Being NOT selfish doesn't mean you don't have to be happy for something you do for others. Being selfish means being happy for yourself without benefiting others, which is not the case here.

If you really love someone, you'd care more for that person than your life. It doesn't matter if it makes you happy or not, you're not being selfish at all here.

-facepalm- I already gave one in the previous pages and you said 'I respect your opinion but disagree'. You didn't argue why.

Will do it now.

You're saying that the parents are concerning about someone else's benefit before themselves? Its not someone else's, its something. And its not before themselves, its for themselves. Unwanted emotions.

"Parents would die for their own child". - They would die for their own child because they wouldn't stand the pain of loosing the bounds they have created with the child. Regardless if she benefits or not from their decision, their primary interest is to avoid UNWANTED emotions. And loosing that affection they have (because of the loss of the child) its to hard to deal with. Harder than dealing with their own death. (which they wont, because they would be.... dead)

So, in my opinion, they would rather die than having to deal with those unwanted emotions. If the child benefits or not, its irrelevant. The primary target of the human specie is to avoid unwanted emotions.

"... thus being concerned about someone else's benefit before themselves." - Their concerning is just a "fachade". They have estabilished -bounds- with that child, so its normal to "concern" about the child according to you, right?

No, its not the mass of flesh, organs and bones they are concerned about. But the bounds they have established. Its not something material, but merely psychological. They want those bounds to be perserve because it benefits them. And, in order to continue those bounds, the child needs to exist. The child needs to exist to feed those bounds.

"I died happy because i know that my child will keep living. (An assumption)" - YOU died happy. YOU. And what about your child, is she happy? What about the bounds she has established with you, parents, what happens to those bounds? If you dont exist, the only thing left is suffering and memories for that child. There is no bound to keep feeding.

You died happy in order to give your childs life, that same life that will be marked with a scar for all her life - the scar of a lost bound.

Wouldn't the child be living with what the parents wanted to avoid? UNWANTED emotions? A lost bound?

That is what leads me to disagree with you. Because thats the way i see it.

If you want to debate with me, point me whats wrong in my arguments according to my own analysis. MY analysis. Show me the "why" and the "why not" inside my own arguments. And then, comparing to yours, from your own analysis.

Deep . . .

@JasonTakeshi: Are you nuts? Do you know anything about parents-kids relationship? Parents primary concern is their child's life not their happiness.

Go ask your parents if you're in doubt. They'll be surprised how you don't know such a basic thing.

I do? You're the one who's trolling by claiming parents care for their happiness before their child's safety. You clearly have no idea.

btw, I had read everything you said.

And you still have no idea.

So that opinion is trolling?

That wasn't an opinion of his. He made an opinion based on false statements (which was the trolling part), which make his opinion invalid.

If you want to argue that, we can make a new thread about it. Parents and Child's love relationship. Do they do it because of their happiness or because it benefits their child. Which is the primary reason?

Happiness might be an unwanted emotion, but it's not the primary reason. So a parent is not selfish. Clear now?

I understood that, but that doesn't mean they are selfish. Selfish would be if the parent would care about their happiness before their child's safety.

Research on the definition of 'selfish' and 'altruism'. JasonTakeshi is making good points but he isn't realizing that his points prove parents are altruist, rather than selfish.

There is no selfishness when real love is involved.

Definition: "Selfishness denotes the precedence given in thought or deed to the self, i.e., self interest or self concern. It is the act of placing one's own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others." Unwanted emotions don't make you selfish, because they are just something that happens after you act. You didn't think beforehand that saving your child would make you happy, and that's why you're gonna do it.

Their child's safety brings them happiness, regardless of "consciently" or "unconsciently". Eather way, it doesn't matter if the child benefit or not.
It is almost instinctly to protect someone dear to you. Why? Because it's dear to you. (the bounds crap again)

Knowning that your child is safe brings you happiness. Knowning that your child is unsafe brings you sadness. Knowing that your child turned into a mosquito but can still continue to "bound" with you brings you happiness. The child is now a mosquito. Your sad because she is a mosquito, but rather a mosquito than dead for you.

But lets see it trough another point of the bottle...

Would a parent (generalizing to much, i know...) perform euthanasia on his child if he knew it would relief the child's pain, assuming that that pain was incurable?

Edit: And there you go with the dictionary crap again. Am i talking to you or to a dictionary? I don't take great consideration of what comes of a dictionary. Seen coultless of definitions of that same word, @ countless dictionaries.

Countless definition for 'selfishness'? I'd challenge you to prove me what you said. Anyways, yes dictionaries are used in debates or people like you would invent crap over and over about what selfishness means for you ONLY. Please, don't bring that again.

