Thread: Help! I Have Compassion!

In politics and religion, compassion is harped upon endlessly as a motivation to help others. I would like to take issue with this presumption while recognizing that, yes, compassion sometimes does motivate us to help others.

There are two important principles that need to be ingrained in our understanding of compassion. First, is that it is not always right to help someone in need. Second, that it is never right to guilt someone into helping someone else. If you think someone needs help, deserves help, and will benefit in the long term from such help, then do it yourself. Don't try to force or guilt others into helping because, for you, seeing that person helped is a priority.

Help is not always good. We've all heard the expression about giving a man a fish. Certain considerations must be made before helping someone in need. It is possible for individuals to be undeserving of help. For example, habitual takers are undeserving of help, because for them, the compassion of others is their own personal currency in life. They use people for their generosity. Such a tactic is usually accompanied with deception and such people are, in fact, undeserving of help. Another example would be someone who is receiving justified consequences for their behavior. A person who murders someone does not deserve to be helped to "beat the rap". They deserve to go to jail.

Another important consideration is whether or not helping the person in the short term will benefit the person in the long term. For example, if I am unemployed and am not seeking a job, or refuse to stay gainfully employed for more than a few months at a time, then helping me financially only allows me to sustain a troublesome and irresponsible lifestyle. Helping me in the short term, hurts me in the long term.

The wills of individuals do not belong to each other collectively. If I judge a man to be deserving and in need of help, I assume the responsibility for providing such assistance. I may advertise what I am doing in order to see if anyone else would like to help me help someone, but one thing I should never do is to guilt others into aiding me based on my judgment; especially if they don't share my judgment. Even worse, is to force someone to help. You see parents do this with children. You see the government do this through Welfare Systems. Whatever the source of force or guilt, you are not responsible to help anyone unless you decide it is the right thing to do. No one should be comfortable being pressured to help someone else.

Compassion is good. It is a virtue. It demonstrates, if only to yourself, that you can empathize and sympathize with the lives of others, that you value those lives, and that you want what is best for the people you choose to care about. Compassion can be a terrible curse, however, when it leads you into co-dependent relationships, makes you a sucker for the "takers", or allows you to feel complacent being forced into situations where you have no choice in the matter but to help. Compassion is good. Helping people is good. But like any virtue, it must be governed by reason and judgment, or else it can lead to negative, unintentional consequences.

Compassion may be termed a virtue but I don't think it is inherently a virtue at all. In fact, the idea of helping one another, or another living organic entity is a biological phenomenon that I think relates to survival. Human beings have always lived in a 'pack'. Due to our social organization and complex social behaviour, we are merely 'helping' one another to increase the survival chances of our species in general, despite not realising it.

The objective of life is to survive, irregardless of the conditions. So we are generally helping each other survive to prolong our own lifespan. Then, if you explore further into the social sphere, you will realise that 'helping' someone is merely providing him with means to fulfill survival or related needs. Psychologically, this has also taken a good image within our complex social organizations. We've given recognition, reverence and even admiration for compassion. People have started helping others for the sake of admiration, what would you call that?

I've known cases where help and charity was a process of not only gaining monetary resources but also social recognition and admiration. So now we have a case of compassion, but with it, the goal of this affair is more personal, it's self before the other. If this is taken into context, one may argue that they weren't compassionate to the other for the sake of compassion, they were compassionate to enhance their survival needs. This goes on with these media-related charity drives, movements that usually involve a lot of people and even on cases where opinion is sought for compassion. Do you feel compassion for yourself or to show this compassion to others? If you want to show someone that you're compassionate, is it wrong? No. But then, if your agenda is not to 'help' but rather expand your sphere of recognition, is it desirable? Maybe. But not for the general marketers of the idea of virtue.

The idea here is that if compassion is merely a process of helping the other, how would you not consider other aspects of this 'virtue'? In fact, compassion is not a virtue, it is a process of enhancing survival. No one is compassionate because they want to 'help', they are compassionate due to other reasons, more personal and self-circumventing reasons. It can either be survival, enhancing their survival prospects or their social survival behavioural trend, which may be genetic.

