Can you come up with a truly unselfish, altruistic act?

[Independent voter]

Was listening to a podcast were they were talking about unselfish altruistic acts. It was their opinion that there are no such acts because acting in an unselfish altruistic way makes you feel good so you got something out of the exchange.

Giving a wino a $1 makes you feel good and the wino feels good cause he's that much closer to buying his bottle of fortified wine.

Is there an unselfish altruistic act?

[Banshee Prince]

Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for our sins and suffered greatly for it. Is that not unselfish and altruistic?

[Forgettable]

The act you just described, performed by an anhedoniac.

[Arrashi]

A guy who risks his own life to save fellow soldier by carrying him on his back while under fire. No amount of feel good is worth it. Its just that you are born as "the man".

[Celista]

Giving your life for another. Happens often in rescue situations, can't have good feelings about the act if you're dead.

People act altruistically all of the time, I do not think that the act of feeling good about doing something takes away from an act's inherent altruism unless the individual in question was primarily motivated out of self-interest (feeling good). And if that was the case, then by no one's definition would the act have been altruistic in the first place.

[Vanyali]

I went out and got stung by a bee.

It made the bee happy, he got to look tough in front of all his bee friends! And I am definitely not happy about it.

[Deleted]

You see someone about to be hid by a car and you pull/push them out of reach of the car. Even if you feel good about that later on, it doesn't change that in the moment you acted without thinking of a reward or of feeling better and you acted in danger of dieing. That's altruistic.

[Kujako]

Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for our sins and suffered greatly for it. Is that not unselfish and altruistic?

Sure, and all he got out of it was living forever in heaven, in judgement over all mankind.

[mvaliz]

Jesus Christ sacrificed himself for our sins and suffered greatly for it. Is that not unselfish and altruistic?

Oh god... And the thread colapses in 3...2....

In topic though, I'd say it depends on if the act benefits others outweighs the "good feeling" you get. Or, better still, if you avoid seeing much or even ANY result!

It's the whole "plant a tree knowing you will never sit in its shade" kinda deal. Once i got to a parking lot and the cart corral rail near the front was sprawled over 4 parking slots. No employees were there atm, so i moved the corral over to two parking slots i stead. Sure, i had a good feeling, but I didn't stick around to see how many cars parked there, so that is where the "altruism" part comes into play.

[Independent voter]

I thought of one, paying taxes. Some of the money might go towards doing something good, maybe. I certainly don't feel good about paying taxes.

[Noxx79]

Sacrificing your life for someone else. After that, there's no way to "feel good" about it, cause you're dead.

(Forget the Jesus talk, anyone sacrificing their own life)

[Deleted]

The closest you can get to true altruism is to do something that hurts you, that makes you feel like shit, that takes something away from you, and something that you absolutely do not want to do on any level, but that you know, through cold hard logic, to be the "right" thing to do.

And even then, there's the question of why you would do the "right" thing. It would still be selfish on some level.

Acting on instinct, like saving someone from an accident, isn't altruism. It's just instinctual behavior that has been instilled into you through your upbringing and culture.

Sacrificing your life for someone else. After that, there's no way to "feel good" about it, cause you're dead.

It's not about "feeling good after", it's about doing something that you know, in the moment, to be the right thing to do, and that knowledge makes you feel good about that decision instantly, makes you completely comfortable with that decision.

Sacrificing your own life for someone else isn't altruism either, because you do it out of selfish reasons; the act itself feels good to you, feels like the "right thing to do", and that makes it selfish.

Also, you can't "be dead". You die, you end, you don't "be" anything anymore.

[Annoying]

The elderly people volunteering to work at the Fukushima plant.

[May90]

Maybe unintentional acts that benefit others at your expense, which later, when you learn of the effects they had, you say, "I would have done intentionally if I could"?

[Independent voter]

How about if you're driving your pickup down a dirt road and unbeknownst to you your pickup accidentally bumps an apple tree, an apple falls and a tortoise finds it and eats it?

[Zandro]

If all you are get from doing something that helps somebody is a good feeling, I would perceive that to be a selfless act.

[nanook12]

Was listening to a podcast were they were talking about unselfish altruistic acts. It was their opinion that there are no such acts because acting in an unselfish altruistic way makes you feel good so you got something out of the exchange.

Giving a wino a $1 makes you feel good and the wino feels good cause he's that much closer to buying his bottle of fortified wine.

Is there an unselfish altruistic act?

Already been figured out. No, according to the George R. Price equation there is no such thing as a purely altruistic act.

[Draco-Onis]

This takes me way back this is the statement that got me into finance back when I was in high school, my teacher walked in and said there is no such thing as a selfless act debate and prove me wrong. The conclusion is always that there is no such thing as selfless act since the act itself depends on the value that person puts on the feeling good or the knowledge that they did the right thing.

[Hawthorne Wipes]

It should be a good action that you despise doing, such as buying your archenemy a bowl of hot stew. Unpoisoned.

[Nerdgasm]

Perfect ideological altruism is probably impossible, since the simple choice of doing something is to fulfil a personal desire (The urge to act).

But then again, I think it's totally irrelevant to go by such extreme definitions. It's semantical fundementalism. :P