i can prove that it is impossible to do good
 

i am taking all comers i can prove that it is impossible to do good.

Impossible to do good. Is English your primary language?

if i get a 100% on a test i did good :p

By whos standards are you talking about?

I think you need to define "good" first to make sure we're talking the same thing.

OK, I'm waiting....prove it!

*patiently sits back and waits*

geez....the suspense is killing me....DO SOMETHING!!!!!!

ya really, I mean I just LOVE it when the thread title is the excate same as the thread contents... What do you think was going to happen? no one was going to ask you to define what you are talking about? A well, I'll take the bait, overlooking bad grammer why, pray tell, is it impossable to 'do good'?

Let me correct that for you

:D

no good as in a good deed. all good deed are inherently selfish so to do good is impossible.

sorry 48 hrs no sleep makes one really weird.

I think i can see where you're going to come from but please explain to me something like saving someones life is not a good deed? Say you run out to push someone out of traffic, risking your own life, how is this inherently selfish?
Also is selfishness inherently bad, so much so that thinking of yourself as well as others when doing a deed means that its not a good deed but a bad one?
bit tired at the moment but i think you get the gist.

all good deeds are inherently selfish.

from who's point of view? the do gooder? some people just do things because it's to be done, be it evil or good.

start with flawed logic, you'll get a flawed result.

Who says being selfish is a bad thing to be? If doing "good" is inherently selfish then perhaps being selfish is a good thing to be.

And how is putting food in a food hamper a selfish act? It make me feel good to do so? So what..it is still a good deed.

well putting food in a food hamper just so you can feel good is selfish. hence not a good deed. because selfishness is bad. right?
would you still put food in the hamper if you knew only 1\3 of it was going to the needy and the rest is going to someones pocket?


why are you running out into traffic? adreline junky? no? death wish ( i'll show her/him how much i love them by doing this [lovers and parent/child])? selfish? wanting to be a hero and be reveared by the culture. a selfish thing. we can go on. all the acts of good deed are selfish in nature.

But if you see someone about to get hit by a car, and you save them without conscious thought, then where's the premeditated benefit?

Unless you're saying that the person in question has SUB-conscious motivations that come through that quickly. That seems like a different argument.

See, the thing about your argument is - no matter what we say, its always going to have a selfish aspect to it.

So how about I'll attack you from another perspective - why is selfish necessarily "ungood"?

Seriously, think about it - we are all individuals, but we also live as a collective. By enriching our own life, without hurting another (not necessarily immediate or conscious hurt), we enrich the collective as well.

By helping someone else, I am satisfying my desire to do good, thus enriching not only my own life, but also someone else's - twice the good in one deed! What more could you ask for?

You are a pessimist. That doesn't have anything to do with others committing "good deeds" simply out of the kindness of their hearts.

Which is not greedy at all.

why is subconscious a different argument? it is our motivation behind our actions. its defends our self image. i am a good person. a good person would do this so i must do this. our self iamge is derived from our attempts to please our culture. so our subconscious thoughts motivate us to do selfish deeds everyone else calls "good"

yes subconscious thoughts are that fast.

Nefir why is selfishness bad? well why would we do a good deed if it does do no good for us. take away what ever we are getting out of the good deed and we have no motivation to do that deed.
thats why institions that promote values are so improtant.

docbungle, no i am a realist actualy but i am just in a psssimistic mood but that does not invalidate my argument. selfishness is bad...no? so when something is motivated by selfishness that is bad...no? so what has me being a pessimistic got to do with anything?

Even the bible says "Love your neighbor as yourself" not love your neighbor instead of yourself. Good deeds are the act of loving others as you want to be loved -- so what!?

"Good" has a subjective definition. It can not be pinned down so easily. You first have to tell us your definition of "good" in order to present a strong argument.

This old philosophical chestnut!

It was even played out on an episode of Freinds.

David Gemmel writes a great dismissal of this concept in one of his fantasy books. Better than any philosophical argument I'll dig it out and post it tomorrow.

Such theories are really just a load of old bollocks that pretentious people invent to waste time and make themselves feel important and clever by showing off. Essentially though its a worthless use of philosophy.

