X-Message-Number: 17021
From: 
Date: Thu, 19 Jul 2001 11:38:23 EDT
Subject: Corbin's selfishness question

Lee Corbin writes:

<< Do you agree with my main point?  Namely:
 
> "You can go ahead and *call* great acts of philanthropy selfish if
> you want to.  You can go ahead and claim that altruism doesn't
> exist.  You can maintain that every single act done by every
> single organism in the universe is done because it is obeying
 >the laws of physics and is selfish.  You are merely making it
 >very hard for people to understand you, and you are relegating
 >to the dust bin a lot of words and concepts (e.g. thoughtfulness,
 >generosity, kindness) that have been part of human languages for
 >one hundred thousand years."   and therefore we should grant
> that people on occasion act altruistically. >>

No, I don't agree. First of all, this portion--

>You can maintain that every single act done by every
> single organism in the universe is done because it is obeying
 >the laws of physics and is selfish.

--is separate from the rest and scarcely makes any sense in its own terms. 
What does lawfulness have to do with selfishness?

The rest seems to consist of two related complaints--that my use of language 
is not helpful and that it is wrong to dispute previous use of language. I 
won't repeat myself here and now, but I believe I have shown sufficient 
examples of bad prior usage and the potential helpfulness of  my approach.

And again, there is nothing novel in advocating enlightened self interest, 
which has been embraced by many first-class thinkers, even if rejected by a 
larger number. The novelty is in progress toward a rigorous, biology-based 
approach.

Robert Ettinger
Cryonics Institute
Immortalist Society
http://www.cryonics.org

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