Either way, you did explain nothing here. And you're wrong about something, you don't protect someone dear to you because it makes you happy, but because you don't want them to get hurt etc.

Self-happiness is not the reason of your action, but it's the outcome. And even this happiness is happiness due to this person living. You're being altruist here.

Now let's see an example about altruism and you will understand better:

Donating to a charity is altruism. That makes you happy. But it's stil altruism.

See? I've been read, heard about the 'save another dear person's life' scenario as being altruistic in many places. you're the only one saying otherwise because you can't grasp the concept of selfishness and altruism, and you seem to have a self made dictionary for everything.

Buddhism says love is altruistic as well. Love and/or compassion, that is.

As for the last example you provided, yes they would, given if it was incurable. That has been done countless times. Lol.

Your way of thinking is so funny, haha.

1. You brought me an ancient definition of a word. big deal, the real deal is today. The definition of selfishness tday, as I gave it is right. If you want to call something slefish, use that definition or don't clal it selfish because it isn't.

2. Where there is altrusim, there is no selfishness. =D think a bit of that and your big contradiction.

3. I don't know what else to tell you. You donate for the people, not to make yourself happy. You might be happy after you do it but you might not change at all. But that doesn't even matter. The main reason you donated was to help others. This is altruism, not selfishness.

4. Same deal with the child. You're a big moron thinking a parent would do it for themselves before doing it for their child. Altruism agian here, not selfishness.

5. Yeah, I looked around and there's only you making such odd explanations about something as clear as this.

You're missing the point entirely. Everyone is always selfish in some way or another. Every action we take is to benefit ourself - whether or not we choose to acknowledge that.

Every situation can be interpreted as "selfish", but the problem you seem to have with accepting that is the stigma behind the word. We hear the word tossed around so often with negative connotations its become extremely difficult to accept that describing one as selfish can be anything but a negative trait to their character.

The question was if Love was selfish or not, and it is. We love because it makes us happy, because we all have a deep seeded fear of loss. As humans we hate to lose things, we hate to have things taken away from us, we hate to break social connections.

We fight for love, or desire love because it makes us happy. There's nothing wrong with that, but the fact remains that we choose to take actions that benefit the ones we love because our loved one's happiness and continued attachment translates into our own happiness. It cycles back to our own gain; mental self preservation.

Love is selfish in the literal sense.

This isn't consciously selfish though. This is a human survival instinct. Since we can safely agree that the extreme majority of us, as humans, instinctively all desire companionship or fear loss, then we can exempt this behavior when asking if love is selfish in practice.

Exactly. Never said the otherwise. But that happens unconsciously. Love cannot be selfish unless your primary concern is to enjoy being happy by yourself, rather than care for your partner. Love is altruism, not selfishness.

And no your "Everyone is always selfish in some way or another." statement is wrong, you're not selfish just because you gain something out of an action. You're selfish only if your main concern is to benefit just for yourself, regardless of what happens to others. Keep this in mind.

I'll continue argue tomorrow, but you seem to misunderstand what is selfish or not.

You failed to understand then. When taken in a literal sense every action we do in our lives is to gain a specific result - the result we want.

There's two different ways we're looking at this here. You're adamant that being selfish in the practical sense is the only way of being selfish. What you quoted was me referring to selfishness in the literal sense.

That's what she said!

YouTube - Two Camels One Car (No profanity)

That's what you were looking for?

No . . .Why would I be?

lol

And what did I say?

A little bit of selfishness in ever action doesn't make enough for the altruism which is the primary reason of the action. Love is not selfish. EOD.

I'm confused why you're proving yourself incapable of reading what I wrote?

Let me simplify this.

Literal sense - we're all selfish.

Practical sense - love is not selfish.

It's almost as if you only read that original paragraph of mine you quoted; ignoring the rest of the post.

How did you bring that conclusion though. You're the one making it confusing. You say 'we love because it makes us happy', but that is not true, not even in literal sense.

However there is no love without happiness, that is true, because it would not be love.

Like I said, if you count 'happiness' as being selfish, there is a bit of it on many actions we do, thus us being a bit selfish, but what defines if we're selfish or not is the primary reason we did that action. Literally or practically, it is the same way.

Well I've already explained that, but if you inisist I'll reiterate.

Happiness is a desired emotion by all of us. Every action we take, translates back to preserving our happiness. I can list example after example, but that's irrelevant because we're not talking about anything but love. I only mention it because it is true.

Looking at love any action we take for or against a love one may or may not benefit that love one.

