I've been searching for the answer to this question for a long time. Why I would rather die than witness the deaths of those I love? In utilitarian philosophy, it doesn't make sense. In certain forms of theology it might. I'm not claiming to have the answer to this question, and I'm skeptical that this thread will give me an answer I would accept. I would appreciate it if people tried to help me out here.
Because of relationships. Relationships are all around us. They can be as simple as figuring out how to walk past someone to as complex as husband and wife. When a person is threatened with the lost of one of their relationships, that person can either attempt to salvage it or decide it's not worth their time. That's all it is. If you want to see yourself dead before a loved one, it's because you value your relationship with that person and can't imagine what it would be like without them.
Why is the relationship with my loved one more important than myself. In a sense, the universe revolves around me, as it is my eyes in which I expierience the world. For what reason would I love others more than myself? Am I loving myself by loving others? It's all very confusing to me. I can imagine a life without my loved ones. A good life even. I care about them more than myself, so I'm wondering if losing others is like losing apart of me. That would almost imply some sort of spiritual connection. I'm just not sure if I'm willing to tread into that territory.
The logical side of me knows I shouldn't even shed a tear if a loved one dies. Yet I would without a clue why.
This is a common theme in zombie movies. A family is surrounded by flesh eating zombies that has just wiped out the neighborhood and bitten one of the family members. Intellectually they know that the person is a goner but they still try to comfort him as he's dying from the zombie poison. And even as the person dies before their very eyes and they know that he will pop up as a zombie in a few minutes they still resist blowing his brains out. And then the person resurrects as a zombie and attacks them. They might be able to kill the new zombie before he infects them but not always. It just illustrates that the emotional bond of love can outlast the intellectual knowledge of death and final loss. And remember that there are so many zombies because people were reluctant to kill their loved ones when they were first infected with the zombie poison and didn't knock their brains out when they died. So they ended up becoming zombies themselves. The moral of zombie stories is that you might be an ugly rotten stinking zombie but I still love you and won't kill you as long as you don't try to eat me.
Remember what it says about death and mourning the loss of a loved in Sirach 38:16-23 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach+38:16-23&version=CEB Sirach 41:1-13 http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach 41:1-13&version=CEB;RSVCE;DRA;NRSVCE;GNT Sirach 31:21-23 https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Sirach+30:21-23&version=CEB People have been trying to cope with these issues forever. A quick death is probably better than a long drawn-out one.
I removed the weird font, it made it hard to read. I'm not really sure what kind of answer you're going for. You mention a utilitarian perspective, but your description sounds more like plain egotism. A utilitarian would consider which choice would be best for all involved (and as far as I know, your description of the situation is not sufficient to make an interesting conclusion). Still, evolutionary theory acknowledges that we care about others, primarily those who share our DNA (and therefore, our sacrifice for their survival may still benefit our genes).
What makes a man throw himself on a grenade, to save his friends. No genetic purpose here. What makes a man risk and sometimes lose his own life trying to save the life of someone he doesn't know? He may not even have passed his own genes on yet. I don't think the genetic argument works, for there are incoherences in it. Does the animal mother protect her young because she feels love, or is her actions strictly by instinct, so that her own genes might continue on? Probably. Are humans, who feel love, operating on pure instinct, or is love something greater than simple instinct? I think genuine love happens when your own ego has receded for a moment, and this thing we feel as love takes over. It is not a selfish action, but utterly unselfish. That some would want to paint it as a selfish action is absurd.
Selfishness......the desire to enjoy and experience the things others provide for our lives. There are individuals I would not like to live without.
So you would rather die, than to live without someone else? That would indeed be selfishness, the ultimate type. For me, I would die to save a loved one, take the bullet, simply because I would rather die, instead of their life being cut short. I care for them, more than I do myself. I value their life, more than my own. Now, you can spin that as selfishness, but its intellectual masturbation. Now people that commit suicide to escape psychological suffering, that is a selfish act. For they are thinking only of their own egos. Their own suffering. But to give ones life to save a life of the other, losing our own ego, is hardly selfish behavior. For you are ending that which you prize so much, your own life. It is an unselfish act not a selfish act. And there is a difference here. But if you believe, have concluded that all acts are selfish acts, then of course you cannot accept anything but your own foregone conclusion.
Being created in the image of God, we inherited the propensity to love, unselfishly. God is Love. It is, if real love, completely unselfish in nature, revealing the love the creator feels for his creation. We feel it throughout our bodies, but especially in the area of the heart, chest. It is a feeling greater than any other human emotion that is positive. And it makes us act. It yields compassion and empathy. Which is not required in a Darwinian universe, for it to work. It is the only sacred thing man can experience.
I do not think the OP was looking for zombie stories, no matter how close you think they are to your real life.
I have always seen self love as the ego stroke of mental masturbation. I try to place others before myself, the reason being that when I was young I lived a very self serving life and I was miserable. To me a self-centered existences is a lonely existences and I have found that a little altruism goes a long way. But then again I like helping others in part because it makes me feel good which is self serving. Oh the paradox.
I agree that living selflessly is better than living selfishly. When it comes to death, and no longer living a life, it seems like that principle would be reversed. Unless you firmly believe in a god.
Evolution is the utilitarian argument. You "win" evolutionarily, if your children live to pass on their genes.
hardly. I often refer to dogs (and other higher mammals) in these threads, because they demonstrate very clearly and indisputably that 'ethics' are a product of our social animal nature. and in the instance referred to in the OP, they often demonstrate this same idea of self-sacrifice. dogs frequently defend an owner or 'pack member' at the cost of their lives. dolphins have also been known to protect humans, as have gorillas and chimps. the really interesting thing about these acts is that the victim at risk is almost always a child.
I believe that one part of the full answer to this question is given in the Helen Wambach Ph. D. research. Dr. Wambach hypnotized and regressed thousands of volunteers about four thousand years. For some reason they had visions and/ or impressions of what looked like "past lives." It seems that our subconscious mind may be connected with information that would give us a much higher view of what this human life is really all about. I read both of Dr. Wambach's books back in the '90's. Here is a one page summary: http://www.carolmoore.net/articles/helenwambach.html
That's extremely interesting. I'm pretty sure the answer has something to do with a higher state of humanity. Just not certain on the specifics.
You will greatly miss the benefits to your life that their virtues as person provides. That's the source of your sorrow. Emotions are a response to values and when those values are cut off, your emotional response is negative. That isn't necessarily a case of loving them more than yourself as much as it is loving the benefits of that relationship to your life (or am I wrong?).
