Philosophy Now Forum

Posted: **Wed Feb 14, 2018 10:03 am**

Let’s discuss human nature for a moment. Let’s think like philosophers.

Taking on some responsibility is an ethical way to conduct oneself; yet to overburden oneself with responsibilities is to have “a martyr complex.” Let’s refer to such a person as a martyr.

The rest of us do what feels good. In that sense we act out of self-interest. This however does not mean that we are selfish.

It is in our self-interest to be considerate of others, and to cooperate with others toward achieving a shared goal. Once we are enlightened, know our true self-interest, we will do that.

For there is self-interest and there is enlightened self-interest. The former is often - mistakenly - taken to be synonymous with selfishness. The latter is an awareness. Let me explain.

To have enlightened self-interest is to have an awareness that what really helps you helps me. What tends toward and facilitates your authenticity also results in my becoming more authentic and in my flourishing. The ideal state of a human life is fulfillment or flourishing. (This includes a cluster of concepts such as happiness, success, joy, contentment, serenity, living a meaningful life.)

To be valuable is to be meaningful. Hence a valuable life is a meaningful life [but the converse is not necessarily true. One may have a full life, about which books will be written, and yet not have lived a valuable life. Adolph Hitler is an example.]

Authenticity and flourishing are ideals for the ethical life of an individual. We are authentic when we are true to our own true self: when our behavior and habits match our own self-ideals. Then the person is in balance. Then one has reduced his own hypocrisy. He “walks the talk.” He lives what he claims to believe. To be phony is the opposite of being authentic.

It is though an artificial distinction (made for academic purpose) between Individual Ethics and Social Ethics, since a person is often defined by the social groups of which he is a part – both by his personal identification with such groups and by our mentioning his culture, his times, his society.

In summary, a person has enlightened self-interest when he knows that “I’m better off if everyone else is better off.”

By “everyone else is better off “ is meant: that all other persons have a chance to develop their gifts and talents. The other individual has the opportunity to express his or her constructive abilities and capacities and give them to the world. We are to make a deliberative effort to provide opportunity, rather than merely to bask in our own privilege. This is how to live a meaningful life. This is how to add value to our own life.

Those who lack meaning in their lives – who believe ‘life is meaningless’ - are potential suicides. {Let’s assume for purposes of ethical understanding that everyone – whether yet conscious of it or not – wants life to have meaning, that we all want as valuable a life as we can possibly have. This is a basis upon which we can build a convincing theory of Ethics that we can explain to others.} We began by speaking of human nature, and we note that nearly everyone loves good bargains: we love to ‘shop for value.’ Businesses seek ‘added value.’

Now that we know how to add value to life, let’s consider doing it.

A person can acquire enlightened self-interest …even before s/he is over 60. This is a prediction to be confirmed.

Posted: **Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:31 pm**

prof:
Authenticity and flourishing are ideals for the ethical life of an individual. We are authentic when we are true to our own true self: when our behavior and habits match our own self-ideals. Then the person is in balance. Then one has reduced his own hypocrisy. He “walks the talk.” He lives what he claims to believe. To be phony is the opposite of being authentic.

But self ideals are acquired, and this true self is acquired, that is, manufactured by social dynamics and the ideational content of the values we grow up with. There seems to be little room here for second guessing this, and that raises the question: what else is there that belongs to ethics that is not grounded in self interest and balance of the personality?

Kant was wrong about lots of things, but right about the sacrificing nature of an ethical act: I don't agree about duty being the sole standard for this, but it is in the denying of one's self interest that he has a point on the matter of ethics.

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2018 4:57 am**

odysseus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:31 pm
prof:
Authenticity and flourishing are ideals for the ethical life of an individual. We are authentic when we are true to our own true self: when our behavior and habits match our own self-ideals. Then the person is in balance. Then one has reduced his own hypocrisy. He “walks the talk.” He lives what he claims to believe. To be phony is the opposite of being authentic.
Kant was wrong about lots of things, but right about the sacrificing nature of an ethical act: I don't agree about duty being the sole standard for this, but it is in the denying of one's self interest that he has a point on the matter of ethics.

I disagree with this usage of "self interest"; some of the confusion may reside in the difficulty of translation from the German tongue into English.

Here is an excerpt from Chapter Two of a new booklet written by yours truly, prior to its publication.

Human beings are pre-wired to be self-serving. There are two ways of being self-serving: they may seek their own self-interest, or they may be selfish. To do what is in one’s self-interest is to be considerate of others. To be selfish is to be inconsiderate of others.
To have a good character is in one’s self-interest.