SO all you are saying is that there is no such thing as pure altruism.

*shrug*

is there really such a thing as good or bad?? everyone has different views on what is good or what is bad.. so in the end is there really good or bad? Everyone is raised by different values and organized religion is to blame for many things being bad but that's a totally different subject.

I think what your trying to say is that there is no such thing as an unselfish good deed. You can still do good deeds but it will still also be selfish.

When i give a homeless person a meal, that homeless person is still going to benefit from the meal regardless of why i did it. So that would still make it a good deed. It doesn't matter if the good deed was done for selfish reasons or not, that other person still benefited from it.

fallen, post your definiton of good it really does not matter in the end.

Marius1, yes the argument has been around a very long time just ask sexymama. its in the bible. but just because you dont like the argument does not mean it is not a vaild argument.

i am not trying to be clever. i am just proving a point to my self that to do a good deed is impossible by defending the point of view that i really dont want to accept. doing a good deed is impossible.

Mr. Spacemonkey yes it does matter because like i posted earlier if you take away the good you are going to get from the experence then the question is raised will you still do that good deed?

yea halx all act of altruism are motivated by selfish desires.

I don't think most people do good deeds because of how they are going to feel afterwards. I think because they do good deeds, that good feeling is a side effect of what they did.

I can't help it if i feel good afterwards for doing something to enrich someone elses life. Is it such a bad thing to feel good for doing something good? The answer is no.

3leggedfrog, no offense, but I find your logic as wanting as your grammatical ability.

you dont think people anticipate the rewards they will get with an intentional good deed? hmmmm. here i have to disagree with you. i believe that people do the "good" deed because of the perceived reward. for an example i want to do this because my culture approves of these actions and will praise me. i will save that man.

now lets change this up a little i will not save that man because he is a killer and has killed many people and will do so again. this is a cultural verson of good. some cultures will dissagree with that last statement some would agree. people will either save or let the man die because of cultural approval and the perceived reward.

crow_daw, yes my grammer is really bad, that is not in question. what is in question, with you, is the logic of my argument. so whats the fault in my logic? you need to be more specific.

when you get to be 60, come and discuss it----you need a few years of experience to make such a broad statement...

the premise is flawed, there is only your answer.

I can use the same logic to say that all good deeds are rooted in evil and provide along those same points.

which is why i said initially, flawed logic.

it's the same kind of flawed logic as:

Love is blind,
God is love,
Stevie Wonder is blind, therefore Stevie Wonder is god.

**singing...

Without Evil There Can Be No Good,
So It Must Be Good To Be Evil Sometimes.

A good deed is not always a selfish deed. In the example where I push a man out of traffic so he doesn't get hit, my selfish desires would tell me NOT to go into traffic. Rather, if I were completely selfish, I would keep myself out of trouble and let the poor man fend for himself. The same would apply if I jump in a lake to save a man from drowning. My selfish impulses tell me not to put myself in harm's way and to stay out of the water. But, the good thing to do is to help the drowning man. One more - a coworker is wrongly accused of forgetting to do something that was my responsibility. The selfish thing to do would be to keep quiet and thank my lucky stars that he was blamed and not me. But the good and decent thing to do would be to admit that it was my fault, not his. Again, this is a good deed that does not serve my interests in the least - it is merely good to do.

*** cynthetiq edited my post because I said something immature ***

The use of "good" in this sense is not adverbial, rather a it is used as a noun.

good n.: something that is good

People often forget that the word good is also a noun, especailly when used in a sentence where it could be used in the adverbial sense which has been under attack since the 19th century.

More to the point of the topic though, I believe that he is saying no good can be done because it is ill defined. Its morally subjective. What's good for you is bad for me, and just okay to someone else. There no universal boundries on the continuum... ergo, no one can ever do good.

moelester, that's exactly why I said the argument premise was inherently flawed.

So far, this has been well worth the wait. I'm glad I tuned in.

Flawed premise and methodology. You're starting with the hypothesis that all good deeds are selfishly motivated and then you find an argument to make the data conform to your hypothesis. Just because a selfish motivation can be found for any given situation doesn't mean that the situation was selfish.

