I saw a post over on Dizzy’s blog about a student who was claiming unemployment. In the comments, she intimated a few times that she was uncomfortable with the fact that this guy thought entitlement programs should be done away with but he was still making use of one of them. Various commenters insinuated that he was being hypocritical.
You might think that it’s good policy to cut down on government entitlement programs (or do away with them entirely). That doesn’t mean that you think it’s wrong to take advantage of them if they are offered, and it certainly doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use them if you can.
Now, if this guy walks around saying that anyone who take government hand-outs is a bad person, then he has a problem. Or, I guess, if he complains about people gaming the system and he is getting his benefits illegitimately. Other than that, though, I don’t see the problem.
After all, there are a lot of stupid-rich democrats out there who think that rich people should pay more taxes, but they aren’t voluntarily paying more themselves. It’s a matter of policy versus morality.
May 18th, 2007 at 6:22 pm
I don’t see how it would be hypocritical to:
A. believe that the government shouldn’t take X from me;
and then,
B. take X back from the government when given the opportunity.
and now we could see step B as being prememptive if the person had not yet paid in an amount in excess of what they would collect - the thought being, “well they’re going to take it eventually, and now is my only chance to offset that.”
Not that I think this is the only logic justifying this situation.
There’s a difference in having beliefs about what people should do and having beliefs about what governments should do. If I feel that governments should provide health care - but they don’t - am I hypocritical for buying my own? That would seem to be an insane position to hold.
Other side of the coin: if I believe that governments shouldn’t provide health care, but they do - am I a hypocrit for not buying my own private health care? I don’t see how considering that I’m ‘paying’ for the service already - albeit paying the gov instead of some private agency, in addition to the analogy to the above situation.
Having ideological beliefs about how governments should be run is just a seperate question from how you respond to those policies. Some people may say - well, I believe roads should be provided by individuals and not the satte, therefore, I won’t drive on public streets - but others may say, you know what - I’m an anarcho-capitalist, but I still need to get to work.
May 18th, 2007 at 8:58 pm
You didn’t pay, though. Your employer was required to pay into a state unemployment insurance fund. Then you used the money in this government program, set up to help people who lose their job through no fault of their own, to buy beer. Do what you want, but thinking this is a tad hypocritical isn’t exactly a “crazy” position.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Actually, I think a better analogy would be if your employer were required to keep certain emergency relief supplies on hand (let’s say there was some post-Katrina law about it, whatever), and you ate them, or otherwise appropriated them for your own personal use (stole a tent and went camping or something). Sure, you’re not really hurting anyone. But it just seems… selfish. Especially if you went around saying how stupid it was that the govt. made your employer buy a tent to take care of people who should be smart enough to get out of a storm. Sure, you may as well use it and it’s government dollars and you pay taxes. But it’s still not your tent.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:04 pm
Employers are required to pay, which causes them to reduce salaraies. If they weren’t required to pay, salaries would be higher.
Dizzy, honestly, let’s look at the definition of “hypocritical” for a moment. My point is that just believing that something shouldn’t exist doesn’t mean that benefitting from it is hypocritical.
If the guy in question wasn’t entitled to the benefits then the word you’re looking for is “illegal” not “hypocritical.” If he was entitled, then the word is still not “hypocritical” unless he chastizes every single person who takes from government entitlement programs under any circumstances. Which I doubt is the case.
May 18th, 2007 at 10:06 pm
I think the bottom line is that you’re upset that someone who doesn’t like entitlement programs is benefitting from one. Your discomfort is not his problem.
Same story with regards to the Democrats who are not paying extra taxes because they think that’s what people should do.
May 19th, 2007 at 12:50 am
Democrats don’t think that “people” should pay more taxes, they think that “certain people” should pay more taxes. Meanwhile, republicans busy themselves with pretending that profit is a divine right. Everyone likes tax cuts that apply to them and everyone likes the benefits they are “entitled” to. Hence policy disagreement ensues.
“Your discomfort is not his problem.”
Real human beings care about other people’s discomfort.
“If they weren’t required to pay, salaries would be higher.”
Awww, law and economics, how cute. Why don’t you instead focus on privatizing the military so I can opt out of paying taxes for bombs.