So, the next time anyone decides to help someone, think about why you're doing it. To help him? To help yourself? Or for something else? Usually, every emotion is self-reflective so compassion is not a virtue, and you end up doing everything for yourself.

Does this post mean that you do not help others? No. But do understand the reasons and the philosophy behind your decisions. It's not wrong at all, but then, it is definitely questionable if you choose to sell the idea of a virtue behind the veil of self-gratification.

Originally Posted by Desidude666

The idea here is that if compassion is merely a process of helping the other, how would you not consider other aspects of this 'virtue'? In fact, compassion is not a virtue, it is a process of enhancing survival. No one is compassionate because they want to 'help', they are compassionate due to other reasons, more personal and self-circumventing reasons. It can either be survival, enhancing their survival prospects or their social survival behavioural trend, which may be genetic.

This is like saying that nobody eats because they're hungry - they eat to survive. The biological imperative to survive is why we have evolved a proximate cue telling us we should eat, but it is still the proximate cue actually doing the prompting to eat. In the same way, people have evolved concepts like empathy and compassion which do prompt them to want to help. The underlying evolutionary processes which gave rise to these drives are all about promoting the survival and reproduction of the self; but that's different. Person x may well give her money to charity purely out of compassion and the desire to help little children. The fact that Darwinian evolution gave rise to her compassion does not mean that once the compassion there it cannot motivate her to act selflessly.

Originally Posted by caffeine

This is like saying that nobody eats because they're hungry - they eat to survive. The biological imperative to survive is why we have evolved a proximate cue telling us we should eat, but it is still the proximate cue actually doing the prompting to eat. In the same way, people have evolved concepts like empathy and compassion which do prompt them to want to help. The underlying evolutionary processes which gave rise to these drives are all about promoting the survival and reproduction of the self; but that's different. Person x may well give her money to charity purely out of compassion and the desire to help little children. The fact that Darwinian evolution gave rise to her compassion does not mean that once the compassion there it cannot motivate her to act selflessly.

I am not a Darwinian for starters.

Secondly, let's not relate something as fundamental as eating to something that occurs eventually - being compassionate. By eating, you don't just survive, you enhance your health. Today, at this stage of our existence, food is a guarantee for most in the developed world, it's not a mechanism needed for existence, we've 'moved on'.

But is it a fundamental? Yes, we don't realise it. Likewise, the process of being compassionate is nothing more than a guarantee of existence, if based on impulse, or is a personal need for psychological impulses, which again, if scrutinized deeply will reveal more towards what I am discussing. In the end, no living being can be of help to another, be compassionate or be willing to assist without any biological or social reasons - which are ultimately for self-gratification. It's the rule of natural law. Others before self doesn't exist.

There is *no* such thing as a 'nice' person or a 'helpful' impulse. No one 'helps' without needs of their own. It cannot work, it doesn't work.

Originally Posted by Desidude666

I am not a Darwinian for starters.

Secondly, let's not relate something as fundamental as eating to something that occurs eventually - being compassionate. By eating, you don't just survive, you enhance your health. Today, at this stage of our existence, food is a guarantee for most in the developed world, it's not a mechanism needed for existence, we've 'moved on'.

But is it a fundamental? Yes, we don't realise it. Likewise, the process of being compassionate is nothing more than a guarantee of existence, if based on impulse, or is a personal need for psychological impulses, which again, if scrutinized deeply will reveal more towards what I am discussing. In the end, no living being can be of help to another, be compassionate or be willing to assist without any biological or social reasons - which are ultimately for self-gratification. It's the rule of natural law. Others before self doesn't exist.

There is *no* such thing as a 'nice' person or a 'helpful' impulse. No one 'helps' without needs of their own. It cannot work, it doesn't work.

I've seen you state a few times you're not a Darwinian - what do you mean by that? What's your point of departure from Darwinian theory?

Where is the self-gratification in those rare examples of people who behave truly altruistically, by which I mean both lay altruism*and genetic altrusim? People who give up their wealth and move to a miserable place to help the poor. If your answer is that it makes them feel better about themselves and is therefore self-gratifying then it's begging the question a bit to me. If doing nice things for others never made anyone feel better about themselves, nor made anyone admire the action in others, then nobody would ever have considered these actions 'nice' in the first place.

