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All Blog Posts Tagged 'altruism' (6)

On the 47% and the semantics of victimhood

“..a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them free to otherwise to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government, and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.”

Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address, March 4, 1801

“When an American asks for the…

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Added by Alan Perlman on October 6, 2012 at 12:00pm — 2 Comments

The Origins of our Morality

A common argument among theists and atheists centres around the nature of morality. We can all claim to have an idea of what is moral, but we often fail to agree why we think it is so. Many theists would argue that we are bound to objective moral standards which are immutable, regardless of perspective, opinion, or circumstance. An atheist may argue that our sense of morality is grounded in little more than this.

We could argue that determining which party is correct, rests on… Continue

Added by Mark Hall on February 24, 2012 at 8:25pm — No Comments

Self-Interest Or Altruism

Self-Interest Or Altruism

The following was inspired by some comments on the blog post Epicureanism, Objectivism And The Predisposition Of The Brain

There is a lot of confusion about this question, but I think that this is due to people having very different selves and what is…

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Added by Maruli Marulaki on October 23, 2011 at 9:01am — No Comments

Rational Egoistic Objective Morality

Why does it feel good to see others happy? Why would we be interested in others' welfare? Why try to survive? Why make decisions toward our own welfare? We are hardwired. It is that simple. It is the way we are evolved. This is the way it is, even before people started talking about it (at earliest, as people were first talking about it). Every single person is always the final arbiter of every decision they make, whether it helps others or not. The final common goal in life is always personal… Continue

Added by MCT on January 20, 2011 at 7:00am — 2 Comments

Cooperation: An Objective Moral Principle/Standard?

I wrote a blog post, a few months back, that wondered if nature's prime directive (survival) could be used as the basis for morality. Since then, I've realized that I missed the most important point of all: survival of our species depends on cooperation. Survival is the purpose of cooperation, so survival is still the basis of morality but the operative principle is cooperation. This is because we are intelligent social animals who can choose to cooperate instead of fight or kill. Nature may be… Continue

Added by Atheist Exile on August 9, 2010 at 9:00pm — 8 Comments

Who Says Atheists Can't be Altruists?

Some might call me a "social Darwinist". Let's face it, evolution is all about adaptability and our monkey brains evolved to meet the demands of a time 50K years prior to our own. Someone wonders why we're all stressed out and on meds? It's no secret to me ... we're not evolved to meet the conditions of this time - and it's only changing faster.

So I'm pretty comfortable with those who can't hack it not being able to produce as many offspring as those who can. That's how the species… Continue

Added by Lojiko on February 27, 2009 at 2:39pm — 3 Comments