Doing the right thing
Feb. 27th, 2006 03:21 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jackDo you draw a distinction between doing the right thing because you want to and because you feel you ought to?
You might give a coworker a lift to their home, somewhat out of your way[1] because:
(a) You're happy to spend that time with them
(b) You want them to get home easily
(c) You feel you should, and want to because someone else may have to help you similarly, but actually think "agh, why today?"
[1] Purely hypothetical example.
In some sense they are the same, because your total satisfaction in doing it must be positive, or you wouldn't be doing it. But motivation feels like it matters.
Can you even define the difference? For instance, would you just make the problem go away if you could? Yes, in case (c). But why not in (a) and (b) -- you'd want to help, wouldn't you? Or assume your ethics seek to maximise happiness. Do (a) and (b) increase happiness in you both, and (c) in her only?[2]
[2] Where happiness is defined as genuine happiness, and your satisfaction at making happiness in others (possibly because you want them to behave similarly from similar logic, or out of gratitude, or just because you maximise hapiness) doesn't count, but is some sort of second order happiness.
And, habit will eventually convert you into a or b more often.
What fictional characters define this? Deep Wizardry (Diane Duane) makes a point of a truly willing sacrifice working better than someone who feels they ought to. But doesn't define it for us.
Carrot Ironfounderson probably genuinely enjoys helping people. Vimes I think is more I have to do this or I'm as bad as he is. Carrot seems a whole lot more happy about it. But is someone like that a better person? Does that question have meaning?
You might give a coworker a lift to their home, somewhat out of your way[1] because:
(a) You're happy to spend that time with them
(b) You want them to get home easily
(c) You feel you should, and want to because someone else may have to help you similarly, but actually think "agh, why today?"
[1] Purely hypothetical example.
In some sense they are the same, because your total satisfaction in doing it must be positive, or you wouldn't be doing it. But motivation feels like it matters.
Can you even define the difference? For instance, would you just make the problem go away if you could? Yes, in case (c). But why not in (a) and (b) -- you'd want to help, wouldn't you? Or assume your ethics seek to maximise happiness. Do (a) and (b) increase happiness in you both, and (c) in her only?[2]
[2] Where happiness is defined as genuine happiness, and your satisfaction at making happiness in others (possibly because you want them to behave similarly from similar logic, or out of gratitude, or just because you maximise hapiness) doesn't count, but is some sort of second order happiness.
And, habit will eventually convert you into a or b more often.
What fictional characters define this? Deep Wizardry (Diane Duane) makes a point of a truly willing sacrifice working better than someone who feels they ought to. But doesn't define it for us.
Carrot Ironfounderson probably genuinely enjoys helping people. Vimes I think is more I have to do this or I'm as bad as he is. Carrot seems a whole lot more happy about it. But is someone like that a better person? Does that question have meaning?
no subject
Date: 2006-02-27 09:06 pm (UTC)No, because I don't even distinguish between something being the right thing to do and being what I feel happiest doing, as discussed in comments to your previous morality post. Also, I can imagine that I might feel (a) and/or (b), but still think "agh, why today?" - and then give them a lift anyway!
This question puts me in mind of Dawkins' definitions of selfishness and altruism for his purposes in The Selfish Gene: "An entity [...] is said to be altruistic if it behaves in such a way as to increase another entity's welfare at the expense of its own. Selfish behaviour has exactly the opposite effect. 'Welfare' is defined as 'chances of survival', even if the effect on actual life and death is so small as to seem negligible. [...T]he above definitions of altruism and selfishness are behavioural, not subjective. I am not concerned here with the psychology of motives. I am not going to argue about whether people who behave altruistically are 'really' doing it for secret or subconscious selfish motives. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't, and maybe we can never know [...] My definition is concerned only with whether the effect of an act is to lower or raise the survival prospects of the presumed altruist and the survival prospects of the presumed beneficiary."
no subject
Date: 2006-03-02 11:46 pm (UTC)Dawkin's phrases sound useful. I guess in all three I would be altruistic, as you're giving up your free time (with a minor chance of finding a mate) for someone else's. And if I have a "be altruistic to altrusitic people" gene, it's (probably) being selfish.
In which case where is the distinction between (b) and (c). I guess the community within which the mutual-altruisity (prisoner's dilemma cooperator) operates. A "selfish" person to themselves, case (a) -- though it's being fooled by some other misapplied gene, because chatting to people I like is pretty unrelated from breeding. Then within family. Then extended to "people I like" (b) and "people" (c), which is the gene being accidently altruistic?