Self-Sacrifice: Is there a limit?

[Vapymid]

Self-sacrifice happens every day in a minor way, think about it before you answer again questioning it.

 

All I'm saying is that self-sacrifice and minor compromises are two different things. The above example about a disabled woman caring about her sister's children despite her own injury is a case of the former, while giving way to another car on a motorway is clearly the latter.

 

It's impossible to live otherwise - just imagine the streets full of "heroes" with huge sense of entitlement because of the sacrifice they've just made by stopping at the red lights. Others thinking they deserve a medal for not spitting on the pavement?

 

But then he does it feels like a true man despite of pain. Then he dies.

 

More likely he feels like "How the hell did I get myself into this mess?!" and "All this is because of so and so's FUBAR and now I have to pay for this?". Then he dies.

 

I am being a bit cynical here but that's generally the sense I get from reading memoirs of and interviews with people who happened to be in heroic situations and survived to tell the tale. Most common thread is that they never feel like heroes while they are doing the deed. Sense of duty, resentment, fear, sorrow - but not heroism.

 

Only serious brainwashing like bushido or radical doctrinisation would make people feel elation from the prospects of imminent death or serious injury or loss.

 

Regards

[ProHypster]

All I'm saying is that self-sacrifice and minor compromises are two different things. The above example about a disabled woman caring about her sister's children despite her own injury is a case of the former, while giving way to another car on a motorway is clearly the latter.

 

It's impossible to live otherwise - just imagine the streets full of "heroes" with huge sense of entitlement because of the sacrifice they've just made by stopping at the red lights. Others thinking they deserve a medal for not spitting on the pavement?

 

No, I just disagree, they are both the same behaviour on different levels. Even not spitting on the pavement when you really need to spit is minor self sacrifice. I never said anything about medals.

 

More likely he feels like "How the hell did I get myself into this mess?!" and "All this is because of so and so's FUBAR and now I have to pay for this?". Then he dies.

 

I am being a bit cynical here but that's generally the sense I get from reading memoirs of and interviews with people who happened to be in heroic situations and survived to tell the tale. Most common thread is that they never feel like heroes while they are doing the deed. Sense of duty, resentment, fear, sorrow - but not heroism.

 

Only serious brainwashing like bushido or radical doctrinisation would make people feel elation from the prospects of imminent death or serious injury or loss.

 

Regards

 

But he does it because he thinks it's the right thing otherwise he wouldn't, I don't care about how people wrote in testimonials, the people who do self-sacrifice feel like it's the right thing to do. At that point they rather risk dying then live forever knowing they didn't do it hence the self-sacrifice, at least to them at the moment seemed like the right choice.

 

After they made the choice, the people who resent it are the ones who re-question their choice and believe the better option was not to self-sacrifice.

 

Self-sacrifice is simply a choice of trade of pain/suffering for another effect, it can be good and bad at different times and hard to decide so I don't blame the people you mentioned.

[Vapymid]

they are both the same behaviour on different levels

 

Disagree. But I don't think we will convince each other either ways, so might as well stop trying

 

But he does it because he thinks it's the right thing otherwise he wouldn't

 

Agree. Though he may also think there is no other choice...

 

Regards

[ProHypster]

Good, we can disagree to agree then.

 

Is there a limit to self-sacrifice? I can certainly say you should think each sacrfiice through but there is no real limit unless you make one as a rule.

[Michael Archer]

A soldier dying for his country is not self-sacrifice; it's selfish. When someone enlists in the army, they're fighting to protect their future security; they'd rather die than live as slaves.

 

Self-sacrifice would be signing up to fight for a cause you don't believe in. That's evil.

[Scorpia]

i disagree, i support our troops, they're not evil. what about soldiers who fight to ensure the enemy does not have the opportunity to invade our land? my best friend, my grandfather, and his father are/were all military men, they fought to save lives, i'm debating on joining the Army(or marines) myself. so, i will not readily accept the implication that soldiers are, or ever were, evil.

 

back on topic: my limit to self sacrifice...truly? i don't know, or wouldn't know until I've done it..

[Axeldeath]

Self-sacrifice would be signing up to fight for a cause you don't believe in. That's evil.

[Collective Foal]

Self-sacrifice is in no way (to me) an evil thing. Sometimes, one's own personal desires are not as important as another's. I have always found selflessness to be an important virtue for a person. And while you're correct about self-sacrifice giving one psychological gratification, but does it not benfit others as well?