May 19th, 2007 at 3:17 am
I think the bottom line is that you’re upset that someone who doesn’t like entitlement programs is benefitting from one. Your discomfort is not his problem.
Pretty much, yeah. That’s right. But my discomfort is not because he was unemployed and chose to use unemployment. You keep leaving out the law school angle. Somehow, he was unemployed and could still be on unemployment in while IN law school?
I wouldn’t have turned down the money while I was unemployed. But even as someone who really believes in the program, I don’t think I would have used it while in school. Before school if there was an employment gap, sure. That’s what it’s there for. But during school when whatever the letter of the law is (and I don’t think the guy was doing anything illicit, at least, god, I hope not), but whatever the law is, the idea is that you use the money to take care of employment gaps while you search for or train for another career, and you give up the money if you get a job. Entering law school is training for another career. But you know you’re not going to give up school if another job comes up, right?
Running out the unemployment money, while trying not to become employed is EXACTLY what the druggies in The Full Monty and Trainspotters were doing. And it’s funny for a movie. It’s just weird to see it in a member of the Federalist Society (I don’t know if he actually is a member, I’m just being rhetorical).
Bottom line, I’m not arguing that Republicans should forego benefit programs if they are available. This situation just seems unusually slacker-like. And we don’t have to agree. It was just… like I said… weird to me
May 19th, 2007 at 7:50 am
Corey: “Democrats don’t think that ‘people’ should pay more taxes, they think that ‘certain people’ should pay more taxes.”
Reading comprehension is a neat trick. You should try it some time. You can practice on this sentence: “[T]here are a lot of stupid-rich democrats out there who think that rich people should pay more taxes, but they aren’t voluntarily paying more themselves…” I added some emphasis in there where you might need a little help. Let me know how that turns out for you.
Corey: “Real human beings care about other people’s discomfort.”
So the vast majority of people who don’t care about every other person’s discomfort are “fake” people? This sounds a lot like those people who say things like “Real men don’t apologize.” I always wonder who died and made them the arbiter of manhood. So… Corey… who died and made you the arbiter of personhood? Because I think I’m a pretty authentic, honest-to-goodness person… but there are many people whose discomfort I couldn’t care less about. PS: What ever happened to you going away? I think you now officially qualify as my blog’s only current Troll.
Dizzy: I’m not saying I agree with what he did — I don’t know enough about the specifics to make that determination. I’m saying he’s not a hypocrite. I’m also saying that there’s no “republican” angle to this. What he did was either wrong or it wasn’t… being Republican doesn’t make it “more” wrong, no matter how much some people might want to think so.
May 19th, 2007 at 1:25 pm
I kind of like the tent analogy - but you missed one key part.
It’s not like “stealing” the tent. It’s like the employer saying - according to rule xyz, you are now entitled to the tent. And then you use it.
Because we’re (I think) assuming that the person is receiving the benefits legally. And therefore he has met whatever requirements exist to qualify for it. So the tent analogy must also include that the person has indeed qualified to use the tent. And so he does. And maybe he thinks the tent idea is stupid, but is he a hypocrit to use a tent that he has helped pay for, when the employer says “OK, here’s your tent”? I don’t think so.
Take the campus bus at IU for example. Everyone has to pay into it via tuition. But not everyone uses. And so, some might say, man I hate having to pay for the bus that I don’t use. And maybe there’s a vote on campus to keep doing it - and he votes no, but he’s in the minority, and so free buses keep running. And one day his care breaks down. And he says “well, I’m paying for this stupid bus, I might as well ride it for a few days.” That doesn’t seem hypocritical - he can still think it’s stupid and ride it fo free at the same time. There’s no real dissonance because there’s 2 different questions at hand:
1) Should the bus be subsidized?
2) If it is, how do I react? By using the bus that I’d rather pay for directly? or by making a moral statement by walking around everywhere.
What if someone really, really belived that the bus should be subsidized, but it wasn’t. Is it hypocritical to ride the bus and pay the 75 cents?
May 19th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
If using the bus depletes the resources available to everyone else, and by using it, you are saving wear and tear on the cadillac you have in the garage, then go ahead and use it. But I will mock you.
