It is not OK to help someone if it is not in your self-interest

As it is the final round, I will try to address the questions that you pose. I can do that for questions 1 and 2, but I don't really understand what you mean by question 3. Then I will summarise and evaluate all arguments. The case of alcohol is probably the same as anything addictive, like tobacco or drugs. It is quite true that they are harmful in many respects, especially if consumed in large amounts. What we are examining though is the question of "helping". Your second question is closer to what I think should be a broader definition of self-interest. By that I mean reaching the understanding that our personal well-being goes through other people. You pose this question assuming that, being a social animal, we necessarily do good things for others. If we actually do something good for someone else then it would seem to contradict my initial statement. You did ask "who decides what's ok", and that is a crucial question. I didn't deny the existence of altruism or egoism, or that people do good things for others. They do good things for others all the time, but they mostly do good things for themselves. The contention is that it is not OK to help. Rightfully you ask "who decides what's OK?". Well, it's not me. According to my statement there is a conditional implication, that is, self-interest must exist in order for helping someone to be "OK". My objection was that self-interest is important to OK an action because without it the result could be unacceptable. For example, a completely altruistic selfless person would donate his liver, his eyes, his heart. If he was unable to recognize his self-interest, he would die. The same thing would happen if he was unable to critically evaluate other people's advice. What I believe the use of alcohol demonstrates it that rationality, or rational justification, has a social basis! If you can do something bad to yourself on purpose, then where would this end? You might as well cut you arm off or commit suicide. There are sets of instincts and feelings that can make someone decide to do irrational things out of "love", "hate", "anger" and so on. If negative feelings did not exist I believe I have shown that it would be detrimental for the person. Your argumentation is based in establishing examples where a. someone does not have self-interest and b. the person performs the action which is not to his self-interest. I partly agree, but for the fact that "OK" implies a kind of moral rationalization which does not need to coincide with every possible action. I have been in a couple of car accidents and to my amazement most people decided to watch and take pictures of the scene instead of calling an ambulance, assuming that "someone else must have done that already". The point that I want to make is that when someone needs help, then something happened which put him in this situation. No one wants to be involved with situational risks that he does not know how to control. Maybe the passers by just had no medical newel's, so they didn't want to get involved because there was little they could do. The necessary commitment in helping a person is very big, because the action might just be the beginning of a series of actions. Therefore a person does not only "look" at a particular situation, but also to how the future possible events might involve him. Many times people offer their advice "you should do that", but advice is not what a person who needs help mostly wants. There is not enough room in the argument, but I do not consider "feelings" to be irrational, or without purpose. Feelings can account for actions, but I consider them to have a reference to self-preservation, even in cases where they push you to make extremely dangerous choices. The general attitude of people mostly reveals that self-interest is taken into consideration in performing actions. Even in particular instances where it appears "not-present" it exists because self-preservation is essential for species preservation.