I had asserted that everything is selfish. unenlightened responded by saying to the effect that if everything is selfish then <something that didn't make sense (to me)> I hope unenlightened will chime in and clear up my (our) confusion. — TheMadFool

The thesis is that words carve the universe, that is they make distinctions. So 'Washing machine' carves the universe into two pieces that I will call figure and background. The figure is all those machines that function as washers, and they are distinguished from everything else in the background., like armchairs and ice creams.

likewise, 'red' distinguishes anything red as figure, from anything not red as background. Now if you imagine a world lit by only red light, then everything will be a shade from red to black. In this world - it might only be a room - it stops being meaningful to say 'pass me the red cube'; 'red' doesn't function to specify anything when everything is red. It loses meaning when it loses the background of non-red things.

So the exception is the word 'everything' which does have everything as figure, and nothing as background. So strictly, in the red lit room, "red" isn't completely meaningless, it means "everything".

And so it is with "selfish" If everything is selfish, the 'selfish' doesn't pick anything out, and it means exactly 'everything'. But when you say, 'everything is selfish', I suspect you want to say more than that everything is everything.

I'll leave it to you to work out how this affects the understanding of solipsism.

Someone said that everything was nothing without a rush to finish.

I had asserted that everything is selfish — TheMadFool

Selfishness being a state of mind, makes this statement nonsensical. Only things that have minds can be selfish. Most of the stones and buckets I have met are not in the least selfish, quite the opposite in fact.
I did not read the original post, and I am not inclined to go and do so. So could you give a little of the context in which you used "everything is selfish". What were you referring to?

We can make it all fit by a selfish abuse of language and anthropomorphism (in a selfish poetic coup d'état).

Things are like selfish selves insofar as things lack consideration for others by default. Or the consideration (or lack-thereof) that things have for others (things) are merely a feature of their nature, whether changeable or not.

Those inert things (selves) that can be manipulated to serve life/agency of the manipulator (self/thing) must be arranged. Those things that are resistant to a favorable arrangement by the inescapable fact of their being (thingness) are more selfish than things that aren't. But it is relative to the self/thing seeking to order things for itself.

Saying that everything is selfish is the ugly permutation of another neutral statement: things are what they are. But who is telling you what a thing is but some beautifully suspicious SELF for apparent or suspicious REASONS. Philosophers are selfish untrustworthy pricks, just like everyone else.

When the selfish wind rushes down in a storm across the plain, the strong obstinate selfish oak breaks under its force. When the selfish lighting bolt strikes the brush, it births a selfish fire that eats up the homes of selfish humans. When a selfish lover caresses its beloved, it requires a selfish arrangement of things just so.

We can make it all fit by a selfish abuse of language and anthropomorphism (in a selfish poetic coup d'état). — Nils Loc

How selfish of you to write this all by yourself. :up:

Thanks for your reply. Much appreciated.

I want to run something by you if you don't mind.

F = everything is selfish

Put statement F in the context of a particular action/inaction e.g. G = John gives money to the poor, ~G = John doesn't give money to the poor, and S = John is selfish. [All actions/inactions can be reduced to such a formulation.]

What logical statements using G, ~G, and S are implied by F?

1. Whether John gives money to the poor or not, John is selfish = (G v ~G) > S.

If this is the case then, actions/inactions, the differences therein, fail to aid us in distinguishing moral/immoral actions/inactions in general and selfish/selfless acts in particular. The statement F precludes the success of any such attempt.

In the analogy you gave of the room with everything painted red, I have two observations to make:

1. The property of redness can't be used to pick out items in the room. So, for instance, if the red room had two chairs (both red) and I told you to bring me a chair and you asked, "which one?" the reply, "the red one." wouldn't help you.

2. The property of redness becomes redundant in the sense, it no longer is worth mentioning as a property of the items in the red room. If the room had a red table, saying, "bring me the table" is the same as saying, "bring me the red table".

This is what you meant by, and I quote, "And so it is with "selfish" If everything is selfish, the 'selfish' doesn't pick anything out, and it means exactly 'everything'."

Coming to the matter of the claim, "everything is selfish", both points 1 and 2 apply. If it were true, firstly, we wouldn't be able to tell things apart and secondly, it would be redundant to mention selfishness at all.

One of the things that threw me off is the existence of universal statements in categorical logical, statements that begin with the word, "all", an example is, "All dogs are mammals." Here too, mammal[/i]ness[/i] is both useless (can't be used to tell one type of dog from another) and redundant (there's no point in saying something like, "look there's a mammal dog"). This raises the question of the necessity of universal statements like these. Why have them at all?