...The following passage is excerpted from an earlier work by this author, entitled Living Successfully.1

HOW SELF-INTEREST DIFFERS FROM SELFISHNESS

We all are, in a sense, self-serving. Even when we are most altruistic, charitable, or seemingly self-sacrificing, there is something in it for us. In cases like that we are usually operating out of self-interest. Self-interest, however, is not to be confused with selfishness: which is a disregard for others along with a lack of respect for them.

If you perform an act of loving kindness it appears on the surface to be selfless. I hold that there is something in it for you, namely a warm feeling that you have done some good, and you are gratified that in some small way you have made the world a better place. So it was in your self-interest to do it.

The person who sees his true self-interest knows these things. For we are all, in this world, just trying to make a life for ourselves. Referring to those who do know what is in their interest, Princeton ethics researcher Anthony Appiah put it this way: “We want to make a life for ourselves. We recognize that everybody has a life to make and that we are making our lives together. We recognize value in our own humanity and in doing so we see it as the same humanity we find in others. If my humanity matters, so does yours; if yours doesn’t, neither does mine.”

In contrast, a selfish person thinks "me first." I must "get mine." He or she shows no respect for others, and thus fails to be ethical. Selfishness is concentrating on one's own advantage with disregard for others and may involve doing something that affects someone else adversely, such as taking something to which one is not entitled (theft); or depriving someone of something to which he/she is entitled.

Selfishness indicates a lack of respect, a failure to value other persons in a way that would be to one's maximum advantage. Optimum moral health is obtained when one Intrinsically-values other persons.

Selfish people are not moral; they are not ethical. There is nothing wrong with self-interest, though - provided it is enlightened. It is enlightened when you know what is in your true self-interest. To be enlightened is to put people first, things next, and ideas last. It is to live by the Hierarchy of Value discovered by Robert S. Hartman, the wise philosopher-scientist. Then you will tend to be ethical and to have smooth human relations! You will have good manners and you will be friendly. The harmony you feel is an indication that you are winning the game of life.

Then you will gain all the benefits that come with co-operation on shared goals. Benefits will result when you create value in your interactions with others. How can one create value? Some examples as to how it is done follow: Boosting someone up is one way to create value. Make someone feel good about themselves. Another way is handing out sincere compliments. And be ready to be of service.
Selfishness” means "you gain and the other person loses" If you push to the head-of-the-line at a checkout counter, getting in front of those who were in line ahead of you, or if you grab the biggest slice of cake at a party before others have had a chance to select a slice, you are being selfish. If you take what doesn't belong to you (theft), or deprive someone else of what they have a right to, you are being selfish.

The opposite way of conducting yourself is to be considerate of others. That is the ethical way.

A third alternative is to give others a cold shoulder, to be indifferent to them, to ignore them. This will not 'grease the wheels' for human relations, for group living. We are a social species

.

As to the point of our Self Ideals being acquired from the culture in which we grew up, I hold that we are capable of transcending that culture and through self-management (self-leadership) we can form a new, fresh set of ideals more in keeping with the best and highest insights of the finest and most-thorough Ethical theory currently available to us, a theory that absorbs and integrates within itself a synthesis of gleanings from other known moral theories that are established and of good repute.

Comments? Questions? Discussion?

Posted: **Sat Feb 17, 2018 5:59 pm**

prof
I disagree with this usage of "self interest"; some of the confusion may reside in the difficulty of translation from the German tongue into English.

No. Kant was very big on this notion of denying desire and and insistent that the condition of a moral is that it must be disinterested altogether and yield to reason's authority, that is, reason as such. He was putting the matter of being moral altogether out of the measurable and observable world, and into the world of reason as such. But this works on two levels for me: One the one hand, I believe he is right to say that a truly moral act is one that issues from human agency and it is not simply analysis of utility. I think truly moral acts require sacrifice: no sacrifice, no moral act, even if the consequences are defensible. Kant is right about this.

On the other hand, this analysis of a moral act needs examination, for how is any act at all conceivable without motivation? Rational determinations of moral acts must be grounded in the desire to do this. Of course, Kant had this obsession with placing our true self in some kind of hyper rational noumena that is the transcendental Unity of Apperception. I don't think this is right at all, which is why I said I don't agree with Kant on everything.

HOW SELF-INTEREST DIFFERS FROM SELFISHNESS

We all are, in a sense, self-serving. Even when we are most altruistic, charitable, or seemingly self-sacrificing, there is something in it for us. In cases like that we are usually operating out of self-interest. Self-interest, however, is not to be confused with selfishness: which is a disregard for others along with a lack of respect for them.