Of course there are social and biological reasons behind it. I never claimed anything different, and I don't see how anyone could (but then I'm a bit of a strict materialist). I was claiming that group living has caused us to evolve in such a way that we have tendencies to be compassionate and empathetic (but also to be vindictive and bitter - presumably as a defence against freeriders abusing compassion). This traits have evolved because, on average, over the course of our evolutionary history, they have been beneficial to our survival and reproduction. That does not mean every action they inspire is going to be at all beneficial to the actor; especially as the environments in which the majority of people live are so dramatically novel.

*I couldn't think of a better word. I mean just the normal definition of altruism

Originally Posted by Burning Giraffe

. Even worse, is to force someone to help. You see parents do this with children. You see the government do this through Welfare Systems. Whatever the source of force or guilt, you are not responsible to help anyone unless you decide it is the right thing to do. No one should be comfortable being pressured to help someone else.

I agree that help should not be given to everyone, and help should be avoided if the assistance will actually cause harm in the longrun.

But I must disagree with your comments about people being forced to help, and I must say very directly that my different view is a reason why I am more liberal then you.


When it comes to just the idea of forced government charity, it is actually inherently different then normal acts of compassion. As you say above, normal charity is never "required" which I agree with. However, I take that to mean that normal charity is never offering something that people have an inherent "right" to have.

I personally believe that even if some people would oppose offering money to supply education and some unemployment insurance, they have a duty to offer that moneyto someone so they can have those things. I am taking this to the lowest of what welfare is appropriate, because even if I support more, those forms of welfare aren't "required." But I can say that what is a "right" is always going to be up for interpretation and will always change.

Similarily to how everyone doesn't need to agree that someone has a right to live, they are still forced to respect that, I believe that some forms of "charity" are ethically a right.

I think people have a right to live in its lowest form of pure survival and people have a right to get the educational tools to excell in the world.

These two "rights" are as interconnected from someone's financial ability to pay for them as someone calling a cop when someone breaks into their house, without paying the cop afterwards.

Originally Posted by caffeine

I've seen you state a few times you're not a Darwinian - what do you mean by that? What's your point of departure from Darwinian theory?

It's important to stand by your frame of reference. That point was merely to give you an idea about my reference and limited belief in evolution, as claimed by darwinists.

Originally Posted by caffeine

Where is the self-gratification in those rare examples of people who behave truly altruistically, by which I mean both lay altruism*and genetic altrusim? People who give up their wealth and move to a miserable place to help the poor. If your answer is that it makes them feel better about themselves and is therefore self-gratifying then it's begging the question a bit to me. If doing nice things for others never made anyone feel better about themselves, nor made anyone admire the action in others, then nobody would ever have considered these actions 'nice' in the first place.

How many of such donors actually exist is a good point to consider. Do these incidents occur normally, or are these very limited, once in a million, occurrences? If it isn't conventional modern human behaviour, then it's an abnormal behaviour, you are bound to get such subjects in any experiment involving billions of people.

On why they do react in such a way, I could state that they have given more importance of the survival of a good number of human beings over themselves, which is again, a good example of my point - general survival. The goal of life is to survive, and we are merely doing anything we can to survive.

Originally Posted by caffeine

Of course there are social and biological reasons behind it. I never claimed anything different, and I don't see how anyone could (but then I'm a bit of a strict materialist). I was claiming that group living has caused us to evolve in such a way that we have tendencies to be compassionate and empathetic (but also to be vindictive and bitter - presumably as a defence against freeriders abusing compassion). This traits have evolved because, on average, over the course of our evolutionary history, they have been beneficial to our survival and reproduction. That does not mean every action they inspire is going to be at all beneficial to the actor; especially as the environments in which the majority of people live are so dramatically novel.

Exactly. I have also pointed out that such feelings are basically, biological impulses and we've really tried to exemplify a number of subjects who have accepted this as 'virtue'. The words and terms used to define this behaviour is given such honour and respect but all we are really doing is merely following our biological impulses. Despite that, general empathy or charity is *never* done out of the need to do charity (help others survive) but there are always other reasons - such as psychological needs, social needs and even self-gratification.