I'm going to use an example of extremes. A man has the opportunity to save his wife's life. The action puts the man in harms way. He does it anyway. Why?

You argue that the man does this because he loves her eternally, and would do anything for her sake. You say his intentions are pure because he has no concern for his own safety; only hers.

This is where I come in, and take it a step beyond what you're saying. My argument is that he is willing to be placed in harms way for his wife because it is in the subconscious reaction of mental self preservation. The man would be miserable without is wife; therefore, his thought process roots back to self gain. His primary interest is in himself.

This is a literal take on the situation because it links each action back to directly benefiting the man. He gains happiness, and when broken down to nothing that is his only desire.

Everyone does this; it's unavoidable for just about all of us. Keeping in mind the fact that this applies to all of us then, then we can exempt this behavior from consideration, and move back to a practical sense of defining love to be selfish or not.

With that said; Love is not selfish in practice.

Love is selfish, when you think about everything in life that you do is selfish.

Same deal as JasonTakeshi. don't you understand that whether everything translates to happiness and sadness, you're not selfish because your primary concern was to save a person?

Selfishness is the act of placing one's own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others. In your example, he puts other's needs (saving them), before his (happiness or whatever you'd like). So he's not selfish.

Sigh... stop telling people they don't understand something when you can't bother to actually read what they're saying.

I'm agreeing with you, but I'm stating that we all react for ourselves as the primary concern. Everything we do is for ourselves LONG before we consciously decide it's for someone else.

Fine though, apparently you refuse to accept the fact that there are multiple perspectives to an issue. I'm not re-wording what I've said in yet another hope that you'll understand it.

Tyrien, Like Jason has stated, he refuses the gray areas, he can only comprehend black/white, which is the standard set by our society.

Stop assuming I never read what you said, making it like what you said is right. If you aren't aware this has been a huge debate between parties for years up to now.

Unconscious decisions do not decide if you are selfish or not. It's your conscious which makes you the person you are, and the one making up your primary decisions. Which leads back to my point. The subconscious thing cannot be prevented, but it's a secondary effect of our main decision.

You save a person dear to you because you love them and would want the best for them ---> Happy | You don't save a person dear to you ---> Sad

It's not the way around. It's not 'You want to become happy ---> Go save a person dear to you'.

I used the easiest method to show to you, with text schemes. Hope it's clear now.

When did I refuse gray areas? I agreed that you do a little bit for yourself when loving someone, but it's the interpretation you're doing which is wrong. Read above your quote here to find out.

which part of a concept do u not understand,
there is no right or wrong here MR.
we are only looking at this from multi perspectives.

What? o.O Do you look a car from behind and say that's the front? There is no multi-perspective here.

I'm surprised the three of you think true love is selfish. I don't want to assume if you ever have felt it or not, but I'm just saying, many philosophers have linked true love to altruism. It's called altruistic love as well. There are books about it. The phrase 'love doesn't seek its own interest' is pretty clear. All the emotions it brings are aftereffects of love. There is also sadness involved in true love, not just happiness.

Also, you don't only seek to be happy by yourself, but also for your partner (actually more than you). You might say you're happy she's happy, but it doesn't work that way. The fact that you put another person before your interests, means you're altruistic.

Uncontrollable emotions like the one Tyrien explained (that everything translates back to our happiness) is unconscious, and isn't a deciding factor in this matter. Check out some examples of selfishness and altruism and you will understand what is defined this and that.

@Tyrien: Do you also think, like JasonTakeshi, that donating to a charity is selfish?

Man, I was hearing plenty of people saying how selfish some people are for not donating for Haiti. I'm sure JasonTakeshi hasn't done that, since you know... it would be a waste, he would still be selfish even after donating.

What you all are seeking here is pure altruism, but there is no such thing. But still, love is altruistic, no matter how very little selfish act is involved.

Okay you're making this incredibly difficult.

First you cannot compare a tangible object to the discussion of idealogical meaning. It doesn't work so please stop trying to do so.

You keep referring to selfish behavior as one which has a primary concern relating to one's self. That's exactly what I'm referring to when talking about love being selfish. It's a subconscious behavior that we all do as a built in survival instinct. We make conscious justifications for our actions, but these actions always root back to ourselves as the primary benefactor.

However the part you cannot seem to comprehend, or rather are refusing to comprehend is that I exempted that behavior from deciding whether love is selfish in practice or not because it is an unavoidable instinctive behavior that we all do; a constant before any conscious justification is ever made.

This is now the third time I've said this, so I'll try and make it very clear. Love is not selfish in practice.