If you perform an act of loving kindness it appears on the surface to be selfless. I hold that there is something in it for you, namely a warm feeling that you have done some good, and you are gratified that in some small way you have made the world a better place. So it was in your self-interest to do it.

The person who sees his true self-interest knows these things. For we are all, in this world, just trying to make a life for ourselves. Referring to those who do know what is in their interest, Princeton ethics researcher Anthony Appiah put it this way: “We want to make a life for ourselves. We recognize that everybody has a life to make and that we are making our lives together. We recognize value in our own humanity and in doing so we see it as the same humanity we find in others. If my humanity matters, so does yours; if yours doesn’t, neither does mine.”

In contrast, a selfish person thinks "me first." I must "get mine." He or she shows no respect for others, and thus fails to be ethical. Selfishness is concentrating on one's own advantage with disregard for others and may involve doing something that affects someone else adversely, such as taking something to which one is not entitled (theft); or depriving someone of something to which he/she is entitled.

Selfishness indicates a lack of respect, a failure to value other persons in a way that would be to one's maximum advantage. Optimum moral health is obtained when one Intrinsically-values other persons.

Selfish people are not moral; they are not ethical. There is nothing wrong with self-interest, though - provided it is enlightened. It is enlightened when you know what is in your true self-interest. To be enlightened is to put people first, things next, and ideas last. It is to live by the Hierarchy of Value discovered by Robert S. Hartman, the wise philosopher-scientist. Then you will tend to be ethical and to have smooth human relations! You will have good manners and you will be friendly. The harmony you feel is an indication that you are winning the game of life.

Then you will gain all the benefits that come with co-operation on shared goals. Benefits will result when you create value in your interactions with others. How can one create value? Some examples as to how it is done follow: Boosting someone up is one way to create value. Make someone feel good about themselves. Another way is handing out sincere compliments. And be ready to be of service.
Selfishness” means "you gain and the other person loses" If you push to the head-of-the-line at a checkout counter, getting in front of those who were in line ahead of you, or if you grab the biggest slice of cake at a party before others have had a chance to select a slice, you are being selfish. If you take what doesn't belong to you (theft), or deprive someone else of what they have a right to, you are being selfish.

The opposite way of conducting yourself is to be considerate of others. That is the ethical way.

A third alternative is to give others a cold shoulder, to be indifferent to them, to ignore them. This will not 'grease the wheels' for human relations, for group living. We are a social species

Too much here to respond to all. My issue with the jist of it is not going to be well received because I am a proponent of Emanuel Levinas. Here, the term 'self interest' is mutually exclusive of the Other (person). He looks at a view like your and says, this is the way to aggression: it is the attempt to bring others into the fold of a single synthesizing agency, that is, an agency that looks at another person and insists on this other being understood and treated according to standards that are always already there in the agent making the judgment, not unlike my waking up and seeing my wall clock and assume it is a wall clock, in my home, etc.

Human dasein (you no doubt know this term) is one's Totality (Heidegger would say it is a kind of institutional totality, but never mind this), and we usually go about thinking others are the same, that is, conform to a pattern thought we impose on the world. It is the breaking away from this "same" that brings one into the moral world. This "same" is Levinas' paradigm for self interest, and seeing the Other person not as a pattern that fits our structure of interests and motivations, but as a transcendence of this is basic to Levinas' thinking. The yielding to the needs of anOther is not self motivated, but other motivated.
You can object by saying other motivated is indeed motivated, but are you will to go that far and defend all motivations are for oneself? This is where your position is compromised, it is in the assumption that a person is a closed system that cannot be undone.

Posted: **Tue Feb 20, 2018 3:06 am**

Obviously Levinas is using the phrase "self interest" to mean what I mean by the term "selfishness."

Do you, after thinking deeply about it, believe that self-interest has to be exclusive of the other person? Is it not in your self interest to live in a world surrounded by others who bless the day they were born, people who feel at home in this world, people who live up to their own high ethical standards, who are happy, fulfilled, achieving, motivated, and healthy? If you could do something to help them get that way wouldn't that be in your self interest?

Is it possible that Levinas' views may now be old-fashioned? How long, once you wake up in a strange environment would it take before you realize that the clock you see on the wall in this place that is not your home is not the identical clock you at first thought it was? Applying this to discourse with others, if you talk to a Trump supporter, it won't take you long to see how futile it is to talk politics with him/her. The ignorance of world affairs, public policy, and Political Science is palpable. You may, though, be able to find common ground with that individual on local concerns, and on the fulfilment of basic human needs on some personal level.

