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Are humans naturally altruistic, or selfish?

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nobody1875

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My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
 
I believe very young children are altruistic naturally. Over time we grow out of that, sadly enough. The loss of innocence takes it's toll.
 
I think we are naturally selfish...to an extent. We evolved as a tribal species. So I think it is natural for us, when our own immediate needs have been met, to be altruistic to others within our own “tribe”, which includes our families and then may spread out from there. I don’t think being altruistic to strangers comes naturally, I think that is learned through conditioning.
 
I think we are both simultaneously. We have our older self-preservation instincts that keep us alive in dangerous situations which make us selfish, and we have mirror neurons which allow us to empathize and ensure our survival and procreation success among a community of other primates.
 
nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
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They are "a bit" altruistic, in general. But also unpleasantly occupied and sarcastically remorseful.
 
Skeptic Bob said:
I think we are naturally selfish...to an extent. We evolved as a tribal species. So I think it is natural for us, when our own immediate needs have been met, to be altruistic to others within our own “tribe”, which includes our families and then may spread out from there. I don’t think being altruistic to strangers comes naturally, I think that is learned through conditioning.
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...this.....
 
nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
Click to expand...

Experiments like this have been done on apes and babies. We are hardwired to share as part of fitting into a group.

Now as the sharing becomes more complex - such as donating to charity or a business contract - more calculated motivation come into it: I want to feel good about what I've done, or I want something in return, but the basic instinct still holds up.
 
nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
Click to expand...

You sound like you just read Ayn Rand. I do think humans are naturally altruistic. Think of a single person alone and how likely it would be for that person to survive and for this type of lifestyle to become an advantage through evolution. It would not. So that one person, in order to survive and mate must at least find one other person. That relationship could be one sided, the male could be so selfish that everything the two of them do only benefits the male. This would not last either. Now think of how this would be forced to evolve as groups get bigger and bigger. The survival of all depends upon each thinking of how they can contribute to the group. This means that pure selfishness would end up being a disadvantage to the group. As groups became more successful and produced more children who adopted the idea that selfishness was not conducive to working together, mankind obviously started thinking of others before themselves.

Now, this was tempered by survival instincts. If the group mentality led to an individual being exiled or killed, that individual might resist and think only of himself simply to survive. I read once that Kings became Kings because they were willing to fight or die to rule. A King is a great example of selfishness driving a collective altruism because once the King became purely selfish, that King was likely to be killed or overthrown. Most of us are altruistic in most of our daily lives. Of course we are also selfish but the very existence of the almost universal abhorrence to selfishness is proof that your initial feeling was wrong.
 
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nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
Click to expand...

Of course you think people are generally selfish. That's why you're a liberal. That's why liberals feel a constant need to control everyone around them. Their basic outlook on life is that everyone is evil and unless you nail them first they'll nail you.

Yet, if you want to run an experiment some day you can "accidentally" drop a $5 when pulling out your wallet at the cash register damned near anywhere in the country and odds are that 8 out of 10 tiles the person behind you or the person at the cash register will let you know you dropped it. Sure, you're going to come out short if you do do it repeatedly and you may even have 5 in a row snatch it up for themselves but I GUARANTEE that if you do it enough you'll get pretty close to that 80%.
 
Lutherf said:
Of course you think people are generally selfish. That's why you're a liberal. That's why liberals feel a constant need to control everyone around them. Their basic outlook on life is that everyone is evil and unless you nail them first they'll nail you.

Yet, if you want to run an experiment some day you can "accidentally" drop a $5 when pulling out your wallet at the cash register damned near anywhere in the country and odds are that 8 out of 10 tiles the person behind you or the person at the cash register will let you know you dropped it. Sure, you're going to come out short if you do do it repeatedly and you may even have 5 in a row snatch it up for themselves but I GUARANTEE that if you do it enough you'll get pretty close to that 80%.
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My lord, you have no idea why people do not buy into whatever ideology you support. The fact that you call out liberals means you must not be a liberal. In our society, that likely means you are a conservative. Do you even know what it means to be a conservative? Here are the Cliff Notes on it in case you are clueless and merely just the spawn of conservatives. A conservative believes that if everyone works in their own self-interest, the entire group benefits. Think about that for a second. Come back after you take something for your headache.
 
Research strongly suggests humans appear to be circumstantially, not innately, altruistic.
-- Stanford psychologists show that altruism is not simply innate
-- Harm to others outweighs harm to self in moral decision making
-- Dictator games: a meta study
-- The Social Production of Altruism: Motivations for Caring Action in a Low-Income Urban Community
-- Not Noble Savages after all: Limits to early altruism
Some neurological research suggests a measure of "hardwired" altruism, but that research only indicates the impetus for altruis is "more" than previously thought; the thing is that the previous extent was thought to be substantively zero. Thus it takes very, very little to be more than that.

So, as with many aspects of the human psyche, it's a matter of degrees. For instance, everyone can likely imagine committing "this or that" heinous or helpful act (for oneself or for another); however, imagination notwithstanding, for some folks it's unconscionable to them to actually undertake that act whereas others execute the act. Moreover, as "Noble Savages" indicates, much that's ostensibly altruistic is self-interested behavior learned experientially. In other words, people learn to appear altruistic, learn to give something, because doing so abets their sooner or later, in return/one day, receiving something they desire. The altruistic act's appearing thus due to occasion of its manifestation in space-time.


Note:
In this context, "acting" can refer to the act of doing X or the "act" of not doing X.​


  • [*=1]I can imagine telling the truth "on the record"/in public, and it's wholly conscionable that I do so. Telling the truth in public is an act I perform.
    [*=1]I can imagine lying "on the record"/in public, and it's wholly unconscionable to me to do so. Lying in public is an act I do not perform.
 
nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
Click to expand...

I don't see this as a serious question. Even the altruistic traits we do see in humans are derived from selfishness.

Everything we do is for us. Period.
 
Lutherf said:
Of course you think people are generally selfish. That's why you're a liberal. That's why liberals feel a constant need to control everyone around them. Their basic outlook on life is that everyone is evil and unless you nail them first they'll nail you.

Yet, if you want to run an experiment some day you can "accidentally" drop a $5 when pulling out your wallet at the cash register damned near anywhere in the country and odds are that 8 out of 10 tiles the person behind you or the person at the cash register will let you know you dropped it. Sure, you're going to come out short if you do do it repeatedly and you may even have 5 in a row snatch it up for themselves but I GUARANTEE that if you do it enough you'll get pretty close to that 80%.
Click to expand...

Bold of you to assume I think being selfish is wrong or evil. I think it's natural. I was just wondering if anyone had the same idea about selfishness as I do, but I wasn't trying to pass judgment.
 
nobody1875 said:
My opinion is that humans are naturally selfish, though most don't realize it. When you do something nice for someone, and they respond positively, it makes most people happy. Thus, they are motivated to make others happy because it makes *them* happy. Isn't that a little selfish?
Click to expand...

It would really help if you gave us what you think the definition of altruism is because as another has said it does sound like you're reading from a rand handbook.
 
It depends on our parents.

If a child sees that his father and/or mother are kind and thoughtful toward other people, the child will follow suit.

There are so many bad children nowadays because their parents set a horrible example.
 
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