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Do you think self interest plays a part in 'genuine' morality?

Valiant

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To truly follow the moral law is to put aside self interest and follow moral commands unconditionally.

That's what I think anyway. What do you think?

One has to be morally objective to oneself. I will sacrifice myself as long as i'm doing the right thing.
Stuff like that doesn't make for popularity, either, and it's not like I enjoy sticking my neck out for everyone all the time.
But it makes me feel like shit not having challenged people who hurt others when I could.
 

Not_Me

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Can someone explain why sacrificing yourself for people whom you have no emotional attachment to, is desirable from your own perspective?
 

maydelle

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Can someone explain why sacrificing yourself for people whom you have no emotional attachment to, is desirable from your own perspective?

Who is talking about making sacrifices. Unless if you see that following moral obligations which includes no self interest is a sacrifice.

Morality is not a sacrifice. To be moral is your duty. So self interest cannot play a part.
 

maydelle

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One has to be morally objective to oneself. I will sacrifice myself as long as i'm doing the right thing.
Stuff like that doesn't make for popularity, either, and it's not like I enjoy sticking my neck out for everyone all the time.
But it makes me feel like shit not having challenged people who hurt others when I could.

From your first sentence I get a strong impression that you agree that self interest does play a part in morality. Like I expressed in my earlier comments I'm extremely against that because it does not define morality. Morality is concerned about how we treat OTHERS so why are you talking about sacrificing your self for another? Were is the connection between sacrificing yourself and to behaving moral.

If you actually meant putting others before your self interest is a sacrifice then my question to you is: is there a limit to which anyone's self interest cannot be part of morality.
 

Condor

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Again, I don't see a distinction between self-interest and morality. If morality is a measure of how we behave towards others, and someone's self interest is to be "morally upstanding", where is the disconnect? I'm not sure I understand.
 

Blown Ghost

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No, but to weigh the morality of decisions you have to start with awareness of the self-interest involved. This is impossible, though, because nobody can know the true interest of anyone but themself (which is still often far from objective) and when they attempt to understand others' it's a projection of their own interest.

So we want to weigh out morality :workout: but there is a problem: that is, why we are doing so? The reason is selfish even if the subject is selfless. Without even starting, we're already ineffective. Yet the sense of wrong and right remains. Where did it come from? How do we know what's right?
 

Thalassa

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No. Self-interest plays an integral role in morality. Following moral codes actually benefits the self as well as others by creating peace, harmony, and balance. Even Jesus said love others as you love yourself. If you don't genuinely love yourself the possibiity of not being able to love others or treat them with forgiveness, patience, and kindness is very high. Many "fucked up" people were abused, hate themselves, and just continue to live the cycle of abuse by hurting others. The only way to break the cycle is to stop, reflect, and yes that involves loving one's self.

Another thing that's always frustrated me about anarcho-capitalist libertarianism, which in my opinion is highly immoral, is the the fact that people don't realize that they will suffer themselves if they're surrounded by uneducated, poor, desperate people. It causes an increase in crime and overall societal unrest. Duh. Real self-interest would be to understand that maintaining a certain social balance actually serves the greatest possible self-interest, in the long-term.
 

Blown Ghost

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No. Self-interest plays an integral role in morality. Following moral codes actually benefits the self as well as others by creating peace, harmony, and balance. Even Jesus said love others as you love yourself. If you don't genuinely love yourself the possibiity of not being able to love others or treat them with forgiveness, patience, and kindness is very high. Many "fucked up" people were abused, hate themselves, and just continue to live the cycle of abuse by hurting others. The only way to break the cycle is to stop, reflect, and yes that involves loving one's self.

But wouldn't loving yourself mean loving everything bad about yourself? How does loving yourself set the precedent for improvement if you're already flawed?

I know it's widely accepted that we should "love ourselves" but cmon, that's just masturbation. The saying (which is actually one of the commandments) is Love thy neighbor as yourself, that is to say, love others as if they were you. In other words, consider others more valuable than yourself, which is the opposite of what we're inclined to do.
 

Thalassa

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No, love your neighbors means love them as yourself (equally to yourself) not better than yourself.

If you love yourself you can forgive yourself. People who are filled with self-hatred often can't learn to forgive themselves or others for making mistakes.

I really don't see how you could confuse self-love with not being realistic about one's flaws, or resisting self improvement. Totally different things.
 

Blown Ghost

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No, love your neighbors means love them as yourself (equally to yourself) not better than yourself.

If you love yourself you can forgive yourself. People who are filled with self-hatred often can't learn to forgive themselves or others for making mistakes.

I really don't see how you could confuse self-love with not being realistic about one's flaws, or resisting self improvement. Totally different things.

There's certainly more than one way to look at it (I'm not religious myself) but from a biblical perspective it is not that way. See Philippians 2:3 - "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves." So from a biblical perspective all sin is ultimately against God and that can only be forgiven by God.
 

Thalassa

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There's certainly more than one way to look at it (I'm not religious myself) but from a biblical perspective it is not that way. See Philippians 2:3 - "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves." So from a biblical perspective all sin is ultimately against God and that can only be forgiven by God.

Selfish ambition and vain conceit are akin to narcissism, or at least placing yourself above others, and have nothing to do with healthy self-love.

The Bible commands people to forgive one another. I'm not religious either, but frankly I think forgiveness is one of the few things that will save humanity from destroying itself. Inability to forgive self and to forgive others seems like the root of a lot of violence, pain, and destruction.
 

Blown Ghost

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The Bible commands people to forgive one another. I'm not religious either, but frankly I think forgiveness is one of the few things that will save humanity from destroying itself. Inability to forgive self and to forgive others seems like the root of a lot of violence, pain, and destruction.

I agree, totally. That brings up an interesting point, though. If immorality of some kind is unavoidable (due to human ignorance) is it more important for us to be more moral or finding a better way of responding to it?
 

maydelle

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Again, I don't see a distinction between self-interest and morality. If morality is a measure of how we behave towards others, and someone's self interest is to be "morally upstanding", where is the disconnect? I'm not sure I understand.

Virtue Ethicists would say that. They would say that it should be in everyones self interest to be moral therefore there is no disconnection.
 
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