Huh? So giving food to the needy would be good, but only if it's something you hate to do?!

You're freakin' nuts.

I do nice things for people who are close to me all the time. Why? Because it makes me feel good to help them and make them happy. What's wrong with that? Not a damn thing. Are the things I do not good *because I like doing them*?? Fuck no!!

A better question would be: is it possible to be an altruist?

Altriusm, by definition, is doing or giving something selflessly. But do people really do that, or do they do these things because it makes them feel good? Which is a selfish act--and there's nothing wrong with that WHATSOEVER.

In my view it's all about the motivation of the person doing the good deed. There are people who do deeds for self righteous reasons, and I can honestly say I know some people well enough to know that they are doing good deeds for non-selfish reasons.

Since the bible has already been mentioned, and there is a good illustration found within, I am going to add a biblical parable to this post.

From the gospel of Luke.

"And he looked up, and saw the rich men casting their gifts into the treasury. And he saw also a certain poor widow casting in thither two mites. And he said, Of a truth I say unto you, that this poor widow hath cast in more than they all: For all these have of their abundance cast in unto the offerings of God: but she of her penury hath cast in all the living that she had."

This little story illustrates my point about motivation. The rich men could have had some of the selfish reasons listed in this thread. Self import, increase of own well being, or better fitting in with the crowd. But the story shows the contrast of a widow, who would be living in exceedingly depressed and dependent condition of a poor man's widow in the countries where our Lord was. She was unlikely to contribute anything to a charitable purpose, but she did.

I feel it would be hard to show selfishness on her part.

There may be other points to this parable as well, that I have not mentioned.

Cynthetiq
i like that you use logic to disprove my conclusion but you made a mistake. your logic is flawed due to a fallacy inherent in your argument.

Love is blind,
God is love,
Stevie Wonder is blind, therefore Stevie Wonder is god.

your stevie wonder argument is a weak analogy fallacy. love is blind. love may not be blind so your conclusion is false. if you can find a fallacy in my argument please post it. ( please read my past post before replying it explains why all good deeds are selfish.)thanks

all selfish acts are non good
all good deeds are selfishness (see past posts on motivation of good)
all good deeds are not good

the only problem with my argument is that if you do not agree with the first premise all selfish acts are not good. this is your problem with my argument Moelester. i do not give a definition of what is good but you may use utilitarian or deontology or what ever. right now i see no problem with my argument fitting in any of these schools of thought.

also i agree that continuum statement. good is subjective thats not what i am arguing about. i say use what ever definition you want and my argument still stands up.

Tirian
hmm ok please go easy on me with this one but a it could have been her goal to show that is she good to the christian god. her reward was his/her approval. also one could argue that she was looking for "browie points" to get into heavan due to the fact that the life she was living was close to the end and her standard of living was very poor. We can speculate that she wanted a better afterlife.

johnnymysto love the avatar. to answer your reply what was the motivation to go into traffic and save the man? was the motivation temporarily stronger than self preservation. yes so what was the motivation?

sipsake what do you mean that the situation may not be selfish? what happens when you take away the motivation and keep the situation will the person still act the same way? the likey out-come is no. so while the out-come was good the act itself was not.

irseg. your point of doing something because we hate it is the only possible way to do good is wrong. while if you follow the logic of the argument that seems a likly statement its not. because doing something we hate mean that we are not doing the act of our own free will. so someone must be forcing us to do this act and the only reason we would do this act is prevent the bad consequences from not doing it. that is selfish.

viejo gringo, sr, i have great respect for your age and wisdom, but could you please clarify what you mean by waiting to your age. to me this argument is very cut and dry. what have i missed sir?

yep. it's that you did a good deed, not why. you could have easily not done it. THAT you did it is what makes it good.

exactly the logic itself is flawed, selfishness is in the flawed portion.

It's why I used the fallacy logic to express the same thing in your logic.

Cynthetiq
why is slefishness flawed? i do not understand.

your second statement all good deeds are selfish.

because they are not. ex. A person who dies and a kidney is taken from their dying body is doing good, though no perceived reward, in fact it cannot be known to the individual prior to death. that action in itself is selfless, not selfish.

