Philosophy If you care more about friends & family than greater society? Is that Selfish?

[CarlManvers2019]

Selflessness’ supposedly just when you are willing to forego stuff or do stuff for another person other than yourself whilst caring for them

But thing is, I wonder this, is it really still selfless if given between risking your life for a whole lot of strangers and risking your life for friends&family, and you can’t save both

Would choosing the latter still be selfless? People you personally know and care for, can in some sort of way, be considered a part of yourself as losing them would hurt YOU a lot

Whilst people can feel really terrible about losing family and friends, they can be really numb or apathetic to knowing that millions of miles away that people they don’t personally know or are friends and family with are suffering, even when it’s shown on the news

Can it still be considered selfless if you go for the bus full of strangers, when unlike friends and family, you don’t have any deeper or personal love and care for said strangers?

What do you guys think

 

[PsihoKekec]

It's completely normal, throught the most of human history the people around them were their world. For most of them the people on the other side of the mountain range might as well be in another universe, a matter of fairytales and as such is ingrained in our psyche.

 

[Cherico]

No that's normal and going about it the other way causes problems.

Your friends and family love and care for you, a love for the greater community is by its nature an unrequited one.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

No that's normal and going about it the other way causes problems.

Your friends and family love and care for you, a love for the greater community is by its nature an unrequited one.

So, if left with some decisions to save what is closer to you, to a bunch of strangers who are an even bigger unknown to you than even just the neighbors you meet on occasion, is it selfish to choose those you know over those you don’t

 

[Cherico]

So, if left with some decisions to save what is closer to you, to a bunch of strangers who are an even bigger unknown to you than even just the neighbors you meet on occasion, is it selfish to choose those you know over those you don’t

Rational decsiions are considered inherently selfish decisions once you get fair enough left.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Rational decsiions are considered inherently selfish decisions once you get fair enough left.

I may not really have read Atlas Shrugged or The Fountainhead, but I have read Anthem

One thing that the protagonist in Anthem does is reject the judgement and version of morality and horribly stupid and heartless decisions of the society he came from

They didn’t want electricity being rediscovered and hated him for essentially making them all feel inferior and unnecessary

Surprisingly, one thing he didn’t get caught for was the fact that he fell in love with a girl who had also fallen for him, in that society you are NOT supposed to have close friends and lovers, everybody else is your Brother&Sister

To hold someone closer to your heart than just the collective is WRONG

 

[Deleted member]

Nationality is ultimately about making you see your country as your family, so you will sacrifice for it like your blood relatives, and indeed, a nationality is usually your blood relatives, the relationship of your tribe. Consider the passion and friendship between two residents of the same Commune, the equivalent of nation for a medieval Italian, in Dante's Purgatorio:

We soon approach'd it. O thou Lombard spirit!
How didst thou stand, in high abstracted mood,
Scarce moving with slow dignity thine eyes!
It spoke not aught, but let us onward pass,
Eyeing us as a lion on his watch.
But Virgil with entreaty mild advanc'd,
Requesting it to show the best ascent.
It answer to his question none return'd,
But of our country and our kind of life
Demanded. When my courteous guide began,
"Mantua," the solitary shadow quick
Rose towards us from the place in which it stood,
And cry'd, "Mantuan! I am thy countryman
Sordello." Each the other then embrac'd.

 

[Scottty]

Something profound on this I read years ago.... ah, here it is:

Your first duty is to yourself. Your second duty is to your family. Your third duty is to your (real) friends. Your fourth duty is to your nation. If you live in a multicultural society, your fourth duty is to your tribe; your fifth one is to your nation. Your sixth duty is to humanity. Your seventh duty is to Planet Earth. All these duties coexist, and none may be pursued without proportional regard for the others. Proportional is the operative word.
Situations will arise in your life when the above order does not hold. You will need instinct and wisdom to know when to rearrange this ladder of priorities, why and how. But never follow a teaching that changes this order as its starting premise.

 

[Deleted member]

I think it is safe to say that if we did not have these bonds we could not possibly be moral individuals, and therefore we should carry them with us as far as the limits of humanity. But I would strongly argue against your first duty being to yourself. That is a downward or materialistic tendency. Your first duty is to your soul. Not your body. Never your body.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I think it is safe to say that if we did not have these bonds we could not possibly be moral individuals, and therefore we should carry them with us as far as the limits of humanity. But I would strongly argue against your first duty being to yourself. That is a downward or materialistic tendency. Your first duty is to your soul. Not your body. Never your body.

Well, being obsessed with your principles can in a way be about yourself



Though, that can be a selfishness that would be seen as crazy even by ultra materialistic douchebags

Your second duty is to your family. Your third duty is to your (real) friends.

