.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

[anoel.livejournal.com]

The problem with selfless acts is that no matter how selfless it may be, the *good* of doing a selfless act makes a person happy even in a little way so they get pleasure out of it which doesn't make it selfless. It just feels good to help people even if something bad happens to you because of it. However I did put rare because maybe there is *some* person who truly gets no happiness, none at all at doing something for others and just does it on principle or such. It could happen, who knows.

That's not to put down people who perform selfless type acts, no matter what benefit you get from it, doing good things for others is always great.

[crickets.livejournal.com]

I won't argue that doing the "right thing" can oftentimes be satisfying in the end. But I'm not cynical enough to believe that every seemingly selfless act was motivated by that satisfaction -- or perhaps something far more sinister than this simple innocent pleasure. I think the satisfaction of being good/doing good is oftentimes a side-effect of these actions, but is it always going to be something you consider beforehand? I'm not sure I can bring myself to believe that.