 

Extremely relevant movie that every living human being on the planet should be required to watch as it is an incredible movie starring Jimmy Stewart:

 

[Doom Shepherd]

Don't confuse self-sacrifice for altruism.

 

Self-sacrifice doesn't necessarily mean doing something for no tangible or intangible benefit to yourself.

 

Altruism, however, does.

[Collective Foal]

Well then, my opinion here would be that when self-sacrifice has detrimental effects to one's well being, you've taken it too far.

[Michael Archer]

Don't confuse self-sacrifice for altruism.

 

Self-sacrifice doesn't necessarily mean doing something for no tangible or intangible benefit to yourself.

 

Altruism, however, does.

 

FUCKING, THIS.

 

The only amendment I would make to your post is that self-sacrifice means "sacrifice" as in "giving up a higher value for a lower one"; this can mean doing something for no benefit to yourself. In fact, it's self-destruction.

 

If you "give up" one thing for something greater, than that's selfish--I wouldn't call that self-sacrifice.

[Ian]

A soldier dying for his country is not self-sacrifice; it's selfish. When someone enlists in the army, they're fighting to protect their future security; they'd rather die than live as slaves.

So, when a soldier sandbags a grenade to save four other soldiers around him, he is selfish? That is very flawed. Those soldiers now have the ability to continue the war, whereas if that grenade had exploded in the open, it could have killed a few as well as injuring the rest.

 

He has also "exceeded the limit" by some of your standards. Does that mean his sacrifice was evil?

[Razor235]

A soldier dying for his country is not self-sacrifice; it's selfish. When someone enlists in the army, they're fighting to protect their future security; they'd rather die than live as slaves.

 

Self-sacrifice would be signing up to fight for a cause you don't believe in. That's evil.

 

 

*facepalm* Your logic fails me...

[Axeldeath]

A soldier dying for his country is not self-sacrifice; it's selfish. When someone enlists in the army, they're fighting to protect their future security; they'd rather die than live as slaves.

 

Self-sacrifice would be signing up to fight for a cause you don't believe in. That's evil.

 

 

*facepalm* Your logic fails me...

 

Seems perfectly valid to me.

[Michael Archer]

So, when a soldier sandbags a grenade to save four other soldiers around him, he is selfish? That is very flawed. Those soldiers now have the ability to continue the war, whereas if that grenade had exploded in the open, it could have killed a few as well as injuring the rest.

 

He has also "exceeded the limit" by some of your standards. Does that mean his sacrifice was evil?

 

You know, I've never actually given this scenario that much thought. But now that I think about it, I fail to see the difference between this scenario and a Japanese banzai charge.

 

In World War II, the Japanese did not believe an individual's life was important; one of the war-recruiting slogans was something along the lines of "die for your emperor". Giving up your valuable life in exchange for a "higher cause", I think, is unspeakable.

 

I believe that the life of an individual is the standard for morality, so I don't think there's any higher cause than the life of an individual.

 

On the other hand, I guess your scenario implies that they all would have died anyway; the soldier jumping on the grenade would have died regardless--then I guess jumping on the grenade is fine.

[Very7684]

I know for a fact that, when given a situation that meant it was my life or somone I cared abouts' life..then it would be my life I could not stand living with the fact that in the flash of like a millisecond I could have changed the outcome. If it ever happens I'll defend those I love, and die happy

[Arby]

For a strict, absolute Altruist, there is no limit, he will erase himself from reality, and swiftly at great pain to himself for the most petty of cause he can find. If he has a single shred of dignity and respect left for the most basic value, he will at least hesitate before his death by self-immolation. Most people live by an expressed Altruist morality, but they are "immoral" and "corrupt" and act selfishly against this avowed code, because a functioning human mind will, in our rational reality, be compelled to--at least on a subconscious level-- act for its own survival, and so they are eternally trapped between being morally evil, to the degree to which they live, or die in the name of morality, haunted and morally confused, with happiness and morality separated from each other. Every moment of joy is filled with a specter of guilt, unearned and imposed by their "social code of morality"

 

"Why do you now moan complaints about man's impotence and the futility of human aspirations? Because you were unable to prosper by seeking destruction? Because you were unable to find joy by worshipping pain? Because you were unable to live by holding death as your standard of value?

"The degree of your ability to live was the degree to which you broke your moral code, yet you believe that those who preach it are friends of humanity, you damn yourself and dare not question their motives or their goals. Take a look at them now, when you face your last choice—and if you choose to perish, do so with full knowledge of how cheaply so small an enemy has claimed your life."