RE: Scenario: how altruistic are you?
October 14, 2017 at 5:22 pm
(This post was last modified: October 14, 2017 at 5:24 pm by Edwardo Piet.)
I would want to and know I ought to. But my basic survival instinct would stop me.
Ironically if I were feeling suicidal it would be a lot easier to make such a sacrifice. Even if I wasn't quite depressed enough to attempt suicide but I was almost there.... some situation like that would give me a reason to kill myself because it would totally take away the problem of myself feeling guilty about how my family and friends would feel after I died. That problem would go away once I feel justified that I have killed myself for a morally good reason (to save a child). But when I'm in my normal non-suicidal and functional mood (which is basically all the time nowadays... I haven't been suicidal in over 6 years) my survival instinct would be too strong to allow myself to sacrifice myself.
So, in all brutal honestly, most of the time what I feel I ought to do morally in theory and what I actually succeed at motivating myself to do in practice are very much different.
I wonder if it were my own biological child if it would be instantly easier to sacrifice myself for biological reasons. I don't know what it's like to have a child of my own but from what I hear it's a very very powerful feeling. And it would be my own genes. So from the selfish gene's perspective saving my own biological child would be on par with saving myself. And therefore on par with the intensity power of the survival instinct. So that may be a lot easier to do.
Ironically if I were feeling suicidal it would be a lot easier to make such a sacrifice. Even if I wasn't quite depressed enough to attempt suicide but I was almost there.... some situation like that would give me a reason to kill myself because it would totally take away the problem of myself feeling guilty about how my family and friends would feel after I died. That problem would go away once I feel justified that I have killed myself for a morally good reason (to save a child). But when I'm in my normal non-suicidal and functional mood (which is basically all the time nowadays... I haven't been suicidal in over 6 years) my survival instinct would be too strong to allow myself to sacrifice myself.
So, in all brutal honestly, most of the time what I feel I ought to do morally in theory and what I actually succeed at motivating myself to do in practice are very much different.
I wonder if it were my own biological child if it would be instantly easier to sacrifice myself for biological reasons. I don't know what it's like to have a child of my own but from what I hear it's a very very powerful feeling. And it would be my own genes. So from the selfish gene's perspective saving my own biological child would be on par with saving myself. And therefore on par with the intensity power of the survival instinct. So that may be a lot easier to do.