Well, the first thing to notice in universal statements (all statements) in categorical logic are that they're about sub-categories of everything and that means that what you call the "...background of non-red things..." exists, the set-complements of the sub-categories we're dealing with. Too, the usual thing that happens is that the subject term of universal statements is not coextensive with the predicate term i.e. for instance, though all dogs are mammals, not all mammals are dogs. The problem with saying, "everything is <insert predicate>" which you were so kind to point out is that in this case everything is coextensive with the category/set of the predicate whatever that might be and if that were true, the predicate is both useless and redundant in the sense alluded to in the preceding paragraphs.

On the same trajectory (logic), what is your opinion on the existence of (x)(Ax) as a valid logical expression? (x)(Ax) is read as "for all x, Ax" where Ax is a predicate "x is <insert predicate>". For instance, if Ax = x is an illusion (a favorite predicate of philosophers and sages alike), (x)(Ax) = everything is an illusion [for all x, x is an illusion]. In this case, what's meant is that the category/set of everything is coextensive (is identical) with the category/set of illusion. The statment "everything is an illusion" would, according to our analysis, be both useless and redundant. We wouldn't be able to tell the difference between one object and another and secondly, there's no point in mentioning that anything is an illusion.

The only way for such universal statements, statements that can be reduced to (x)(Ax), to "make sense" (to be not useless and not redundant) is if the "...background..." exists (as per our reasoning) but that seems to be impossible; after all, we're talking about everything here.

At this point I'd like to revisit our old friend, F = everything is selfish. Truth be told, my guess is that a hypothetical is involved here - the person, call faer U, who claims F imagines in faer mind what selflesness is and going by faer belief in F, this imagined selflessness precludes any and all benefit to the selfless person. In other words, there's a "...background...", the imagined selflessness U has in faer mind. However, the imagined selflesness can't be actualized in reality for reasons that are obvious (all actions/inactions are, at some level, beneficial to the self). Since there are no real instances of U's imagined selflessness, U has no choice but to say F but the key point here is that "everything" in F refers to the real world and the moment U includes faer imaginary world, U can't/shouldn't use "everything" and F would be false. All this goes to show that you're right about how the word "everything" in a formulation that looks like "everything is <insert predicate>" makes the predicate useless and redundant.

We can say precisely the same thing about the statement "everything is an illusion" because there's a hypothetical world which isn't an illusion that's the "...background..." and the word "everything" here applies exclusively to the real world.

In short, the word "everything" is being misused/abused or it needs to be qualified by mentioning that the hypothetical, or quite possibly, some other, world, the one that contains the "...background...", has been excluded.

Coming back now to (x)(Ax), as per how I've approached the issue of universals, (x)(Ax) is restricted to the real world and this assertion seems to gibe with how we talk about nonexistence in logic. The statement, "demons don't exist" becomes (x)(~Dx) where Dx = x is a demon. (x)(~Dx) = everything is not a demon. If (x)(Ax) were not confined to the real world and if the imaginary world were part of its scope, it shouldn't be possible to say (x)(~Dx) = everything is not a demon. Ergo, (x)(Ax) is acceptable as a valid logical statement for the "...background..." for it can be, is rather, the hypothetical world.

On a related note, your take on this issue seems to lead to a yin-yang (Daoist) outlook - foreground and "...background..." the two needing each other as whatever constitutes them can switch their roles. On another thread, we were discussing the Daoist notion of The Nameless and your comment "...it means exactly 'everything'." fits like a glove with my own beliefs on the issue.

Allow me to explain:

In total agreement with you, for red things to be discerned, we need "...non-red things" If there's no difference between "two" objects (identity of indiscernibles) then they are, for all intents and purposes, the same thing. Right? Ergo, differences are foundational to identity of items in our universe whether as individuals or as classes.

Now, take everything that there is and by eveything I mean, quite literally, eveything. It's obvious, by virtue of the existence of mutually exclusive classes and individuals, that no property or group of properties will unify everything into a, one, whole. In other words, the whole, the entire universe, everything, can't be made sense of in terms of properties [for mutually exclusive properties thwart all our attempts at finding that single property/set of properties that run(s) through everything]. The whole, everything, the universe, ergo, is beyond all definition and thus must remain The Nameless. Everything is....??? :chin:

Firstly, you are correct that 'all x are Y' statements escape my critique, so if U were to claim a more modest and precise F[1, "all (human?) motives are selfish", then there would be a different argument to be had.