I'm guessing it's because this statement makes no sense whatsoever "all selfish acts are not good"

the logic also doesn't work because you can equally substitute EVIL for good, and defend that equally. so again, flawed logic that wastes brain cycles and time.

Yes I agree - we could speculate those things, but would we be right ? No, because this is a parable. Jesus was simply telling a story to illustrate some points he was making. Because it is a work of fiction (so to speak) the author is allowed to give the character any motivation he wishes. In this story the whole point is to illustrate selflessnes, so we know she was not motivated by selfish motives.

As per a real life good deed story...

sipsake said it best...

"Just because a selfish motivation can be found for any given situation doesn't mean that the situation was selfish."

It doesn't mean it was not selfish either, but since we can't really judge anothers motivation, than we cannot prove that all good deeds are badly motivated.

Logically I see it like this... Just because we cannot prove an object to be square, does not mean we have proven it to be round.

Bravo!!!

Further to all of this, I have anecdotal real life evidence.

I know people who have done good deeds, and deep deep within my being I know them to have been GOOD deeds. Selflessly motivated purly for the good of the reciever.

This is not something I can prove with pure logic, but I have accepted it as it is. Truly good deeds do exist.

mr space monkey sorry miss type. its fixed now.

Cynthetiq
did he bequeath the organ before he died?

if no then he did no deed at all. the good deed lies with the family that okayed the donation and the doctors who preformed it. then we must look at their motivations. becha they are selfish motives.

if yes then what was his motivation to do it?

i am not trying to prove that a square is round. i am saying all good deeds are inherently selfish. the out come maybe good but not the motivation to do the deed.

how? that all evil is selfish?

selfish acts can also be evil. so the same position that you chose to defend can also be defended as evil.

in re: to the bequeath.. yes, law dictates it be such. no reward because death precludes it. religion? no because then you create certain situations that just fit right.

how about that it makes the person feel good to do this act. he will be praised after his death. he may feel good knowing that he will be praised after his death. a hero of sorts.

...side note...
knowing that we cannot stop our death why shouldnt we give an organ to save someones life? be a organ donor. if you are, make sure that your family know so that your organ can be used to save someone elses life!!!!!!

Sounds to me like you are. You seem to be saying that since none of us can PROVE a deed to be selfless, than they must be selfish.

Remember what I said in my most recent post. I know DEEP DEEP in my being that I have witnessed good acts.

I challenge you to take a hard critical look inside yourself, and see if you can honestly believe that all good deeds are selfishly motivated.

If you can, than you have had the misfurtune of hanging around with a different crowd than have I.

Tirian
no you have witness good out comes of selfish acts that you (as a part of your culture) deeply admire.

just because they are selfish does not mean that we should stop doing them. good reward is need for all of us to survive. we need things to make us happy. a happy person will make others around them happy. thus a stable enviroment. if you are a hero then you too will be praised and rewarded.

Sorry - I know what I know about these people and you do not.

Remember that the word "prove" includes the removal of alternate possibilities.

You have in no way (with your reasoning) removed the possibility of a selfless act. You have only introduced the possibility of a selfish one. (which I agreed to the existance of all along.)

FYI - I am just continuing to post in the spirit of good discussion. Please take it as such. (not trying to be argumentative here) I hope that's cool.

Precisely what I was hoping someone was going to point out. There can be and IS good in the world.. Good and Altruism are diffenet parts of the same wavelength. A good deed is still a good deed even if it made you feel better by doing it, it was STILL a good deed. Sure when I help people, I do feel good inside, so yes, that is not true ALTRUISM, but its still a good deed. If you don't think so, you don't quite understand what you are talking about.

I noticed you said this....
"yea halx all act of altruism are motivated by selfish desires."

Do you not understand the MEANING of Altruism? The MEANING is that is NOT motivated by selfish desires. See your whole arguement, i'm sorry to say, is crap. I do not say this to flame, I say this because you took one IMPORTANT WORD, and IGNORED its meaning. Therefore, without Altruism to stop you, you could go on and on. So on that note, here is a dictionary reference.

