[lit-ideas] Re: Sacrifice
- From: Judy Evans <judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 13 Feb 2005 17:39:27 +0000
RP>(Broad on Butler)As a
RP> psychological theory it was killed by Butler; but it still flourishes, I
RP> believe, among bookmakers and smart young business men
I love that! I meet it among rational economic thought types, whose
argument is somewhat different: all our actions are self-interested
(no action of ours is not in our interest). From an "altruistic" act,
we derive psychic gratification.
My irritation with the more mindless exponents of this view lives with
a belief that in an important sense, they are correct, but that the
appopriate response, when judging such an act, is "so what?". I think
perhaps Broad's words here explain why:
>(Broad) So it is true that all impulses belong to a self, and that
>the carrying out of any impulse as such gives pleasure to that self.
>But it is not true that all impulses have for their objects
>states of the self whose impulses they are. And it is not true
>that the object of any of them is the general happiness of the
>self who owns them.
thank you for the reference and the link, Robert
Sunday, February 13, 2005, 7:21:23 AM, Robert Paul wrote:
RP> I thought that Julie's point was that altruism ('altruism') as a motive
doesn't
RP> really exist--that the real motive behind so-called altruistic acts was
really
RP> the agent's own pleasure. At least that's how I understood her.
RP> Hobbes argued somewhat in the same fashion: the real motive behind any act
is
RP> one's own good usually under the heading of
RP> self-preservation. (Of course if
RP> one's own well-being were always one's primary concern, altruism would be
ruled
RP> out immediately.)
mailto:judithevans001@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