Back to the tent analogy, the resources are for people in an emergency, a crisis. If you are in law school, you are not in trouble (well, you are, but that’s a whole other story).
This guy ran out his employment benefits, while he was in law school. He was NOT worried about making ends meet. He was not in any kind of trouble, and there were plenty of other govt programs which are intended to help him as a law student, which I hope he did use. I grew up supported, at times, by unemployment benefits. So it bothers me to see something that is meant for people without options, used to pay some Republican’s bar tab, while he feels free to criticize other people for “leaning on the govt.”
It’s not a classy move. It may be legal, and I know you want to support him because he’s a Republican. And I get it, Republicans can use the benefits too. That’s fine.
But remember the scene in “Trainspotters” where the lead character blows a job interview on purpose, because god forbid he has to lose his benefits (to which he is legally entitled) by getting another job? That is what this guy did. And we probably aren’t going to agree, but I think it’s hypocritical, and I don’t like it. It’s more a crime against kharma than anything else, but I think he loses credibility as a Republican if he’s willing to behave like some character in Trainspotting (it was meant to be a cautionary tale, right?)
May 19th, 2007 at 6:55 pm
Oh, and I’m plannng to read this book to help get over some of my automatic, “But of COURSE this is the best way…” liberal reactions
http://www.amazon.com/dp/00608.....k_code=as3
May 19th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
A couple of points:
1) I’m not a republican - not by a long shot. Not that that should really matter.
2) I don’t think people in law school should be able to collect unemployment.
3) I think the guy is probably abusing the system.
4) That isn’t the same thing as being a hypocrite.
5) You say that unemployment is only “for an emergency.” But that’s not what the government says. The government has a set of rules that says what unemployment is or isn’t for. Apparently, the gov’t thinks it’s ok to collect while your in law school. I think that that’s dumb as hell, and apparently so do you.
……. so if you want to argue that the government policy is wrong - I agree, 100%. If you want to say that the guy is kind of a douche for abusing the system - I won’t really argue with that either, it’s pretty subjective. But hypocrite has a pretty specific meaning, and I just don’t see how this fits the ticket.
May 21st, 2007 at 2:33 am
I admit that you are a person, a technocratic entitlement-prone person perhaps, but definitely a person. It was your humanity I was impugning. Your over-literal reading of my comments contrasts ironically with my occasionally careless reading of yours.
“PS: What ever happened to you going away? I think you now officially qualify as my blog’s only current Troll.
“
Ah… f— off. I rotated through on a random “what are the mean-spirited 2Ls blogging about these days” whim. I’m no more associated with this blog than you are with Dizzy’s. I occasionally read it hoping to learn more about how young neoeconoconservatives think and function, because I hope to defeat and embarass people like you in the future in service of the greater good. How’s that for honesty on a monday morning?
May 21st, 2007 at 3:13 am
I admit that you are a person, a technocratic entitlement-prone person perhaps, but definitely a person. It was your humanity I was impugning. Your over-literal reading of my comments contrasts ironically with my occasionally careless reading of yours.
Changing the terms being used from “personhood” to “humanity” doesn’t change the question. There’s no reason you can’t answer it.
Oh wait, I get it. It’s enough for you to come by and impugn his humanity. There’s no need to be constructive or respond to any questions or anything like that. You’re just here to throw insults around.
You know, before Pete said it, I never would have thought of calling you out as a troll…but there it is. Damn my poor ability to judge character quickly!
May 21st, 2007 at 8:40 am
Wow. Y’all. Believe me, I have REAL trolls. I don’t think Corey ’s hit a true trolly level with the personhood comment. If he starts talking about Pete’s butt, then, yeah, he’s in troll territory. But right now, eh, what fun would it be if we all agreed?
May 21st, 2007 at 11:57 am
“Real human beings care about other people’s discomfort.”
I started with humanity, Pete changed the term to person. I changed them back. In one sense they are synonyms, in another they are not. Words have contingent meanings, which is why arguing by redefining words is frustrating and a waste of time.
I didn’t see a question… perhaps you meant:
“So… Corey… who died and made you the arbiter of personhood?”
