Bodisathva said:
selfless act.
Another philosophical morning...
As long as we are being philosophical, then I have to say that there are no such things as "selfless acts" as defined as "doing something without regard to your self". Yet, it is integral to society to pretend that they do. Sort of like the term "double-think" from 1984.
An example of doing something without regard to yourself: Father throwing himself in front of a bullet to save his child.
If we examine that in terms of motivation, then there are two basic values at stake for the father. One, he could lose his life, which he values. Two, he could lose his son's life, which he also values. His action is decided by which he values greater. We only ever do what we want to do out of the options available. The father would have wanted to kill himself for his child because it would be saving the thing he valued most, thus it is selfish, and thus everything we do is selfish. It is impossible to do something soley, or in any part, for someone else by the very fact that the "someone else" is not your self, because you only ever do what you want to do, not what they want to do. In this way, you can never sacrifice what you most value--you can only ever sacrifice a lesser value to a greater one.
The point: what we really mean by "selfless" is the state of wanting to do and beneiftting from what benefits others. What we really mean by "selfish" is the state of wanting to do and benifitting from what does not benefit others.
I probably didn't make any sense, but this is actually a valid point that I brewed over for years. In the end, it pretty much comes down to the technical wording of a definition and that's all.