We *never* help anyone for the sake of helping, we have motives that we do not understand or do not want others to understand. That doesn't mean we don't continue being 'compassionate', we should. It's not a bad thing helping another human being, just know why you are doing it - understand your reasons and don't be in the delusion of empathy or being 'virtues', it is just biologically impossible.

Originally Posted by caffeine

*I couldn't think of a better word. I mean just the normal definition of altruism

No problem, we've just gotten our points across really well.

Originally Posted by Burning Giraffe

In politics and religion, compassion is harped upon endlessly as a motivation to help others. I would like to take issue with this presumption while recognizing that, yes, compassion sometimes does motivate us to help others.

There are two important principles that need to be ingrained in our understanding of compassion. First, is that it is not always right to help someone in need. Second, that it is never right to guilt someone into helping someone else. If you think someone needs help, deserves help, and will benefit in the long term from such help, then do it yourself. Don't try to force or guilt others into helping because, for you, seeing that person helped is a priority.

Help is not always good. We've all heard the expression about giving a man a fish. Certain considerations must be made before helping someone in need. It is possible for individuals to be undeserving of help. For example, habitual takers are undeserving of help, because for them, the compassion of others is their own personal currency in life. They use people for their generosity. Such a tactic is usually accompanied with deception and such people are, in fact, undeserving of help. Another example would be someone who is receiving justified consequences for their behavior. A person who murders someone does not deserve to be helped to "beat the rap". They deserve to go to jail.

Another important consideration is whether or not helping the person in the short term will benefit the person in the long term. For example, if I am unemployed and am not seeking a job, or refuse to stay gainfully employed for more than a few months at a time, then helping me financially only allows me to sustain a troublesome and irresponsible lifestyle. Helping me in the short term, hurts me in the long term.

The wills of individuals do not belong to each other collectively. If I judge a man to be deserving and in need of help, I assume the responsibility for providing such assistance. I may advertise what I am doing in order to see if anyone else would like to help me help someone, but one thing I should never do is to guilt others into aiding me based on my judgment; especially if they don't share my judgment. Even worse, is to force someone to help. You see parents do this with children. You see the government do this through Welfare Systems. Whatever the source of force or guilt, you are not responsible to help anyone unless you decide it is the right thing to do. No one should be comfortable being pressured to help someone else.

Compassion is good. It is a virtue. It demonstrates, if only to yourself, that you can empathize and sympathize with the lives of others, that you value those lives, and that you want what is best for the people you choose to care about. Compassion can be a terrible curse, however, when it leads you into co-dependent relationships, makes you a sucker for the "takers", or allows you to feel complacent being forced into situations where you have no choice in the matter but to help. Compassion is good. Helping people is good. But like any virtue, it must be governed by reason and judgment, or else it can lead to negative, unintentional consequences.

Do you believe that people have a right to life? (and no, I am not speaking to the issue of abortion at this point).

Originally Posted by Nerv14

When it comes to just the idea of forced government charity, it is actually inherently different then normal acts of compassion. As you say above, normal charity is never "required" which I agree with. However, I take that to mean that normal charity is never offering something that people have an inherent "right" to have.

I disagree with your premise here. A person's right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness doesn't mean that we are required to keep people alive, free, and happy. It means that we do not have a right to infringe upon their own best attempts at life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. So, while I don't have a right to steal your life saving medication, you don't have a right to forcibly take money from me in order to pay for that medication. That would infringe upon my rights, because now I have less money to secure myself. No one has a right to live off the efforts of others unless they pay for it. Obviously this is not a popular opinion in the United States or Europe for that matter.

Originally Posted by Nerv14

I think people have a right to live in its lowest form of pure survival and people have a right to get the educational tools to excell in the world.

I agree. Just not at my expense, as that infringes upon my rights. I would never stand in the way of a family educating their children or keeping themselves alive, but at the same time they should not depend on me or others for the financial means of doing so. I understand that we are a long way off from a massive private education system and that public education will probably always exist. Being a practical individual, my only hope is that this public education system will someday return to actually producing results (educated citizens) and that it would become economically efficient. Right now, our current public education system is the laughing stock of the civilized world, because we spend so much money for such pathetic results. I feel the same way with regard to health care, though I do believe we'll be able to end Government funded health care much sooner.

Sleep tight tonight BG!