Posted: **Wed Feb 21, 2018 5:13 am**

prof:
Obviously Levinas is using the phrase "self interest" to mean what I mean by the term "selfishness."

Do you, after thinking deeply about it, believe that self-interest has to be exclusive of the other person? Is it not in your self interest to live in a world surrounded by others who bless the day they were born, people who feel at home in this world, people who live up to their own high ethical standards, who are happy, fulfilled, achieving, motivated, and healthy? If you could do something to help them get that way wouldn't that be in your self interest?

Of course my interest in others is also in my self interest. In fact, I acknowledge the route of the psychological egoist who insists that all interests are self interests, and Others are just a mode of myself.

But there are other approaches that are very different. Assume there are others, and you therefore have assumed that acts can be for them, acts that are not for yourself. Your interests may be there, but this is irrelevant: the act is for another, that is how it is phenomenologically played out. The other presents herself as other and to question this would be to question alterity itself . So, yes, it would be in my self interest to help others, but helping others is not necessarily done for my self interest.And if it can be done for another or others, then it needs to be acknowledged that this is indeed the essence of a moral act.

Posted: **Thu Feb 22, 2018 8:07 am**

In my Ethical Theory the "act" is not central. You may have noticed that when you studied the document, Living Successfully. An earlier version of it is named: How to Live Successfully. [A link to that is offered HERE:
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf

The concept of 'a good character' is very significant in my theory, as is the high value assigned to a conscious human life. This then indicates the imperative: Do no harm. The latter has all kinds of further implications. See:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf

or see: my earlier posts here at this Forum dating back a couple of years, in order to understand. Can you explain to me the difference between an act, an action, an activity, and a consequence. Such ambiguity and confusion is why I do not emphasize the concept "act."

Posted: **Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:14 am**

prof:
In my Ethical Theory the "act" is not central. You may have noticed that when you studied the document, Living Successfully. An earlier version of it is named: How to Live Successfully. [A link to that is offered HERE:
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf

The concept of 'a good character' is very significant in my theory, as is the high value assigned to a conscious human life. This then indicates the imperative: Do no harm. The latter has all kinds of further implications. See:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf

or see: my earlier posts here at this Forum dating back a couple of years, in order to understand. Can you explain to me the difference between an act, an action, an activity, and a consequence. Such ambiguity and confusion is why I do not emphasize the concept "act."

Frankly, my complaint is with your statement that self interest needs to be a (if not the?) guiding principle in making ethical decisions. I do not approve of this kind of analysis, though I don't deny that self interest is always already part any kind of decision at all. Ever since I read John Rawls' Justice as Fairness, I have been critical of ethical theories that ground decision making in self interest. This is because I think ethics needs to about compassion, empathy, caring; I think these should be central to any theory about right and wrong behavior. I am with Nietzsche on this point (a rarity for me): ethics is less about the behavior, the activity, the consequence, and much more about the agency. This goes much deeper into phenomenological accounts as to what is real and meaningful in the world, and doing no harm begins with the reality of the thoughts and feelings behind the objective description of right and wrong.

You call this good character. Good. But what does this amount to? I can't abide by any theory that looks to self interest to procure the interests of others.

Sorry, no time to read your book. Too busy.

Posted: **Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:32 am**

odysseus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:14 am
prof:
In my Ethical Theory the "act" is not central. You may have noticed that when you studied the document, Living Successfully. An earlier version of it is named: How to Live Successfully. [A link to that is offered HERE:
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf

The concept of 'a good character' is very significant in my theory, as is the high value assigned to a conscious human life. This then indicates the imperative: Do no harm. The latter has all kinds of further implications. See:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf

or see: my earlier posts here at this Forum dating back a couple of years, in order to understand. Can you explain to me the difference between an act, an action, an activity, and a consequence. Such ambiguity and confusion is why I do not emphasize the concept "act."
Sorry, no time to read your book. Too busy.

Your loss.....

Posted: **Sun Feb 25, 2018 8:20 am**

odysseus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:14 am
prof:
I
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf

The concept of 'a good character' is very significant in my theory, as is the high value assigned to a conscious human life. This then indicates the imperative: Do no harm. The latter has all kinds of further implications. See:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf"
Frankly, my complaint is with your statement that self interest needs to be a (if not the?) guiding principle in making ethical decisions. I do not approve of this
I never said this. A misunderstanding occurred as shown by the above sentence. That is a distinction I drew, not at all a "guiding principle in making ethical decisions."

You call this good character. Good. But what does this amount to? I can't abide by any theory that looks to self interest to procure the interests of others.
My theory, as anyone would learn who glanced at my books, definitely does not "look to self-interest to procure the interests of others." Once again, a faulty inference. Quit jumping to conclusions. Do the prerequisite background reading, so that we can have an intelligent discussion.

