SS2 Vegeto

You basically repeated something I singled out and debated in the response you are replying to, and repeated it.

Based on the fact that you can't feel feelings that are not your own feelings (because if you felt them...they would be your feelings), the conclusion made is that as feelings are personal, as an individual human acting on one's feelings is invariably an act of self-care - this however, is a non-sequitur: an argument that moves from a premise to a conclusion where no connection exists between the two. All that it proves is that conscious action by an individual being is self-motivated, which is obvious - that you make a conscious decision to do anything demonstrates this. It says nothing to support that our personal feelings are ultimately self-caring in nature as we can define within define within our selves the value of things, next to and including ourselves. We feel for the sake of others, as we recognize and internalize their value.

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Jonny America

I read the entire thing, and to be fair, that part was the only thing I disagreed to. What I'm saying is this, you're helping them because you care. Would you help them if you didn't? That is what separates selfish behavior from non-selfish behavior.

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Kurushimi

The fact that you care about something that doesn't benefit yourself is what makes it unselfish.

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~ xkcd

Jonny America

The way I see it, the benefit is to satisfy your feeling of sympathy.

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Kurushimi

But one does not do an unselfish act to satisfy his feeling of sympathy. He does it so it will benefit somone else.

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~ xkcd

Jonny America

My statement is implying that he does. Example; you see a kitten's leg stuck under a fallen branch. The kitten is struggling to remove it. Let's say you feel sympathetic, so you pick up the branch and free the kitten. Let's say you don't. You see it, and simply don't give a fuck. I need you to visually and internly imagine yourself totally indifferent on the situation. Would you help the kitten? If you did feel sympathetic, you obviously would, and then your feelings of sympathy would either continue in order to give the kitten a home, or they would die out and you would just let it walk the streets. Unless you yourself care about the situation or someone else offers you something that would make you care, you wouldn't act.

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Deep thought

Wait, wait, what exactly does "We human care only about ourselves" mean, exactly?

Does it mean that humans only care about other humans and not animals?

OR, does it mean that every individual of the human race only cares about themselves?

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Kurushimi

Once again, the fact that you care about and feel sympathy towards something other than yourself is unselfish in itself. If you didn't care, you would be being selfish. Let's say you jumped infront of a bullet for somone or pushed some out of the way of a vehicle. Your first thought wouldn't be "Oh man, I'm gonna feel so good inside if I save this guy" as you obviously wouldn't with a bullet in your chest or a vehicle ramming you. Sacrifice like this is the ultimate form of unselfishness.

But, even when you're not sacrficing yourself for the benefit of others but merely helping out with little personal cost it could still be unselfish. Let's use your kitten example. You wouldn't be sacrificing much in moving the branch but wouldn't be gaining much either. When you move the branch you are thinking only of the kitten (at least, that's the way I am) not of any joy you might get from freeing it. Thus, it is an unselfish act.

Edit:
@DT: I believe he was saying the second option, how each indvidual human only cares for himself.

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~ xkcd

Jonny America

Your not understanding me lol. I'm not saying selfish as in "you're doing it because of a high benefit for yourself", I'm saying it as "you're doing it because you, yourself, feels like you have to".

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Kurushimi

And I'm saying that you do it so "somone else, who is not you, will benefit from it".

I don't see either of us changing our minds anytime soon.

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~ xkcd

Deep thought

Then that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard in my life.

I guess 70% of the parents in the world don't really care about their children.

I guess funerals are meaningless, too. And the tears that are shed are fake.

I guess pretty much every act of self-sacrifice is "phony".

I guess empathy and sympathy is just a bunch of bullshit, too.

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Halcyon

Saving somebody from their pain because they don't deserve it is not selfish. You see them suffering and know it shouldn't be that way--know, not feel.

Unless you want to say that something like villagers having hands hacked off is only unappealing because we feel bad, and not because we know it is wrong.