So you’re arguing that there are no selfless acts and that this, in and of itself, refutes the existence of ‘love’ (which you haven’t bothered to define)?

To be ‘selfish’ requires ‘selfless’ acts because we live in society. In society ‘love’ often extends to others, but I need not direct ‘love’ toward people. ‘Love’ can be both ‘selfish’ and ‘selfless’.

I would but I fear interfering with the intellectual affection you've established and nurtured and have become accustomed to that is this belief you hold above all trials and triumphs of life. Nobody could be that heartless.

Change my view, challenge me if you will. — obscurelaunting

Change it yourself you freeloader!

But most of these aren't the case:

Yet, when a friend changes and no longer offers what they used to offer, its easy for them to be discarded immediately. — obscurelaunting

You either haven't had good friends or are not a good friend yourself.

While this may appear to be the ultimate character of kindness and goodness, it can be said that there are underlying motives such as the feeling of a sense of proudness of their sacrifice and feeling as they are achieving their 'purpose' which in itself is selfish. — obscurelaunting

It "can be said" doesn't make it the case. The fact that there is some sense of purpose in helping others doesn't prove that is the sole reason people do it.

As for sacrificing lives, they would not sacrifice their life for one unless they have afterlife beliefs that ensure their safety. — obscurelaunting

How did you conclude this? Where is your data?

My last scenario is the 360 turn to hatred and everything that is not 'love' when there is a sense of loss of what one had that they can't get back. Their new hatred forms their next selfish action such as killing their wife and children. This is selfish as there is no concern for his family and the family's selfish wants. — obscurelaunting

You think everyone that loses something important they can't get back goes on to murder their wife and children, or is otherwise immediately impulsive?

Even if true what does this prove. Any emotion will be overpowered by rage. You can be happy relaxing then someone randomly assaults you or someone you know. There will be a 180* turn to hatred then too. Guess happiness doesn’t exist either…..

You obviously don't have children.

Change my view, challenge me if you will. — obscurelaunting

It's a fairly commonplace dogma, but completely unjustified and muddled. However, it is certainly possible to be entirely lacking in any care for others, and absolutely self-centred; that is an affliction variously labelled 'sociopath' or 'psychopath'. Much beloved of unimaginative film-makers.

The philosophical confusion stems from a confusion about causation, and about evolution. We understand that evolution proceeds not by genes being self-concerned, but by them randomly changing, and genes beneficial to survival to maturity and reproduction tending to spread in the population. And this is how we big brained apes evolved. However, big brains themselves do not and cannot follow the line of thought of evolution, because evolution is mindless to the extent of being incapable of either selfish or unselfish. Only a self can be selfish, and a self is an idea a brain has of its own functioning.

So a brain has ideas and thoughts along these lines: If I do X, Y will be the result. I want Y, therefore I will do X. And this thought, we can say, causes the brain to instruct the body to perform X. That is what is generally conceived to be the source of this universal selfishness.

The first thing to note is that Y does not cause X. it cannot cause it because it comes after it. X causes Y and Y cannot cause X. Rather it is the idea of Y that (partially) causes X. The world of the mind is the world of ideas, and it is the ideas that are causal agents. So it is perfectly possible to have all sorts of ideas that have little foundation in reality that act as behavioural causes.

But it also divorces ideas from the necessity of benefiting the person at all. For example, whenever anyone plays a game, football, cards, doctors and nurses, Super Mario, or whatever, they pretend that the goal of the game is what they want, and perform as if it matters to them. and then they forget it is only a game. Thus one can love, because one loves the idea of love. It is a simple matter of behaving according to an idea one has in the attempt to realise it. Just like going to the store to realise the idea of a beer, or running round a field trying to kick a ball between 2 posts.

‘Love’ can be both ‘selfish’ and ‘selfless’. — I like sushi

You are right in observing that a definition of "love" is wanted as a premise for the OP's argument. The incompatible ideas that "there is no love, only selfish acts which appear to show love", and (your consideration that) "love can be selfish" are only able to exist in an environment wherein love remains inadequately defined. Definition is key in philosophy, as is shown by the history: Schopenhauer's "will" and Nietzsche's "will" are different things. @obscurelaunting? This is your cue for a statement of your pretextual definition of "love".

There is nothing money or power can't buy or acquire and that includes "love" but @tim wood would caution caveat emptor.

There's a reason I suppose why the word "romantic" applies to love and also to being "too idealistic" (read unrealistic). True love, as some like to call it, is unrealistic very much like the truth (@180 Proof deems this notion imaginary). Despite "hopeless" romantics having been brought down to earth on more occasions than there are grains of sand in all the beaches and deserts of the world the myth persists.

That said, I'm glad, in fact deeply touched, to know that love in its most exalted form persists in the hearts of a handful of men and women even if only as unrealized pure potential. Isn't it amazing and inspiring that love still makes sense to a dying "breed" of peeps?

There is nothing money or power can't buy or acquire and that includes "love" but tim wood would caution caveat emptor. — TheMadFool

Let the buyer beware the "love" he buys or acquires through mere power. Yep, I'll second that.

I don’t think I agree. Your post seems to be focused solely on cognition, whereas “love” is clearly an emotion. Cliched or not, we hear of occurrences like “love at first sight” where one person instantly, and not premeditatedly, feels love for another person. The “X therefore Y” logic you mention is completely lacking in these, and possibly other, situations.