Posted: **Mon Feb 26, 2018 5:31 pm**

prof:Frankly, my complaint is with your statement that self interest needs to be a (if not the?) guiding principle in making ethical decisions. I do not approve of this
I never said this. A misunderstanding occurred as shown by the above sentence. That is a distinction I drew, not at all a "guiding principle in making ethical decisions."

You call this good character. Good. But what does this amount to? I can't abide by any theory that looks to self interest to procure the interests of others.
My theory, as anyone would learn who glanced at my books, definitely does not "look to self-interest to procure the interests of others." Once again, a faulty inference. Quit jumping to conclusions. Do the prerequisite background reading, so that we can have an intelligent discussion.

You did say, "In summary, a person has enlightened self-interest when he knows that “I’m better off if everyone else is better off.”" If this is a summary, then this puts forward the essential idea. It does imply that if one examines one's self interest carefully, one will decide to attend to the interests of others, and that is how others' interests are satisfied: by a close examination of one's own best self interest.

If you say more in your books, then when you post, present this. No jumping. And I do not read someone's book just for the asking. I do this with posts.

Posted: **Wed Feb 28, 2018 10:36 am**

One's own self-interest is definitely compatible with the self-interest of others in Kantianism. Just read the Categorical Imperative:

Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law.[1]

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Categorical_imperative

Which is to say that one should act in such an ethical/moral way (and thus in your self-interest) so that your morality complies with other people's way to act, morally. That is, your morality complies with a kind of behaviour that works for all other people's morality as well, that your behaviour can be expressed as universal (ethical/moral) laws for everyone.

Then the duty is there to ensure the rule-following which should make life happy for all law-abiding people.

One example is the c-pills: the woman/the couple can agree to make use of them or not as a matter of personal choice that does not violate the (fair) rights of other people's personal choices, privately.

Happy reading: http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/568 ... mages.html.

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 10:50 pm**

odysseus wrote: ↑Fri Feb 23, 2018 2:14 am
prof:
In my Ethical Theory the "act" is not central. You may have noticed that when you studied the document, Living Successfully. An earlier version of it is named: How to Live Successfully. [A link to that is offered HERE:
http://myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/HOW%20 ... SFULLY.pdf

The concept of 'a good character' is very significant in my theory, as is the high value assigned to a conscious human life. This then indicates the imperative: Do no harm. The latter has all kinds of further implications. See:
http://www.myqol.com/wadeharvey/PDFs/BASIC%20ETHICS.pdf
...
Sorry, no time to read your book. Too busy.

Would you mind telling us a bit about what you are too busy doing?

{If it includes: making a living, then you are pursuing your self-interest, n'est pas?}

The point to understand is that if one is altruistic, generous, and even heroic [cf. CNN's Heroes], one is in line with his self-interest at the same time. There is no conflict.

What motivates me to write this - in my latest booklet, The Breakthrough: We can get along after all, is that often the concept "self-interest" is used to express what I designate as "selfishness," or as being "self-centered." I am attempting to explain that kindness, compassion, empathy, service, helpfulness, sincerity, genuinennss, transparency, altruism, etc. are all to our own benefit as well as to the benefit of others. The concepts are compatible.

It is not a case of, to quote you, "one examines one's self interest carefully, one will decide to attend to the interests of others, and that is how others' interests are satisfied: by a close examination of one's own best self interest. " As you gain more experience in the world {this is said by someone old enough to be your father} and become wiser you will see how self-serving everyone is - with a few exceptions always - and if you want to appeal to the vast majority, to live more ethically, you will need to change your approach. It is fine to be idealistic but we must be realistic at the same time. And why write an Ethical Theory if not to affect the attainment of a more-ethical world. Immanuel Kant, I assure you, did not do it as a mere intellectual exercise. See his treatise on World Peace. He put forth the concept which later became The United Nations.

Comments?

Posted: **Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:57 pm**

In short, 'tis better to seek win-win solutions than to engage in a zero sum contest, although circumstances don't always allow much choice.

Posted: **Fri Mar 02, 2018 2:55 am**

Greta wrote: ↑Thu Mar 01, 2018 11:57 pm In short, 'tis better to seek win-win solutions than to engage in a zero sum contest, although circumstances don't always allow much choice.

Brilliant, Greta !!!
I could not agree more.

It is preferable that we seek such solutions, hoping for the best optimistically, while expecting the worst -- yet working to find a way to create some value for all concerned.

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