Does anyone ever do anything without a selfish motive ?

kirk.

Everything seems to be based on need or desire

T-Maxx

Who pissed in your porridge this morning Kirk?

pgj2015

Yes obviously, loads of people.

my neighbour once bought a load of toys and dropped them in to a center for refugees at Christmas for the kids there.

one guy was on radio one day crying as he had no money to get his teeth fixed that was causing him serious pain, a stranger called in and said he would pay the bill.

it happens all the time, some people are just very nice people.

Akrasia

If you go deep enough, everything is about replication and survival. Seeking nourishment and avoiding pain

Humans being more than the sum of our parts have emerged consciousness, but even still, our motivations, instincts, hungers, desires, shame and disgust are all evolved over millions of years through countless species, so that it is impossible to ever say that anything is truly selfless. We only ever make choices that either give us pleasure, or are intended to further an aim that is valuable to us (psychologically, emotionally, intellectually or politically)

The rest of the time were not making complex, deliberate conscious moral decisions, we're just following routines that have been programmed alongside our evolved personalities mixed with the unique circumstances of our upbringing and present circumstances

mariaalice

There is a lot of research on this, yes they do.

sameoldname

Akrasia nailed it above. We're a selfish species, it's how we got to be here.

It's always been that way too. Look at religions, they all have a threat (hell, karma, etc.) and a reward (heaven, 72 virgins, paradise, etc.) because people realised that a "love of god" doesn't actually motivate anybody.

It doesn't seem like it's conducive to a happy life but remember, a lot of people do get their reward from just being good to people.

Jequ0n

We are probably the most selfish species on this planet, but the vast majority of people are too arrogant to admit this to themselves, so they prefer to delude themselves and others by pretending to be “better” than their base instincts. Exhausting.

Ubbquittious

All the cynical folks coming out of the woodwork for this one

Jim_Hodge

If feeling you've helped somebody is considered selfish, then of course no. But, in real terms, many people do things without any selfish motivation.

El_Duderino 09

Depends. Doing something nice for someone else might make you feel good about yourself, so you could say it wasn't entirely selfless.

I don't think it really matters why someone does something nice for others. I tend to take it at face value, say fair play, and move on. Some nice behaviours can be cynically self serving, but most of the time it doesn't really matter why someone does a nice thing.

Hyperbollix

Not really....

When I was growing up I had a generous and thoughtful auntie living abroad who would always send a few things at Christmas through the post. Like most kids, I had my own interests and preoccupations, but my auntie's gifts never related to any of those. They were always connected to things she believed I should be interested in or things it would be useful to be involved in. Educational and self improving kinds of things.

So I realized early on, that most relationships are based on selfish motives. In this case, she enjoyed her role as a mentor figure, encouraging a child towards useful pursuits which might open up an interest for a career in later life etc.

Cup

Yes.

If that annoying person in work accidentally staples their finger to their stupid face, and there’s nobody around except you and that person. And if you have only one plaster in your bag, and it’s that one with a funny picture of a panda on it that you’ve been saving for ages in case you cut yourself and need cheering up. You’ll probably give the plaster to the staple wielding moron, even if there is no danger of them bleeding on the invitation to a birthday party that’s sitting on your desk.

Because sometimes people are just nice.

Potential-Monke

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236123#Comment_121236123

Exactly this. It's most evident when people pretend to have empathy.

Ubbquittious

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121236873#Comment_121236873

If you do a selfless thing and it doesn't make you feel good about yourself the most likely cause is that it wasn't really selfless or it wasn't the right thing to do. Like I could give a load of money to some megacharity with a 100k+ a year CEO but perhaps I wouldn't feel good about myself because I'd be convinced there was a better way of helping someone with that money.

Also if someone said to you that the good feeling from doing good things is being disabled in your firmware from now on would you stop doing good things? perhaps the rational part of your brain would take over to compensate

kowloonkev

I read the title at first as 'without a selfie motive' and was going to agree.

I think people do do things for unselfish reasons but we won't have heard about them.

El_Duderino 09

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/121248182#Comment_121248182

Good question and i thonk it gets to the root of a lot of the question. I think if the psychological payoff for being kind to family or strangers was disabled in the brain, the famiky and society would collapse almost immediately.

Oxytocin is the bonding hormone. You get it when you hold your partner's hand or smile at them or make them laugh or playfight or have sex. When you hug your child or comfort them when they're upset, it's the hormone that hits your chest when your child says they love you or your friend says thanks for helping them out. It's the basis on which our society is built because it feels great. Likewise you feel sh1tty when you're unkind to any of those people (I don't know the name of the hormone, cortisol maybe?).

Empathy would likely disappear if you got rid of the hormones that make you feel good when you're sound to someone. I think society as we know ot would disappear if we started behaving like sociopaths.