.104 - the selfless act.

[krickets]

I was having this strangely philosophical conversation with slybrunette last night, and I brought up the topic of "selfess acts". I've had this conversation with many a'friend in the past, and the answer they give me is pretty much universally the same.

No, there is no such thing as a truly selfless act.

This baffles me because I tend to believe the opposite. That selfless acts do exist. I know it's my [annoying] optimism and my wish to see the good in people that causes me to believe in the selfless act, but of all the conversations I've had about this, I can't remember one person ever coming to that same conclusion.

So what do you think, flist?
[Feel free to link others to the poll, I'm quite curious!]

[Poll #1570039]

I'd love to hear your explanations in the comments!

Comments

[viridian.livejournal.com]

I think the reason people say this is because even if someone does selfless acts for as simple a reason as "it makes them feel good", then that's still self-serving because they want to feel good.

Which, meh. I feel like if your motives are that pure then you're still better than 99% of the population, so that's close enough to selfless for me.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I have heard that before and I don't know what to say to that.

I have even heard that "wanting to do the right thing" makes an act not selfless because "they only did it because they wanted to do the right thing." Which just confuses me. What makes a person want to do the right thing? Is wanting to do the right thing in and of itself selfless? Or is it selfish to want to do the right thing? Do you want to do the right thing because you want to be good? Do you want to be good so you'll... get into heaven? What if you don't believe in heaven? What then?

Why does it make someone feel good? Because they feel like a good person? Or because they like to please others? Because it makes them feel powerful to be able to do a so-called "good" thing?

I just don't believe that the answer to all of those questions is always going to be the selfish one. And I agree with you that it doesn't really matter anyway.