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

Your, original, question implies that, if I hold a door for someone and do not get paid, you will run up to me and say, "STOPSTOP, what you are doing is "not OK". So, your, original, question is unrealistic. The way that you worded it is awkward. Perhaps you meant that no one, really, does anything unless they get something out of it. So, you worded it in a form that states an approval..."ok". If you mean to say that you have never seen anyone do anything altruistically, you would have acquired a series of stories and lost the debate as the question would have been, "Have you?" and you would have gotten answers. This piece that you typed. "...our personal well-being goes through other people. " (surely you meant, "groups of people" not individuals ) "You pose this question assuming that, being a social animal, we necessarily do good things for others." ( you missed that others do things for us and we all go together over a bridge that we hope was build well for the whole group ) "If we actually do something good for someone else then it would seem to contradict my initial statement." ( exactly why I took this, easy, debate ) "You did ask "who decides what's ok", and that is a crucial question. " ( exactly, what you missed in the wording of your original statement.) " I didn't deny the existence of altruism or egoism, or that people do good things for others." Your original statement implied it. " According to my statement there is a conditional implication, that is, self-interest must exist in order for helping someone to be "OK". " Why and how do you come to the conclusion that self-interest MUST exist? And, again, who decides what it ok? As to my third point in my post with three, numbered points, you had to start some where to come up with these ideas. You started with a paradigm. What is the structure/paradigm from which you start? Where did you come up with the idea that self-interest MUST exist and where did you come up with the idea that somebody MUST "OK" a giving behavior? "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. " How is that person's decision any of your business to object? Are you the king of him? Who told you that you are The Decider who can object to his decisions? " 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. " The first sentence of the above paragraph, either, had spelling errors or needs re-writing. The next three sentences, simply, state what people do -without asking if YOU care about it or asking your permission and the last sentence...no. You have not. "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." Then, why waste the debate on it? " 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." This is post-cell-phone behavior and big-city behavior. " The necessary commitment in helping a person is very big, because the action might just be the beginning of a series of actions. " No. Holding a door for a mother with a stroller flies in the face of this sentence "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. " Really? Is your "consider"ation the be-all end-all for all-people's thinking? This would be fine if we asked YOU to be our leader but there is a kingly background to typing this way in a debate topic that is unbecoming of your station. Shall you walk up to people and say, "I, yes, ME, I consider your feelings to have purpose sometimes."? " The general attitude of people mostly reveals that self-interest is taken into consideration in performing actions." Did you do a poll? From whence do you make this statement, please? " Even in particular instances where it appears "not-present" it exists because self-preservation is essential for species preservation. " You are typing on a computer that you did not and cannot build wearing clothes that you did not sew out of fabric that you did not make fueled by food that you did not grow and likely, did not cook. Even the woman in "Island of the Blue Dolphins" learned a LOT from a group before she preserved herself all alone. Group we are. Group we continue. Alone, we die off.