Altruism
--Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.
(Did I hear... Selflessness?)

Admit your defeat, you forgot about altruism

That's not what i meant when i said it made no sense. What i meant was that this statement "all selfish acts are not good" is no more then an opinion.

Well let’s not even look at the pointless, flawed logic that has been spewing forth in this thread. Lets just look at the original statement. i can prove that it is impossible to do good I'm still waiting. All I've seen are lame attempts to disprove OTHERS thoughts and no attempts at actually PROVING anything. If one claims that they can prove a theory, I expect a valid argument followed by facts that back this up.

Without being able to follow simple protocol, how can one be expected to listen to any following statements? If you had said, Anybody who wants to attempt to prove to me that doing good is not a selfish act, then please post your arguments , then I would understand.

So here’s your chance to redeem yourself. Prove your theory. Use arguments, facts, and quotes from philosophers that have fought this argument previously and we will all be gracious listeners. Perhaps we'll even post a poll following to see if you have 'proven' your theory.

But as of now, I have not been convinced. Nothing has been proven yet.

hmm i seem to have made some people very angry.

i am all for debates and have taken all that have posted here as a debate. lol i did say all comers.


Mr space monkey its a logic statement. the first two are premises and the last is a conclusion. by writing my argument that way, i was proving that my argument is logical. even arguments can be proven using a mathmatical formula.

is a good deed, any good deed, that is motivated by selfishness still good. the out come may be good but is the deed?

yes i know what altrusim is. altruism is set by the culture we live in, when they tell us what is good and what is bad. altuism the ultimate selflessness good act. NORMALLY, but not always, the untimate act, dieing, to advance ones culture in some way. it is even documented as one of three ways to commit suicide from the american psychology assosciation.

Tirian, i am sorry that i offended you, your friends, and the people who are heros in your life. this is just my opinion. as for not know what i am talking about i was a EMT/LPN for 5 years decorated for
humanitarian services. (if you want to know more send me a private email i will tell you why).

Prove according to dictionary.com is: To establish the truth or validity of by presentation of argument or evidence.

Ok, you have the definition. Thats good. Now do it.

Okay so then it is a question your asking, not proof that your giving. Yes is the answer to the question in my opinion.

But anyway, the whole reason i came here was to see the proof that it is impossible to do good deeds. And as Wile E pointed out there hasn't been any proof. Some good debate, but i haven't seen any good solid proof.

I thought you said you could prove that it is impossible to do good, frog, so where's the proof hmmm?

I am neither offended, nor angered.

Simply pointing out the obvious.

I sincerely hope I have not offended you, by differing.

Okay, these are just my thoughts:

I can almost agree with you 3leggedfrog, but I really don't like absolute statements since there's usually some sort of exception to it. (Except that all humans die and that kind of stuff.) While, I can agree to the fact that most human actions are calculated based on greed and selfishness, I disagree that all (good, or even bad) actions are selfish. I think, while few and far between, truly selfless acts exist.

It seems like one of the biggest arguments with your theory is that you think anything selfish is ultimately the determining factor of a good deed. I disagree with this. I think it's only part of the picture. While it is admittedly only one cultural perspective, the first example I can think of is crime. Let's say truly bad crime is represented by black and innocent of crime is white. First degree murder would be black. Second degree murder would be a dark shade of gray. Third degree (a.k.a. manslaughter) would be gray. While minor crimes would be a light shade of gray and innocent would be white. While intentions change the shade representing "bad deeds," it isn't the only determining factor, it's also the type of deed.

Black (Murder1) -- Dark Gray (Murder 2) -- Gray (Manslaughter) -- Light Gray (Minor crimes) -- White (Innocent)

Where am I getting with this? I think that this continuum can go in the opposite direction. There are white deeds and gray ones. There are black deeds done in the name of good as well. But, I think the extreme ends of the spectrums are not as common as the gray area. I suspect what is going on here is that you've only experienced the gray, and based on your experience, you are not willing to accept the possibility of truly white deeds.


