Subnostr

I don't think you've addressed my three points:

1. Dead people can't experience satisfaction.

2. Your argument is based on magical godlike knowledge*.

3. Selfishness isn't relevant.

* keep in mind that the reason Mises argued against knowing other people's subjective value judgements is that it is often used to justify utilitarian attempts to even out everyone's subjective experience AKA communism

Minnaar 2y ago

I guess it depends on how you define "true" altruism as stated by Max. I took it to mean "unselfish." So I still maintain that there is no voluntary unselfish act. I cannot read people's minds but I can tell a lot by their actions.

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Discussion

Minnaar 2y ago

I would further define a "selfish act" as "any act that one perceives to be beneficial to one's self in any given situation."

Modus 2y ago

I think "doing good because it feels good" is exactly the situation that the word "altruism" was invented for.

But we're really just talking about semantics at this point. We can agree to disagree.