March 23, 2008
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Is generosity a selfish or selfless act?
This current discussion on Socrates_Cafe is a controversial one.
Generosity is IMHO, generally unselfish.
Charity, on the other hand, may be for selfish reasons; mostly to enhance your self-esteem or social prestige - but for your own personal reasons and not because of some altruistic love or concern for others. Of course there are unselfish and altruistic people but they probably don't make up the majority of chartable contributers.
Generosity - how much of yourself you choose to contribute in your efforts to help others - is a much better mark of unselfishness, particularly if it is done with no expectations of recognition or "payback".
For example, would ,or do, you make charitable monetary contributions even though you don't deduct them from your IRS return?
Comments (11)
I've linked you
Uhm... as usual i am not comfortable with achronyms... I guess IRS is the income declaration, but what does it mean IMHO?
As usual i am the boring guy that always ask for exact definitions... i shouldn't make like that ad break everybody's else pacience, but in this case i think it is mandatory.
I know the meaning of generosity and selfishness. But or we give just an answer like "yes, by definition" or we exactly say what does one mean with generosity and selfishness.
I tend to believe that on one level altruism (the opposite of selfishness) does not exist, so that generosity is selfish. Being that the "official" meaning of generosity is something done unselfishly, it comes that what is generally called generosity is actually improperly called so.
Of course there are other levels of interpretations in which generosity is unselfish, and this settles our conscious. But i believe that those levels are out of our intimate one, unless one prefers to close his eyes in order to grow his self-estimation.
I tend to prefer who admit his own selfishness, which usually means admitting that what's done for others is never enough. That explains, in my opinion, that people we consider altruistic (just to make an example, Mother Teresa) are the most humile in the world.
I'll try to explain better in the next comment, if you want.
ciao
dario
Dario's comment reminds me that we do have some non-american members and are always in danger of becoming too provincial - especially in matters of taxes and politics. IRS is of course the Internal Revenue Service - the federal Tax Collector. I believe in GB it's called Inland Revenue. I don't know what labels other countries use. Enlighten me please.
I think charity and generosity can both be selfish or unselfish, it depends upon the motives of the person performing the acts. We can't know their motives unless they share them with us, but though it seems that the act was unselfish, there is still the emotional/psychological "reward" of knowing that you've done something for someone else, even when you don't "lord it over someone." I guess then the question becomes, is the emotional/psychological thrill enough of a reward to make any act of generosity/charity selfish by nature. I guess it depends upon whether the person makes a habit of being generous. It's just as likely that someone could become a "charity addict" as another person becomes addicted to the thrill of adrenalin caused by shoplifting (to choose something on the opposite side of the coin).
Ahahah.... i guess that "IMHO", despite the fact that i don't understand the words of the acronym, means something like "by definition"... how funny is that misunderstanding?
I asked "IRS is the income declaration, but what does it mean IMHO?". I was not only asking what does it mean "IRS" by definition, but instead what does "IMHO" means! Anyway, i guess i get the meaning now.
Anyway, Dick, don't warry if i don't understand. It's my lack, not yours!
About generosity. It is, by definition, unselfish.If i look on my favorite italian online dictionary, the definition of generosità is:
s. f.
1 l'essere generoso; altruismo, nobiltà d'animo: un atto di generosità
2 liberalità, munificenza, larghezza nel donare: ricompensare con generosità.
feminine noun
1 to be generous; unselfishness, soul nobility: an act of generosity
2 liberality, munificence, wideness in giving: to reward with generosity
So, according to Garzanti dictionary generosity is, atleast in Italian, synonymous to unselfishness.
But i wonder if that is exactly what we do when we make an act of generosity.
Let's suppose i take all my wealth and give away to poor people, and live the rest of my life in poverty. Am i generous?
If generous means unselfish, that tend to be defined by the reasons i act like that. So, to answer the question we should investigate on why do i give my wealth to poor people and live myself in poverty.
Again the answer of this "why?" can be ambiguous because it depends on the level of interpretation. One answer could be "because they are hungry and poor". Another can be "because i am too rich and they are too poor", another "because acting good i save my soul"... Those answers do not contradict each other, althoug shome of them are selfish reasons (they tend to my personal good, despite the others) and some other extremely altruistic (they tend to others' good despite my personal one).
All those answers do not justify completely the act itself being that the act is something done by me. I mean, if we take for example "because they are hungry and poor", that answer tend to a question that link the meaning of my act to the meaning of the answer itself, which is "yes, ok, but why do you want to feed and give wealth to hungry and poor people?"
At the bottom line there is, in my opinion, a low level answer which is the principle of all our conscious acts. Which is that we tend to work for the realization of an utopical world that perfectly matches the achivement of our vision of moral good. Despite what everybody else believe.
I mean, for example, in my moral there is that every human have the same dignity, and it is not fair that while there are rich people which can have everything, other people die of hunger.
Being that this is my own principle, and i want to achive the good, i will give poor people my wealth because that's my way to solve the problem of the unmatch between my utopical good and the world.
And that is extremely selfish, don't you think?
IMHO= In My Humble Opinion
Bloggers often use these acronyms - there is probably a list of them somewhere on line.
Dario points out how different languages handle concepts differently. Apparently in Italian, "generous" has a much more "morally loaded" definition than it has in English, where it is more loosely defined with a somewhat fainter positive meaning.
I mean, for example, in my moral there is that every human have the same dignity, and it is not fair that while there are rich people which can have everything, other people die of hunger.
While this is quite a common moral belief, is it a TRUE statement? Is this an attitude taught us? Why? Does it have any practical meaning?
What's wrong with being selfish?
Sure it is a true statement, and i challange anybody to say that upon MY individual moral it is fair to have righ people who can have everything and other poor people dying for hunger. That's MY moral, i guess everybody has to accept it.
That's why i think i am selfish, because if i will try to realize that altruistic statement i will do it in order to realize a statement of MY moral law, and isn't it selfish?
ooops... righ = rich
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