Anyway, it sounds like you're so dead set in your ways, that you aren't really taking into full consideration what others are saying. So I feel my post is a moot point.

First. If you know what altruism is, then the arguement is Over, I gave proof as to what it meant, I gave a DEFINATION.. did you? nope, don't see one. You yet again ran around it, you said it is set by the culture we live in. Ok fine, I wasn't wondering about that.. you said society tells us what is good and what is bad. WHO CARES? THIS is not what I'm debating with you. I'm debating that Altruism EXISTS.. Culture can say its good, but regardless, someone will do it... and if it was a good deed (and you know if it is or not) then It was a good deed and selflessness, and thus Altuism, and I think that means you can't prove your point.

As for that dying part? That too could be altruism.. Perhaps you realize that you're gonna die, so you figure you might as well try to go out with a bang, and help everyone else. Thats not selfish, its only selfish if it makes your death not as bad, if you get a thrill of it.. or if that kinda thing will make you happy and you KNOW it. If you dont' know it makes you happy, then its not selfish. Debate that, but I'll counter you first. ;) Take the first time you went down a slide as a kid. Were you in a selfish mindset for going down the slide? No, because you had no clue if you'd like it or not. Maybe the SECOND time.. you went down it for a selfish reason, but certainly not the first. I hope you caught my point.

Oh and uh, I agree with Wile E here... You haven't proven it, so uh, why don't you go and Prove yourself

Here is a quote... in fact it is your thread title....
"i can prove that it is impossible to do good"

Get Typing!

This thread is good and you, 3leggedfrog, started it.

You did/done good.

Keep up the good work.

You delivered the goods. Good-bye.

Time to end this argument.

Is making someone happy good or evil?
Happy is good, correct?
If I do a good deed for someone and he is happy and I am happy and no one is unhappy its good.
A deed is only evil if it has a negative effect on someone. Myself deriving pleasure from the deed isn't negative, its good that I'm happy not sad. Its good they're happy.
Why is it good because it encourages the person to do more good deeds, that helps society again and again. Which is good.

A where the person makes themself happy but someone else has to be made unhappy to achieve it, now that is a selfish happyness and therefore evil.

Actually I think you are begging the question twice 3legged.

First, by assuming there is such a truth as "good" and "evil" and second by assuming that selfishness is evil. In addition, how can a person NOT be selfish?

Did you post this for your selfish pleasure? Was your intent good or evil?

Well lets define selfish, dictionary.com has it as:
If everyone was only concerned with oneself in every single action they took how would that affect society. Could society in fact function under those circumstances? I beleive not. If a selfish act harms no one then its fine, possibly even good.

Evil according to dictionary.com:
Lots of selfish acts however do impact on others though otherwise there would be no self interest to worry about.

This thread should be renamed to "Show me someone who did a good deed, and I will make up a selfish reason why they did it."

That's entirely my point...YOU are the one defining the motivation of the actor.

Your premise is that there are no unselfish acts. Someone presents you with a situation. You look at the situation, find a way in which the actor's motivation can be defined as selfish, and declare yourself the winner. The problem is that YOU are defining the motivation regardless of what the actor's true motivation may have been.

Your real premise is that self interest is the primary motivating factor in human behavior. You then ask everyone to prove that it is not. You've therefore given everyone the impossible task of proving a negative.

Can't be done. You've just issued a wager that no one can win.

Exactly!

Jesus died for our sins, selflessly.

self-sacrific is selfless.

Not nessisarily. What if its because they want to become famous as a martyr?

Or believe they will have a better afterlife due to their self sacrifice?

the old man who goes down with the ship allowing the child and young couple to board the lifeboat... selfless. no reward, no martyr, not necessarily afterlife

second guessing or adding supposition invalidates the argument to me, because you are then giving specific conditions to make the argument fit.

You mean like what you just did?

You can't just say 'self sacrifice' and imply that all self sacrifice is selfless if their are conditions that meet the selfish criteria.

correct that's the whole reason why I stated it as such. because it invalidates my argument. it just has to be as is face value. you don't know someone's intentions, you can guess, but you cannot know.