That’s a rhetorical question ken. It is ridicule. We don’t answer those kind except by escalating the ridicule.
But you are right, there is no need for me to be constructive or respond to anything. I wrote you guys off during the last major exchange we had. Neither of you have ever done or said anything nice to or about me (nor I you.) Now I’ve graduated and will never see or speak with either of you again. Insults are all we have for each other.
May 21st, 2007 at 5:36 pm
That’s a rhetorical question ken. It is ridicule. We don’t answer those kind except by escalating the ridicule. It’s not ridicule, it’s a challenge to the point you tried to make. Obviously, your point cannot stand backed up only by your assertion about what a “real” human would do.
A constructive person would have responded either by explaining why the person receiving benefits should care about how you feel in a way that does not rely upon the absurd ground of your own authority at defining humanity, or by conceding the point (and perhaps finding an alternative argument).
But, as you admit, you’re only here to to throw insults around, so I’m wrong to expect anything better from you.
Now I’ve graduated and will never see or speak with either of you again.
You’ve said that before, yet, here you are.
Insults are all we have for each other. Speak for yourself. The only insult that I feel a need to share is the troll thing. That didn’t start until you obviously became a troll, and can stop the moment you cease and knock it the fuck off.
@Dizzy,
Corey may have a few IQ points more than your “show us your titties” trolls, but he’s admitted to being qualitatively the same.
May 21st, 2007 at 9:45 pm
What I love is how the comments make pronouncements about what is or isn’t “right” about someone taking unemployment without apparently knowing the first fact about the situation. You law students are so fast to get on your high horses…
May 21st, 2007 at 10:35 pm
What the hell is a troll anyway? You use that word like it means something.
I’m not going to try and out-logic a bunch of technocrats ken. I assumed you knew exactly what I meant by my original comment. Parse it all you want, but asking me to explain why it is a norm for people to care about others’ opinion of them seems willfully obtuse. Outside law school, people hate selfish interest maximizers. One cannot trust people who consider only their own best interest. I tell you this on my own authority.
May 21st, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Troll — in case using teh intarwebs is new, you might be interested in a new website I found. It’s called “Google” ([http://www.google.com]). You type words into the little box and “Google” will find sites that are relevant. This time I found an answer in the very first “result” of my “search” for “Troll.” You should give it a shot.
“asking me to explain why it is a norm for people to care about others’ opinion of them seems willfully obtuse.”
And it may be. If that’s what was going on. Which it’s not. First of all, I asked who gave you the authority to decide what the norms were. Second, I’m specifically interested in what “norm” says that every individual should care about the discomfort of every other individual. (this is either a necessary assumption of your initial claim, or that claim was so poorly developed as to be worthless) If you, yourself, abide by that norm, it seems odd that you should want to embarrass people — willfully causing them discomfort, which you think is so important to abide by.
…or is discomfort only okay when you’re causing it? Goose? Gander? Pot? Kettle? Something like that.
Another thought: maybe “neocons” (a word you clearly do not know the meaning of) are not “people” and, therefore, their discomfort doesn’t matter?
Hmm… so many options.
May 21st, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Irony Joe. What would the “first fact” of the situation be? He was in law school. Taking classes. In a degree program that lasts three years, which specifically prohibits you from taking a job in your first year. And he was collecting unemployment benefits.
I’m sure it was technically legal. I just don’t like what he did. I think there are other government programs that were available to him. And I think it is particularly bad that he was a Republican, who complains about OTHER people misusing the system. Other people disagree on that point. And I see what they’re saying. But the basic facts aren’t really in question.
Anyway, I don’t really want to fight about this one anymore.
May 22nd, 2007 at 2:00 am
“Second, I’m specifically interested in what “norm” says that every individual should care about the discomfort of every other individual.”
Well, as concerns one’s own actions, there are several formulations:
Christianity: “Love thy neighbor as thyself” Jesus, Matthew 22:16
Judaism: “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.” Leviticus 19:18 “What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow man. This is the law: all the rest is commentary.” Talmud, Shabbat 31a
Islam: “None of you believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” Al-Nawawi’s Forty Hadiths
Buddhism: “Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful.” Udana-Varga 5:18
Confucianism: “Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you” Analects 15:23
Hinduism: “This is the sum of duty: do not do to others what would cause pain if done to you.” Mahabharata 5:1517
Taoism: “Regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss.” T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien.