At this point I'd like to revisit our old friend, F = everything is selfish. Truth be told, my guess is that a hypothetical is involved here - the person, call faer U, who claims F imagines in faer mind what selflesness is and going by faer belief in F, this imagined selflessness precludes any and all benefit to the selfless person. In other words, there's a "...background...", the imagined selflessness U has in faer mind. — TheMadFool

I hesitate to characterise the mind of U - for about 3 seconds, before concluding that the the asshole deserves every insult I am about to lay on them. By U's own hypothesis, their motive for claiming F or F1 is selfish. They cannot dispute that. Nevertheless, they must be able to imagine selflessness in some form, or have some experience of it, simply for 'selfish' to mean something (as per original argument). So I will assume that U considers that raindrops fall, when they do, selflessly, and that in general, things that have no awareness have no self. That is U's claim is F1.

Statements of this nature can be either observational or definitive.

An F1 observational justification would be along the lines of - J1. "I've heard a lot of claims of unselfish motivation, and every time I challenge them, they turn out to have been selfish after all."

Whereas the definitive justification would be a priori - J2. "If it isn't selfish, it doesn't count as a motive."

Thus if a philosopher "knows" that all swans are white, he can preserve his claim in the face of those Australian birds, simply by insisting that they are black long necked ducks. They cannot be swans, because a swan is a white bird with a long neck. Such philosophers are best ignored.


So I address myself to J2.

K mows his neighbour's lawn. K claims he did it not for himself, but for his neighbour. U suggests various other motives.

1. K wants to stop weeds spreading to his own patch, or an untidy garden lowering the tone.
2. K expects his neighbour to return the favour in some way.
3. K wants to encourage a neighbourly ethos that will benefit him in the long run.
4. K expects some kudos and respect.
5. K wants to feel superior.
6. K wants to feel unselfish.

This is how it generally goes; U looks first for immediate benefits, then for reciprocal benefits, then for indirect and social benefits, and in the last resort for psychological benefits. And any of these can be motives, and often are.

Except 6. K is not an idiot. K knows that wanting to act so as to feel or be unselfish is selfish. So it does not function as a motive unless it is an unconscious motive. And now U needs some justification for imputing this unconscious motive to K, and indeed to every act by everyone ever. Such misanthropy starts to look more like an excuse for being selfish oneself, more than a coherent psychological or moral theory.

I suppose the matter of "everything is..." is settled then. I agree with you on all counts. Thanks.

Coming to the issue of selfishness/selflessness, my view is that both J1 and J2 are true but there's a catch - the existing definitions for selfishness/selflessness are unrealistic for the ones that make J1 and J2 true violate a moral rule that makes complete sense and this rule is: ought implies can

Ought implies can, in ethics, the principle according to which an agent has a moral obligation to perform a certain action only if it is possible for him or her to perform it. — Google

It's impossible for anyone to do something that doesn't benefit faer in any way at all - there's always something to gain, no matter how small such a gain. In other words, selflessness defined as a state of moral existence of value zero (no benefit at all) or value negative (a complete loss) can't exist and so such selflessness fails to qualify as an ought. It's, literally, asking for the impossible.

That being so, selflessness needs a more realistic definition and I propose one that simply states that selflessness is, all said and done, the act of valuing other people's wellbeing [in addition to one's own]. A selfish person, on the other hand, cares only about faer own wellbeing and ignores/harms others in the process of achieving it.

Such an interpretation is more in line with facts as they stand. One only needs to do a survey of all the various deeds we've done/we're are doing/we'll do that have been classified as selfish/selfless to come to the conclusion that indeed accruing personal gain doesn't disqualify an act from being selfless. This probably reflects our (correct) intuition regarding ought implies can.

Perhaps one of the reasons why selflessness is considered impossible by some, some who think, and I quote, "if it isn't selfish, it doesn't count as a motive" is that the word "selfless" is confusion-apt and misleading because the first impression that it gives is that the self shouldn't be part of the equation so to speak and that, I've discovered, is complete nonsense; it's demanding the impossible (the self is a permanent fixture). The correct antonym, in my humble opinion, for selfish should be otherish rather than selfless; after all, 1) the opposite of "self" is "other" and 2) it's closer to the meaning of what we've labeled mislabeled as selfless.

It's impossible for anyone to do something that doesn't benefit faer in any way at all — TheMadFool

Actually, I don't see at all why this is so. It is quite a popular idea, and I think it comes from an analogy with causation.

"A person's action is caused by their motive.", says U. But the causal agent is a thought, not a benefit. The benefit of an action if any, is a result that comes after the action, and so the benefit cannot cause the action that produces it, but a thought is the cause. So there is no particular reason that I can see, why a thought of another cannot be as good a motive as a thought of self. I might have a complicated thought about how mowing my neighbour's lawn will benefit me in some way, or I might have a more simple thought that it would benefit him, or even just benefit the lawn. Why is that impossible?