(July 12, 2016 at 9:43 am)Mister Agenda Wrote:Thumpalumpacus Wrote:I don't think it comports with reality very well, that out altruism has evolutionary antecedents. Furthermore the idea that it equates to "suicide" is a fallacious reductio ad absurdum.
Unless you bother to understand how she defines altruism, which is the same way previous philosophers such as August Comte, who described altruism as 'living for the sake of others'. James Feiser says altruism means that 'An action is morally right if the consequence of that action are more favorable than unfavorable to everyone except the agent.'
That degree of self-abnegation being comparable to a sort of 'suicide of the ego' is not a reductio ad absurdum nor any other fallacy. However treating her specifically defined use of the word altruism as though she meant the common use is an example of equivocation if done intentionally.
It's been so long since I've read her stuff that I had forgotten that she had her own definition. I don't remember her using the term "suicide of the ego", either. Did she?