Do you want quotes on charity too? Or can you derive that from the ones above?
May 22nd, 2007 at 9:31 am
Would it be mean-spirited of me to point out the difference between a moral tenet / religious imperative and a societal norm?
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:45 am
Parse it all you want, but asking me to explain why it is a norm for people to care about others’ opinion of them seems willfully obtuse.
It’s not obtuse at all, unless you try to confuse the issue. We’re talking about someone who, rightly or wrongly, is in a position to receive unemployment benefits. Your position is that this person should alter his behavior because it would make Dizzy (was it Dizzy?) uncomfortable. That’s not an easy argument to swallow. If this person is actually entitled to the benefits, that someone else might feel discomfort with that isn’t going to merit much more than a “too bad.” (Analogy: I didn’t decline to go to law school because many of my friends and family despise lawyers; a reasonable person would not impugn my humanity for making such a choice.)If the person isn’t entitled, maybe that discomfort would mean a bit more, but then there is also a much more salient reason not to do it anyways.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:50 am
Outside law school, people hate selfish interest maximizers. One cannot trust people who consider only their own best interest. I tell you this on my own authority.
You don’t need to take the authority thing to an extreme. This sound more like an argument than a fact to me; I wouldn’t have called you out on it. If you DO insist that it’s a fact, then yes, you’ll need something to back it up.
As for myself, I think it’s actually easier to trust people who behave according to rational self interest than those who do not. Rational self interest can be very predictable. Put yourself in a position to either know or control (hehehehe) that person’s interest, and you can accurately predict his/her behavior. Have you ever played Diplomacy?
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 am
This is a fun game, let’s play:
You’d be hard-pressed to find anything that doesn’t make someone uncomfortable… so I guess we should do nothing? That would make me uncomfortable.
Or is this another situation where it’s true (Dizzy’s discomfort is none of this guys concern), but it’s against the rules to say so?
May 22nd, 2007 at 12:08 pm
“Would it be mean-spirited of me to point out the difference between a moral tenet / religious imperative and a societal norm?”
Well the title of this thread, that you wrote, is “policy vs. morality.” I just gave you a religious imperative that is aspirationally endorsed by over half the people on this planet… the Christians, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, many of the athiests by way of Kant or the humanist philosophers… so yes it is a societal norm too. It is both policy and morality.
What I endorsed was that “real human beings [should] care about other people’s discomfort.” I did not endorse decisional paralysis, we quite obviously can’t satisfy everyone. You however originally said that other people’s (Dizzy’s) discomfort was irrelevant. I’ll grant that you weren’t speaking in absolutes EITHER.
And Ken, perhaps the reason that many of your friends and family (and mine) despise lawyers is their discomfort with rational self-interest maximization. Maybe they think the whole concept, to the extent they experience its effects, is cover for selfishness.
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Maybe they think the whole concept, to the extent they experience its effects, is cover for selfishness.
Cover? Selfishness is exactly what rational self-interest is. There is no attempt to hide it at all! It’s practically in the damn name!
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pm
And being selfish is bad. We all learn that when we are 5 right?
May 22nd, 2007 at 1:25 pm
Everything that we learned when we were 5 is spot on. After all, Santa Claus is real and the tooth fairy leaves a dollar under our pillows when we loose teeth. Right?
Corey, I’d love to see you make a case for selfishness being bad, aside from the stigma of the word itself, and the emotional “well everyone knows it’s bad!” argument.
PS: Just because half of the population of the world follows one of the religions that you listed does not make their shared bleliefs “societal norms.” In order for something to be considered a “norm” it needs to have some sort of punishment feedback loop for violating it.
May 22nd, 2007 at 3:25 pm
Pete, in your zeal for getting the better of me, are you actually meaning to imply that you think selfishness is or can be good?