There is nothing wrong with doing something for selfish reasons. So if you save someone it doesn't take away the fact that it was a good deed.

i was proving my argument by logic. i was not asking a question. sorry its hard to explain. logic takes apart a argument and condences it to simple saying. ex. all ___ are ____ or some ___are not___ . There are ways to read a argument and state whether it is false or not by the constructin of the argument or theory. most arguments and theories can be proven false this way. think of it as a version of the scientific methoid.

"logic" seventh edition, by Patrick J. Hurley U of San Diego defines begging the question as. "Arguer creates the illusion that inadequate premises are adequate by leaving out key premise, by restating the conclusion as a premise, or by reasoning in a circle". ok what key premise did i leave out. did i use Circular logic?

yes i am. but i am a skeptic also, so i must question why.

Wile E
sorry i will have some good research in a future post. i have never really researched this topic so you must forgive me when i say i need some time to find some credible sources. my use of the logic argument was an attempt to prove my argument with out research.

jwoody
thanks, i hope to keep this debate interesting.

okay that is a good definition of good. but let me ask you what happen when you take away the reason for someone to do good? will you still do that good deed. if no then while the outcome of the good deed maybe "good" the deed it self, by being motivated by selfishness, is not. if you believe that selfishness is not good. (oh boy i can hear people typing argerly on that statement.) ;)

sure read a social contract by hobbes ( i only believe in hobbes on my bad days) according to hobbes all morality is a way to avoid confict with one another. in a natural state humans are nasty, brutish, and violent. they make mutual beneficial contracts with one another. ex. i will not kill you if you dont kill me.

And yet still no proof . . . *shakes head*


edit: but i still am enjoying the debate :)

look at my logic argument. or wait until i will find some good sources. i have never researched this topic before.

He did? I don't recall him pouring lamp oil on himself and setting himself on fire for me... I don't recall him piercing his own heart with a dagger for me... As I recall, he was executed by the state for being a cult leader.

He was sent here to die by His Father, and even talked of His own death--as it would eventually happen--long before it actually happened. He was not a cult leader. :rolleyes:

:Marius translates:

I can prove a theory, but I have to find proof, I didn't bother to look into the topic before I made a claim i could prove it.

:Marius comments:

Hmmmmmmmm :hmm:

Well said Marius, couldent have said it better myself.

*sigh* there is more than one way to prove something true or false.

not be be mean or anything but before your can "translate" what i said, you need to understand what i said. in logic, if one cannot find a fallacy and the argument is constructed correctly then it must be true.

a fallacy is defined as "A statement or an argument based on a false or invalid inference" by dictionary.com. Before your start saying that you know that my argument is false because... whatever your reason.... look up fallacies in a logic book and tell me the correct fallacy my argument is flawed with.

my translation:
i think i can prove my argument is true by logic, but if you want me to prove that my argument is true by another way please wait until i researce this topic. i started this thread a few days ago on a whim sleep depraved.

You can't logically prove that good is impossible to do, Frog, the only option you have is to do some sort of research on it. Might be a hard topic to research though.

yes you can, philosophers have been proving their philosophies with logic for thousands of years.

Okay then, if you say you can prove it with logic . . . THEN DO IT.

You keep on saying that you can prove it but you sure aren't showing any.

The Reason your argument that it is impossible to do good is flawed to me.. is because your telling me how I feel when doing something "good". You say I do it for my own personal motives.. how do you know this? I can not on a whim do something good because I just happen to feel like doing it? If there is a feeling of goodness or it does something for you to do this "good" deed.. it does not matter. I know I dont do good deeds to get off. I just do them because its something I do.

Even if it is done for selfish reasons.. Just because something is selfish does not mean its a bad thing, or a wrong thing. A car is about to hit me.. I move out of the way. By your reasoning this is selfish and bad. Others may see this as a good deed simply because they rely on me in some way.

I see no reason why something can not be selfish and good at the same time. It is all a matter of opinion... and yours does not hold much weight to me.

Edit: It also depends on what you decide "good" is and what defines doing "good"

Thanks

I hope this makes sense.. I'm very tired right now. and even if you dont agree with it. Its how I see things.