No, but I don’t see why children should have an effect; favoring your children over strangers is no less selfish than favoring yourself over strangers, and both are strong instincts.
I had intended to draw attention to the phenomenon of favouring one’s children over oneself. It appears I was right about the test demographic.
And “no less selfish”? At what point would you consider the widening circle to be “less selfish”? To favour your village over others, your country over others, humanity over animals; are these are all no less selfish? Is nothing unselfish but a life of exaninition and unceasing service to everyone and everything but oneself?
By instinctive I just mean system 1; the judgments made before you take time to think through what you should do.
System 1 is susceptible to training—that is what training is. We may be born with the neurological mechanism, but not its entire content. “Instinct” more usually means (quoting Wikipedia) “performed without being based upon prior experience”. A human without prior experience is a baby.
Standard definitions of system 1 describe it as ‘instinctive’, but if you need a separate definition of instinctive responses, ‘untrained system 1 responses’ works.
At what point would you consider the widening circle to be “less selfish”? To favour your village over others, your country over others, humanity over animals; are these are all no less selfish? Is nothing unselfish but a life of exaninition and unceasing service to everyone and everything but oneself?
That depends. Any of those things can be unselfish, if you’re doing it because you think it’s a good thing to do independent of whether it’s an outcome/action you like, and the wider the circle the more likely that’s the motivation. If it’s based on ‘I like these people and want them to be happy, therefore I will take this action’ that’s still selfish.
Lest this sound like I’m saying anything that isn’t done for abstract reasons is selfish, I’d contrast it with things done for reasons of compassion. The lines there can get blurry when the people you’re feeling compassion for are in your ingroup, but things like the place-quarters-here-for-adorable-sad-children variety of charity are clearly trying to induce compassionate motivation (and it works).
From conversations I have had with my own parents (not as comprehensive or in-depth, but heartfelt), it seemed pretty clear that the parenting instinct is much more ‘these kids are mine and I will take care of them come hell or high water’ than a compassionate reflex.
I had intended to draw attention to the phenomenon of favouring one’s children over oneself. It appears I was right about the test demographic.
And “no less selfish”? At what point would you consider the widening circle to be “less selfish”? To favour your village over others, your country over others, humanity over animals; are these are all no less selfish? Is nothing unselfish but a life of exaninition and unceasing service to everyone and everything but oneself?
System 1 is susceptible to training—that is what training is. We may be born with the neurological mechanism, but not its entire content. “Instinct” more usually means (quoting Wikipedia) “performed without being based upon prior experience”. A human without prior experience is a baby.
Standard definitions of system 1 describe it as ‘instinctive’, but if you need a separate definition of instinctive responses, ‘untrained system 1 responses’ works.
That depends. Any of those things can be unselfish, if you’re doing it because you think it’s a good thing to do independent of whether it’s an outcome/action you like, and the wider the circle the more likely that’s the motivation. If it’s based on ‘I like these people and want them to be happy, therefore I will take this action’ that’s still selfish.
Lest this sound like I’m saying anything that isn’t done for abstract reasons is selfish, I’d contrast it with things done for reasons of compassion. The lines there can get blurry when the people you’re feeling compassion for are in your ingroup, but things like the place-quarters-here-for-adorable-sad-children variety of charity are clearly trying to induce compassionate motivation (and it works).
From conversations I have had with my own parents (not as comprehensive or in-depth, but heartfelt), it seemed pretty clear that the parenting instinct is much more ‘these kids are mine and I will take care of them come hell or high water’ than a compassionate reflex.