Gonna have to disagree with him on this one, REAL friends come first to family

You can be biologically related to people, but that does NOT necessarily mean that you love them or that they love you

Friends can be your REAL family

Cherryl: That was all, Miss Taggart.
Dagny: Cherryl, my name is Dagny.
Cherryl: I - I didn't know whether I should...
Dagny: We're sisters, aren't we?
Cherryl: No! Not through Jim!
Dagny: No, through our own choice.

 

[Lanmandragon]

I'd argue that by taking care of your family and friends you are taking care of your nation. The two are one and the same.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

I'd argue that by taking care of your family and friends you are taking care of your nation. The two are one and the same.

What if your government tells you otherwise? And says that you are going to be penalized for having so many children and that what you are doing is wrong and selfish?

Is doing what your government says to be good something selfless?

 

[Lanmandragon]

What if your government tells you otherwise? And says that you are going to be penalized for having so many children and that what you are doing is wrong and selfish?

Is doing what your government says to be good something selfless?

You tell the government to **** themselves. The nation is not now nor has it ever been the state. The state works for the people not the people for the state. Anything else is tyranny.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

You tell the government to **** themselves. The nation is not now nor has it ever been the nation. The state works for the people not the people for the state. Anything else is tyranny.

What if the majority of people you are surrounded by tell you that your decisions are morally wrong because they believe they are

Said majority are also real big douchebags and are committing borderline suicide through really dumb decisions? And it’s only you and some other people who are left to disagree

Sorry, it’s just that while I’ve only read Anthem, I really find how Ayn Rand redefined selflessness as being really psycophantic behavior and a willingness to abandon your own ability to reason because of others, to be pretty weird

I don’t think the guys who made Bioshock even knew how Ayn Rand was trying to redefine selfishness and selflessness

 

[Lanmandragon]

What if the majority of people you are surrounded by tell you that your decisions are morally wrong because they believe they are

Said majority are also real big douchebags and are committing borderline suicide through really dumb decisions? And it’s only you and some other people who are left to disagree

Sorry, it’s just that while I’ve only read Anthem, I really find how Ayn Rand redefined selflessness as being really psycophantic behavior and a willingness to abandon your own ability to reason because of others, to be pretty weird

I don’t think the guys who made Bioshock even knew how Ayn Rand was trying to redefine selfishness and selflessness

Why in the world would you care what the majority thinks? You do what you believe to be good and right. Regardless of consequences that's what being a man is.

 

[CarlManvers2019]

Why in the world would you care what the majority thinks? You do what you believe to be good and right. Regardless of consequences that's what being a man is.

Is morality not something defined by the majority of people?

Equality 7-2521, you are a threat to society, await your punishment

Also, we’re destroying this invention of yours called electricity

 

[Lanmandragon]

Is morality not something defined by the majority of people?

Nope morality is defined by ones principles. The opinion of others is entirely irrelevant. How a man chooses to run his family should he determined by what he feels is right. Not by the opinion of others. Now that doesn't mean you shouldn't listen to advice. Still the ultimate decision must be made by you based on the pricipals you hold to. Anything less is both cowardly and unmanly.

 

[Scottty]

I think it is safe to say that if we did not have these bonds we could not possibly be moral individuals, and therefore we should carry them with us as far as the limits of humanity. But I would strongly argue against your first duty being to yourself. That is a downward or materialistic tendency. Your first duty is to your soul. Not your body. Never your body.

That could go into a semantic debate about whether your soul or your body is "yourself" - and whether the needs of either is necessarily at odds with the needs of the other.
From a Christian perspective, the soul is of course more important than the body, but it is still wrong to neglect the needs of the body.

Gonna have to disagree with him on this one, REAL friends come first to family
You can be biologically related to people, but that does NOT necessarily mean that you love them or that they love you
Friends can be your REAL family

Sure. The point is that there are people who are closer to you, in some way or another, that you therefore have more of a duty towards, than the great mass of humanity at large.

 

[Erwin_Pommel]

I'd call it selfish, but only relatively, for example, say, you wanted to make sure your country was doing well economically before sending money out to other countries, that would be selfish, but not a personal selfishness, an interests based one. Selfishness on its own isn't bad, it's just what the situation is and what you're trying to do. So, yes, it could be called selfish, but it is not the bad kind as you're still being supportive of someone or group.

 

[Doomsought]

No, there is something wrong about someone that starves their own children to feed their neighbors', or a nation that impoverishes its citizens to enrich foreigners. You have a duty to those that are close to you, where you only have the priniple of kindness to those that are distant.