Selflessness does not Exist

My opponent has offered several good points and examples, all of which add nuance to the discussion and require a somewhat deeper analysis than my earlier points. They lead excellently into my next points by introducing another essential factor of decision making, specifically the concept of ethics and morals, which I will now address. As always, it is helpful to define and clarify these terms, which I tend to use interchangeably. The concepts of morality and ethics only have meaning with respect to a specific goal. For most of humanity, this goal is, unsurprisingly, the benefit and prosperity of humanity. Moral and ethical guidelines, therefore, are general rules of thumb designed to optimize benefit for as many people as possible (sometimes specifically within that society, but they often benefit the rest of humanity as well). If instead one's goal was the protection of all species equally, it might be considered moral to kill or suppress humanity. They are, however, only guidelines, and may fail in many situations in the face of nuance or when they conflict with each other. The benefit of following such guidelines (and thereby doing the "right" thing) is twofold. As stated previously, these guidelines are constructed to benefit society as a whole, which obviously benefits each individual in turn. There are, however, plenty of cases where performing an action to help the larger society will likely detriment an individual, such as the incident with Wesley Autrey. This, however, is where the other factor comes into play. Thanks in part to our social upbringing, the mere act of performing a socially acceptable action, especially to one's personal detriment, is viewed as virtuous and worthy of praise and respect, and thus brings about positive emotions. Conversely, failing to perform a moral action often results in strong feelings of guilt and shame. In these cases, virtuousness itself is the benefit that outweighs the other detriments to the self. The situation is compounded further if punishment and social retribution is on the table - which is why laws are effective. Now, to be clear, I am not saying that the emotional weight of Autrey saving or abandoning the man did objectively outweigh the possibility of death and subsequent loss of any future net positive emotion. In fact, it was almost certainly a poor objective choice in terms of his own benefit. At the time, however, his emotional state was enough to skew his judgment and make it seem worth the risk. As I said previously, a single strong emotion is often enough to block out other emotions, as well as one's reasoning capabilities. Thus, Autrey was still acting selfishly with regard to his emotion, just not intelligently. This and the example of the reluctant charity donation both bring up another interesting point - namely, reluctance. There are plenty of cases where one has conflicting emotions regarding an action. Either the probability of each potential outcome is unclear, or it is difficult to quantify the total benefit of each option. However, it is psychologically impossible for one to actually perform any action contrary to one's own emotions. Take an armed robbery, for example. One certainly does not want to lose one's possessions, but one fears death more, and so chooses to "unwillingly" comply with the robber. The robber can still be arrested and prosecuted, but the victim did not act against his or her own will in the sense of contradicting his or her own emotions. In every case, it is a net product of one's own emotions that determines one's motion (action). With regard to charity specifically, it is usually a question of whether the emotional benefit from doing a socially helpful, moral action will outweigh the detriment incurred by financial loss, which could be invested in one's emotional benefit via other niceties or necessities. This is often largely dependent on one's own financial situation, and varies from person to person according to their judgment. Ultimately, however, it is still an attempt to optimize one's own emotional state, and thus selfish. There is also one other major point related to morality and ethics that is needs to be addressed: religion. Regardless of whether they are correct, a vast majority of people on this planet have been convinced or taught that there exists some sort of objective, cosmic standard of morality that is always right and perfect and that we should all abide by regardless of the circumstances. This is often handed down by a deity and also accompanied by a promise/threat of an afterlife. I obviously cannot tell the extent to which this actually plays an explicit role in people's decisions, but it is implicitly a foundation for and factor in most of their moral actions.