ourselves, that we are not purely mechanical automatons or purely selfish demons; which are seeking continual short term gratifications. Biologically we are described as nothing more than wonderfully complicated machined pre-programmed by innate instincts that lay within us, swaying our every judgment and that of survival of the fittest, endlessly moving forward and never stopping to ask why. This seemingly endless and mindless pursuit of our genetic destiny, too in some small way gain immortality, to pass on our DNA to the next generation and therefore in some circular fashion justifying our existence, continuing to continue our own existence. In this Darwinian interpretation of events there is little room for free will I’m afraid, least not in the way you might normally come to understand it, every action we take no matter how well it is concealed in social etiquette etc which would be nothing more than biological determinism. Evolution is the survival of the fittest! Were supposedly only the strong survive and the weak perish under the sands of time, to be forever forgotten, whether this argument is truly applicable for the reasoning human animal however is up for debate.
There are many perspectives to this debate biological, cultural and psychological and so with that in mind I have included some of thought on the subject in an attempt to shed some light on why we do the things that we do. Perhaps in the process being able to reconcile it within ourselves, that we are not purely mechanical automatons or purely selfish demons; which are seeking continual short term gratifications. Biologically we are described as nothing more than wonderfully complicated machined pre-programmed by innate instincts that lay within us, swaying our every judgment and that of survival of the fittest, endlessly moving forward and never stopping to ask why. This seemingly endless and mindless pursuit of our genetic destiny, too in some small way gain immortality, to pass on our DNA to the next generation and therefore in some circular fashion justifying our existence, continuing to continue our own existence. In this Darwinian interpretation of events there is little room for free will I’m afraid, least not in the way you might normally come to understand it, every action we take no matter how well it is concealed in social etiquette etc which would be nothing more than biological determinism. Evolution is the survival of the fittest! Were supposedly only the strong survive and the weak perish under the sands of time, to be forever forgotten, whether this argument is truly applicable for the reasoning human animal however is up for debate.
Qualities such as compassion should not be possible in this highly deterministic approach however as you are undoubtedly aware within our society the weak are far from abandoned, in fact historically great lengths have been taken to protect and safe guard the helpless, those who were considered 'weak' such as women and children or the 'mentally ill' those unconventional thinkers. This is seemingly going against any genetic advantage one would gain from it since caring for those who cannot support themselves is in fact a large drain on recourses, society is obviously a factor but to what extent does it contain a type of collective conscious whereby as a species there is advantages from taking care of the weak. Which leads us to a myriad of other issues of environmental factors influencing our decision making abilities or the 'nature vs. nature’ discourse, are we merely conditioned into positive and negative responses?
What do you think?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altruism
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