Jxxxxx from Guitar Center

[Pajama_Bottoms]

The feeling of good (which can be physically observed in brain activity) is itself the reward for doing a 'good deed'. Therefore, there is no such thing as a purely altruistic action.

Lots of people either inherently lack or actively suppress the capacity for feeling good for altruistic actions, and in fact do not feel "good" for doing a "good" deed. Your argument faces further difficulty when you consider that many people feel "bad" if they do not do a "good" thing - if they were self-rewarding, they would feel good regardless of if they pursued or passed on an altruistic action.

You're arguing for psychological egoism, a field of philosophy widely critiqued for being founded on a circular argument - it rests on the idea that people only do things that they enjoy or benefit them, and then concludes that any act someone takes must be because of those reasons.

Even if egoism is true: consider how abstracted from any sort of concrete moral decision one must be to say that, because some people feel good for doing altruistic things, that invalidates the morality of that altruistic action. "You did something that made someone else feel good, and seeing them happier makes you feel good, and you have generally improved the state of the world in some small way, but because you have any positive or negative thoughts or feelings regarding this situation you have thus invalidated your own actions".

 

[sevdog]

Lots of people either inherently lack or actively suppress the capacity for feeling good for altruistic actions, and in fact do not feel "good" for doing a "good" deed. Your argument faces further difficulty when you consider that many people feel "bad" if they do not do a "good" thing - if they were self-rewarding, they would feel good regardless of if they pursued or passed on an altruistic action.

You're arguing for psychological egoism, a field of philosophy widely critiqued for being founded on a circular argument - it rests on the idea that people only do things that they enjoy or benefit them, and then concludes that any act someone takes must be because of those reasons.

Even if egoism is true: consider how abstracted from any sort of concrete moral decision one must be to say that, because some people feel good for doing altruistic things, that invalidates the morality of that altruistic action. "You did something that made someone else feel good, and seeing them happier makes you feel good, and you have generally improved the state of the world in some small way, but because you have any positive or negative thoughts or feelings regarding this situation you have thus invalidated your own actions".

Feeling bad is just as legitimate a motivator as feeling good. Why would that counter my argument? And it is most certainly not a circular argument. The consequence of actually improving the world or making someone else feel good is separate from making yourself feel good.

It's not an argument though. Most people are buttholes and I really don't care why they do the terrible things they do.

 

[Pajama_Bottoms]

Joel Feinberg summed up the circular nature of the argument:
"All men desire only satisfaction."
"Satisfaction of what?"
"Satisfaction of their desires."
"Their desires for what?"
"Their desires for satisfaction."
"Satisfaction of what?"
"Their desires."
"For what?"
"For satisfaction"... and so on.

 

[sevdog]

Joel Feinberg summed up the circular nature of the argument:
"All men desire only satisfaction."
"Satisfaction of what?"
"Satisfaction of their desires."
"Their desires for what?"
"Their desires for satisfaction."
"Satisfaction of what?"
"Their desires."
"For what?"
"For satisfaction"... and so on.

I can sum it up in a non-circular nature:

1) a man does something
2) it makes him feel good (or bad) by his brain releasing chemicals into his brain
3) the memory of that feeling causes him to either do or not do that something again

 

[Pajama_Bottoms]

1. A man exhibits action.
2. It makes him feel good or bad by his brain releasing chemicals (it satisfies his desire).
3. That feeling causes desire for action (because he desires satisfaction).
Return to 1.

It's circular because it's not saying anything - it boils down to "he wants what he wants because he wants it, and he does what he wants to do because he wants to do it".

Communication of ideas certainly predates the concept of buying and selling, and certainly that of marketing.

Sidenote,you've got a Minutemen quote in your sig - what do you think they were "selling" with the lyrics to "**** from an Old Notebook"?

 

[sevdog]

That's one of my favorite songs of all time. And yes, they were "selling" many ideas. One of which happened to be that the products should themselves and psycological methods to sell should be destroyed.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

Not sure if it's still the case, but when these emails first started, they were sent on the employee's behalf from corporate. I just pulled up two recent emails from two different items that I purchased and they were identical. Don't give the salesman too much of a hard time. It's more like a note that his Mom wrote and he's just trying to pay rent.

 

[edpal]

This thread is in the correct forum, fer shure.

 

[mellowinman]

Not sure if it's still the case, but when these emails first started, they were sent on the employee's behalf from corporate. I just pulled up two recent emails from two different items that I purchased and they were identical. Don't give the salesman too much of a hard time. It's more like a note that his Mom wrote and he's just trying to pay rent.

I don't care about the salesman. I only care about entertaining the good posters to talkbass.com.