Originally posted by: DaShen
Originally posted by: Amused
Originally posted by: iwantanewcomputer
yes, you take up your parents time and money, public school funding, and use up natural resources, producing pollution. i think we are responsible to do more than make money for ourselves and spend it. we need to do something that produces benefit for other members of society, or this world is going down the toilet
Again, most things done to benefit mankind have been done for purely selfish reasons. Be that glory, recognition, fame or profit.
They were also done to preserve a free, peaceful, prosperous would for which they can live in.
Morality and ethics are rooted in selfishness as well. I do not want to be stolen from, therefore theft is wrong. I do not want to be murdered therefore murder is wrong. I do not want to be lied to, therefore lying is wrong, I don;t want my wife fscking other men, therefore adultery is wrong...
So the fact that after work, I will sometimes go to the side store to buy a few snacks and then drop them beside some sleeping homeless guy is somehow selfish? That mindset can get you thinking very strangely. I mean it is true that is a big percentage of cases kind acts have some selfishness in them, but not all of them do. <sigh> That kind of thinking leads to problems.
Now if you followed Kant's philosophy of social order leading to morality that makes some sense, but even this isn't true in all cases.
Even your actions can be said to have some selfish motivation. You do these things to make YOU feel good and I bet you tell people (oops, you just did ) that you do these things also....so in effect you are looking for a pat on the back. Sorry, but almost everything a human does has some selfish motivation involved.