I don’t think I agree. Your post seems to be focused solely on cognition, whereas “love” is clearly an emotion. Cliched or not, we hear of occurrences like “love at first sight” where one person instantly, and not premeditatedly, feels love for another person. The “X therefore Y” logic you mention is completely lacking in these, and possibly other, situations. — Pinprick

Well I agree with you, even if you disagree with me. :wink:

But my concern is to deal with what I see as the strongest argument. One can of course just say 'it's all twaddle because 'reason is always the slave of passion' as Hume puts it, and strictly it is correct that selfishness is caring about oneself and selflessness is caring about another. But I try to operate closer to where the poster seems to be, which is in the logic of motivation, because they do not claim that love is rare, or limited, but that it is impossible - I take that to mean logically impossible.

‘Love’ can be both ‘selfish’ and ‘selfless’. — I like sushi

Both of which is love but with opposite "positivity", which exactly describes the world we live in, and therefore it's incorrect to say love does not exist.

Love exists but it's an Egoist thing indeed.Its final root is Ego. And that's totally fine!

The problem is that folks find that a bad thing, since Ego has been demonized. Ego throughout philosophical history was mostly connected and considered as a "bad thing" that people should avoid and depress. And that belief is wide spread till nowadays among folks. For example almost all religions have been built in Love as a total unselfish thing. One of the many religion's fairy tales.

So it's normal people to find it outrageous to connect love with Ego. Especially love which is a very "sensitive" issue for most people.
But Ego is not at all necessarily a bad thing. In fact a "healthy Ego" is much much better than a "depressed Ego".

Let's start by saying an animal's natural instinct and sole purpose is to protect itself, where then animal's evolved to work with others as it ensured greater survival. This survival mechanism is seen today as society is founded on the principles of contributing and dwelling on making the world a better place for their own survival. Nonetheless, this is seen in relationships most importantly; friends are chosen on a basis of resembling similar or desired values, interests and attitudes. Yet, when a friend changes and no longer offers what they used to offer, its easy for them to be discarded immediately. This same discardment occurs between family members also. — obscurelaunting

Evolutionary theorists have long complicated the individualistic/selfish view of human evolution. Homo sapiens evolved to be a social animal.

Homo sapiens may forever wrestle with selfish survival versus social good, they're both innate forces embedded in our DNA.

That makes no sense to me whatsoever. If it aligns with your beliefs and experiences though I’m not going to argue.

I pose the argument that everything humans do is for their personal gain and that 'love' doesn't exist. — obscurelaunting

I think love is just a word for something we feel. I definitely care about my friends and family, I would be sad to see them die, and I want them to be happy. If that's not love then yea maybe love doesn't exist but then we'd need another word for it like caring or something?

Love can be said to be egoistic in essence. This is the cynic's approach. Love can be said to be altruistic in essence. Mother Teresa speaks. Love may not exist at all. So says the nihilist. Love can be all.

Homo sapiens may forever wrestle with selfish survival versus social good, they're both innate forces embedded in our DNA. — Artemis

Coded in our DNA? Only proteins are encoded in DNA.

Coded in our DNA? Only proteins are encoded in DNA. — Verdi

That's kinda like retorting that books don't contain stories, they just contain letters from the alphabet.

That's kinda like retorting that books don't contain stories, they just contain letters from the alphabet. — Artemis

The words don't contain the story though. Like proteins don't code for love.

My last scenario is the 360 turn to hatred — obscurelaunting

Most probably you mean a 180 turn, because a 360 turn doesn't change anything: you get back to the same point where you were! :smile:

As for "love does not exist", well 1) look up the word in a good dictionary and 2) think of of all the cases where you feel love, not only the ones in which love refers to protection and survival or personal gain or any selfish purposes.

Sorry but this is too shallow a view. No effort is needed at all to change it ... :meh:

The words don't contain the story though. Like proteins don't code for love. — Verdi

You're just looking at it backwards: the story contains the words. The capacity for love is constructed of proteins.

You're just looking at it backwards: the story contains the words. The capacity for love is constructed of proteins — Artemis

I look not backwards, but upwards. Love contains the genes, but the genes don't contain love, nor selfishness. Nor altruism. They just are in service of the organism. To make life and love possible. But if you wanna see it bottom up, reductionist, with the purposes of the genes in the first place, then that's up to you. I'm not a follower of the central dogma in biology.

You're kind of all over the place here and I'm not sure it's worthwhile to deconstruct it all.

Let me just say: the only reductionism going on here is your interpretation of my words.

Yeah, all-over indeed. It may be words only, but you stated that all is embedded in the genes. How often one hears, "it's all in the genes"? Well, almost nothing is in the genes and there are riceplants and worms who have the same number of genes as people, or even more. People have more non-coding DNA, I.e. junk DNA. I think even the record is held with to junk-DNA. 98% of the chromosomes. Maybe love is embedded in junk... A most likeable thought! Though I think it's the other way round, backwards if you like. Junk lies embedded in love. We should cherish junk. It makes us human.

What is the dichotomy between selfish and selfless? Behaviors have many outcomes. Our intentions might be singularly focused around our needs, but sometimes that predictability can be a service to other people to lower their expectations. Lol. Can we ever be 100% selfish while accepting other people around us as sentiment?

I wonder why you think that people do everything for personal gain?
Even animals do not do this, they are able to sacrifice themselves, think about their offspring, some have collective thinking better than humans, I consider your reasoning abstract and it is not clear how to extrapolate them to the world around you, unfortunately you see excessive selfishness in the world.
but about love, first you need to decide what you mean by this, if we talk about platonic love or love like Tristan and Isolde, then of course there is very little of it, and the most important work about love that was written, I think it is love in the west by Denis De Rougemont only after getting acquainted with this work, it is worth talking about love as such, and this has a distant relationship to selfishness.

We cannot challenge you on your accusation, because you have not defined what "Love" is first. You could be thinking of a definition that is different from the rest of us. Think about what you believe love is as a definition first. If you cannot think of one, then you really have the question, "What is love?" I'll keep an eye out for your answer.