Selfishness is bad. I tell you this, from the bottom of my heart, based on my… nearly 32 years of life, my travels, the art and literature I have internalized, and my deeply held spiritual beliefs. That is my case. Selfishness is bad, I believe that is a core truth. I’m not going to debate the logic/rationality/right reason of this one because that has sort of been done to death by this little thing called “the entire history of philosophy worldwide.”
You’ve experienced the punishment loop for selfishness before I am sure.
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:14 pm
If our parents didn’t contradict that little “truism” by the time we were in our teens with “be responsible” and “look out for yourself,” life certainly taught us that lesson the hard way.
But no, selfishness alone is neither good nor bad. Selfish conduct can be bad when it harms others–but, it’s bad not because benefits the actor, but because it harms others. Thinking through moral dilemmas is a bit too heavy for the 5 year olds, so what they get taught is a stopgap measure that will get them by for the time being. Once they’re smart enough to understand the truth, they’ll be able to think for themselves and realize that the real world doesn’t work the way mommy and daddy said it did.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:42 pm
“Selfishness alone is neither good nor bad.”
Wrong. “Selfish” conduct by definition harms others in some way. Stop using semantics (poorly) as a substitute for argument. Selfishness alone is bad.
May 22nd, 2007 at 6:56 pm
“‘Selfish’ conduct by definition harms others in some way.”
According to whom or what?
“Selfishness” is stigmatized word that people use to label conduct that they dislike. Many things that are, in fact, selfishness are not labelled as such because nobody needs to villianize the conduct.
Say I buy a scratch-off lottery ticket and win $50 that I have no need for. I immediately spend it on an expensive dinner for myself. Is that selfish? Yes, because I was not concerned with whether or not someone else might need it more than I do. Was it bad of me to do? I don’t see how.
Selfishness alone is not bad. The problem is that most selfish behavior isn’t labelled that way until it actually causes harm. Leading to a stigma and gut-reaction like yours and Coreys.
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:37 pm
I have two shelves of books next to my computer that assisted my efforts to move past mid-20s cynicism and get back to the point where I could manifest faith in charity and selflessness. Kant has several thousand pages on the subject, Dostoevsky as well. “The Fall” by Camus or anything by Kierkegaard helps too. Then there is the story of Job read in contrast with the story of Jesus. (I could go on but I’m sure you would accuse me of posturing.) This is so far from a “gut reaction” that is seems insulting for you to say so.
Semantics and the economic analysis of law can justify a lot. You might even make it through your whole life without those techniques of rationalization failing you. Or you might have trouble, and then you might even need a moral truth or two in order to survive doubt.
May 22nd, 2007 at 7:51 pm
Corey, I don’t need “help” refining my opinions to match yours. I’m plenty happy with how they are right now and can think of no reason to actively motivate their change. Especially if doing so would result in me turning into a person like you. There’s nothing inherently wrong with the comments you write or the way you carry yourself on this blog… I would just like never to be that person.
As for your claim that this wasn’t a gut reaction… your description makes it sound like that’s exactly what it was. You read a bunch of stuff, and now you believe that the concept embodied by this word is inherently bad, but can come up with no logical, reasoned, or even emotional explanation for why that’s the case. It just is. Because you said so. So let’s try it this way… please answer the following questions regarding my Lottery-ticket example:
No tricks or traps here, just curiosity. You seem so averse to being pinned down on answers to questions, but maybe you can fight that for a few minutes.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:09 pm
It wasn’t selfish because no one else was affected. There are various dictionary (and yeah, I mean internet dictionary) definitions. Here is one: “characterized by or manifesting concern or care only for oneself.” That definition is only implicated if it is possible (and let’s not be silly enough to go down the “someone somewhere could have used this money for something else” road) if someone else stands in a position to be disregarded.
If you had, for instance, spent the money on yourself and let your kids go hungry, that would be selfish.
May 22nd, 2007 at 8:44 pm
Let’s not be silly enough to go down the road that demonstrates how it was, in fact, selfish? You could scarcely come up with a situation in which there aren’t countless people in a position to be disregarded.
Letting your kids go hungry and spending the money on yourself is more than selfish, it’s a dereliction of an affirmative duty. What point is there in limiting the definition of a word in such a way?
