🚀 go-pugleaf

nenosed@apex.met.au (Ned Latham) writes:
>Kym HORSELL <kym@cs.mu.oz.au> wrote:
>----snip----
>> One of the classic methods of determining "the good" when it comes to
>> choices between actions is to select the alternative that is most contrary 
>> to one's self interest.
>Well, there's a self-defeating definition, if ever I heard one.

Well, that's the view of people that DEFINE "the good" to be their immediate
self-interest. ;-)

Other ethicists claim that (e.g.) sacrificing one's safety or life for
another is ethical, and beats (say) some coward that gives into 
their panic (a hero, OTOH, is a coward that doesn't give in to panic)
and jumps into a lifeboat ahead of the women and kids.

Surprisingly, altruism appears to exist. So it must, apropos the
usual Darwinistic arguments, promote some kind of welfare for the 
species and/or the altruistic individual (or at least their genes).
--
R. Kym Horsell
KHorsell@EE.LaTrobe.EDU.AU                  Kym@CS.Binghamton.EDU 
http://www.ee.latrobe.edu.au/~khorsell      http://cs.binghamton.edu/~kym