Selflessness as a principle turns contentment/happiness into a sin

Selflessness or altruism says we must be about other people and their wellbeing and not our own. We only care for ourselves so we can help others.

Incidentally believers say we should worry about serving and pleasing God not our wellbeing so that is an additional demand put on the altruist. If God becomes man as in Jesus it follows that Jesus should be cared for even while the rest of the world suffers and needs our help.

Altruism says that we should not work for our personal happiness but if we are self-sacrificing we will be happy as a side effect. The happiness comes from nature and the way we are made and by itself. We didn’t evoke it or create it. We will be happy because there is goodness in us to give. We will not be happy that we are good for that is self-satisfaction for it would not be loving in altruist terms to enjoy the fact that you are good to others. It is like the difference in a person being glad to get a miraculous gift of brains and a person who is glad that he has become a brain-box by his own effort. The altruist who does altruistic good so that the side effect will come is working for happiness and is a hypocrite not an altruist. Altruism says that working directly for and indirectly for happiness is immoral. Happiness must be immoral or a necessary evil. With necessary evils, you endure them and tolerate them but you don’t want them and would like them to be unnecessary and vanish.

Altruism says that working directly for and indirectly for happiness is immoral. Happiness must be immoral or a necessary evil. With necessary evils, you endure them and tolerate them but you don’t want them and would like them to be unnecessary and vanish.

If happiness should not be sought even indirectly, then happiness must be evil. It is no answer to say that the altruist will be happier with altruism than if he works for his own happiness. In other words, we are being told that altruism does not condemn happiness but gives it like nothing else can. The true altruist will not enjoy it for love is sacrifice. Happiness is given to be sacrificed if altruism is true. Also, if you work for your own happiness you can manage to be very happy and be happier than an altruist who represses it would be.

If the altruist who has just gone out of his way to do some great deed dropped dead and there was no life after death altruism would still say that he did right to be an altruist even if he did not believe in an afterlife or in a reward and even if he knew he was about to die. This person did good for its own sake and it did him no good so it is clear that his good did not matter to him or to those who bless him for what he did either. Altruism is uncaring. When you have to be altruistic even if you know you are going to die tonight and deny yourself the most precious time you have left why shouldn’t you starve yourself into hospital in order to feed somebody else who does not need any help from you? Altruism requires that you have no thought for your own happiness.

The person who believes there is no life after death or who is not sure at all or not very sure if he does believe is still expected to do selfless things that bring him no benefit. His life is the most important thing he has and he could be dead in five minutes and he still has to do that. This shows that it is still wrong for him to be selfish and enjoy himself meaning it must be always wrong. When he is old and has not many days left he is still expected to do it so then how much more will he be expected to do it when he is young and healthy and has no fear of dying? How much more will you and I be expected to do it when we are young. Death implies that egoism is totally and always immoral once it is accepted that altruism is a good thing.

Is it true that altruism has the side effect of happiness? Suppose it does. Then it only results in happiness if it is not practiced properly. The true altruists would work so hard that they would have no time to feel it. Happiness is meant to be a potential side effect and not an actual one. When believe in altruism and do a small thing for another person like giving away your last Rolo you are saying that you are not worth that Rolo but somebody else is. If you do not believe in altruism, it is different. You are giving it away because you honour yourself as good.

Altruists sometimes claim that they feel happy because of their goodness. If you can be altruistic, then you can be altruistic and still end up with depression. You can do something great for somebody and feel nothing. If happiness comes it does not follow that the altruism is the cause.

Altruism says that greedy selfish people in business who just care about making more money cannot be really happy. But some of them are. The appeal of gaining more riches would soon lose its shine if the altruists were being truthful. The business people are evidence that they are liars.

We have seen that if altruism or selfless is good then we should not will or allow anything that is done for our own sake. To find yourself happy and to accept that happiness is the same as doing something to make yourself happy for it is an act of will or acceptance so it is forbidden.

If my employer refuses to pay me for a month’s work I am forcing him to do wrong if I insist I should be paid. But if I tell him it is okay if he does not want to pay I am making him do right. If I am a real altruist, I will not make him do wrong. So it is my duty to let other people walk over me.

What if I have a child to support? Since virtue comes first and I would rather help my child than my employer it follows that I should neglect the child for it is better to hurt myself by hurting the child in this way than to cause immoral intent. I have taken the responsibility for this state of affairs from my boss and put it on myself. I could argue that if I developed myself right I would not be hurt so if I feel hurt it is my fault. I could say my child will not starve and needs to learn through hardship.

I cannot say I should sometimes put the welfare of others before my own. I have to do this all the time. If it is right to watch my maths when I am accounting I cannot turn around and say I can be right some of the time. I have to be right all the time.

Suppose I risk getting kneecapped to save a person terrorists are planning to beat up to a pulp. The moral systems tell me I should even if I am sure I will be kneecapped sooner or later because of it. They admire me giving my health away so another even one who is less deserving can be blessed with health.

When I was a Christian I used to be devastated and very hurt when I saw people sinning because I believed that sin results in eternal damnation. This was far more damaging than what a person familiar with violence in the home would have to put up with. If harming others is wrong then it can be wrong to upset their feelings. If it is wrong to hit me then it is wrong to upset me by putting yourself in danger of Hell. But what if I am upset just as much by altruists? What if I find their altruism unnatural and offensive and want them to be egoists instead? Altruists claim they have to go on with their work no matter how much it upsets others. I find altruism very upsetting and soul-destroying and don’t like to see it practiced. Altruism just cares about rules not happiness. It also leaves you wide open to manipulation by people who say they will be very hurt if you do x, y or z.