What if you had a friend who was having a hard time paying his rent this month, and $50 would really help him out? What about donating that $50 to a local shelter, where it can easiliy be put to use? There are a million examples.
But it would be “silly” to bring them up. Because… then the definition wouldn’t be so perfectly tailored to suit your and Corey’s gut-reaction to the inherent badness of “selfishness”?
Consider a different example. I’m sitting on a full metro and an elderly woman gets on who has trouble walking. I don’t offer her my seat. Is that selfish? Why should there be two answers that depend on information I can’t possibly know? With your additions to that defintion, my actions wouldn’t be selfish unless she’d actually accept the seat. But in actuality, it’s selfish because the woman was disregarded from the beginning… just like countless people would be if I immediately spent my $50 windfall on an expensive dinner for myself without considering if someone else might be able to put it to better use.
Sure, it’s easy to slide the “where does disregard start” question around to suit your tastes and preferences… but why shouldn’t regard for others start immediately?
I spent many years as an active member of a collegiate community service organization. I cannot tell you how many people would go to service projects because they’d get class credit, or because they were after an award, or because their scholarship required it, or because they wanted a resume builder. These people wouldn’t have gone near a nursing home, or RISE center, or animal shelter if there wasn’t something in it for them. They were selfish.
But they visited with the shut-ins, taught disabled children, and cavorted with abandonded dogs all the same. The people and animals being helped out couldn’t care less why the people were there… only that they were there. And if given the option to choose between having nobody to talk to, or talking to someone who was there for selfish motives… they’d choose the selfishness every time.
Why? Because selfishness isn’t inherently bad. It’s only bad when it hurts someone… and those are perfect exampls of selfishness being a good thing. Maybe it’s not as “good” or “noble” or whatever as someone who gives freely of their time without prodding, but I’ve never seen the needy make that distinction or appear to care in the least which person they got.
May 22nd, 2007 at 10:57 pm
OK, so we can agree that selfishness in the Kantian sense isn’t necessarily a bad thing because it may result in shut-ins being spoken to, but that selfishness in the sense of ignoring the concerns of others (and yes, I am, for the sake of some semblance of applicability limiting those “others” to people that are somewhat directly implicated) is a bad thing?
May 22nd, 2007 at 11:02 pm
(Oh, and what I meant by the silly road was that taken to its logical extreme, every consumptive act is in some sense selfish, because you will be using resources that could have been used by others. Breathing is a selfish act, because someone else could have used that air, etc. I merely pointed out the fork in the silly road to foreclose that inanity.)
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:47 am
I described an existential conflict, and you said I “read a bunch of stuff and decided.” How nice… Well then, until you also read a bunch of stuff, I won’t have an ethics 101 “does true altruism exist?” debate with you. It will waste both our time, I can tell. We will hit final vocabulary about 10 posts in and over half the words will be spent explaining the relevance of references and allusions (me) or posing deductive pseudo-paradoxes that presuppose the illegitimacy of normative responses (you).
Spend your 50 dollars, be happy, but at least tip the waiter a good sum. Give up your seat, of course. These aren’t hard questions. It is very law school of you to throw hypos at an asserted norm. Everyone has to draw their own line on what they keep and what they give back. If you spent the 50 on gifts for your girlfriend, great, if you spent it paying two bums to fight, people are going to call you selfish. There is some middle ground where quantitative analysis breaks down, but then again we could just poll people on the street. This being a democracy, what they think is more relevant than you ever admit.
May 23rd, 2007 at 7:08 am
I find your most recent comment a bit humorous for a couple of reasons.
But, hey, way to completely avoid the direct questions. That’s a pretty good way to not be pinned down, I must concede. Though I still wonder why you’re so scared of it.
May 23rd, 2007 at 8:18 am
I answered the questions. You don’t seem to listen but rather spend the time thinking of the next thing you will say.
May 23rd, 2007 at 9:55 am
No, actually, you didn’t. When asked if something was selfish, you replied that I should “draw my own line.” That’s the epitome of a non-answer. You’re telling me what I should do, but not answering the questions posed. You weaseled around until you felt satisfied that it was “close enough” but still hadn’t answered yes or no. For some tips on how to answer a question, see comment #37.