3 Answers

  1. If you abandon the concept of God's plan, then it is quite possible. And this fact looks funny against the background of religious morality, which, it seems, should spread selflessness and other benefactors among people

  2. It seems to me that in one way or another, a person still commits an act to get some kind of benefit: even these examples about anonymous charity that are always given… Even anonymous charity, in my opinion, is a selfish act, because a person asserts himself, thinking how good he is, that he has done such a good deed

  3. In my opinion, there is, if only because a lot of actions people do on the machine, both bad and good. It turns out that there is no underlying reason for such actions initially. Then you can pull both the positive/negative assessment and the motives, and with them the vague term of self-interest, by the ears. Giving away old clothes what is the personal benefit, for example? What is in the trash, what to take to the church-there is no difference for many. Just common sense, if the thing is not bad-let it serve another. The joy of conditional underprivileged parishioners, as a goal, may be secondary or absent altogether. What is the benefit of changing the method of getting rid of things – I can't even imagine, maybe I'm too lazy to bother with selling or recycling it myself and my goal is to save energy or some other crazy scenarios. When I give something to someone, I don't scroll through what I am “sane” or “a supporter of rational consumption”, etc. – for myself, I just threw it out because I bought a new one + once I was told that I could take my old clothes to church.

    Or, for example, my friends asked me to buy a trinket to some orphan girl on NG, well, I bought it, and then I wasn't particularly interested in what was there. For me, it was more like “friends messed up something and I participated in it” If they bought gifts or jumped drunk naked – the essence would not change, just in life so that friends do something together. How much, from the point of view of self-interest, this is self-affirmation, as a friend, I again do not know, all relationships then are self-serving and this term loses its negative connotation.

    You can, of course, consider the achievement of any goal as a benefit, then any act, as a means to achieve the goal, will be self-serving. But even in this ideal model, the phrase “I did it first, then I thought”comes to mind)

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