That describes some people in my family really well. ;) I think that's how some people go about helping people, it just pops up and they feel like they should do something..It could be because they've been taught that it's the right thing to do but before people say that people are somehow forced to do the right thing let me say that a good amount of those people who feel like they should help might decide not to, simply because they aren't forced to..Or they might feel like they have something else to do instead that is more pressing.

Personally I don't think that you can really achieve a selflessness in toto. In your case the "reward" would the positive feeling you get when you help someone. You said that you cannot remember such a feeling by helping. That can be true (although I would say that's only true for the minority of good things), but passively you still get such a feeling in your brain. You don't have to actively know about that feeling. Many things you dont know straight, but they still influence you. And I can think of just a few such good actions that don't give you any positive reaction at all.

This - of course - doesn't diminish the worth of good things. Just because you also get a positive feeling by doing something good doesn't mean that this is your primary motivation. Actually, it reflects your personal morale towards a society. So even if you get a inner reward for something, that doesn't make the action worse or even egoistic, in my opinion. I mean, some people even think that really every thing you do is per definition egoistic and selfish. For me it's a matter of priority and proportion between the worth of action on the one and the reward on the other hand to judge, if something is egoistic or not.

Still a quite interesting topic anyway.

I guess I agree with Cassio. Sometimes you can't be completely selfless anyway, since you must first be in good working condition in order to help someone else out. If you're dead tired from mowing a lawn, it's better to be selfish in the case that if you did try to help someone else, you'd pass out and then nothing would get done :P Sometimes making decisions in your best interest can help others out in the long term.

That's true in a way as most people would prefer to consider their own safety but you still have people who deliberately put themselves in harms way, even if they do have disabilities or problems to help another person.

IMO that is not wise. Helping others should always (unless it's like your child or some other serious situation) be very calculated, or else it is for me. I'd rather retain my ability to help for the future than endanger myself and risk losing it.

I know but then how would you factor in all these average people who are hailed as heroes because they save people from burning buildings or jump off small bridges to help old ladies who jump in rivers? http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/...n-river-rescue

How do you mean "factor in"? Do you mean how would I consider them? Awesome guys. Jumping into a river isn't exactly life threatening, and in the matter of saving a life, of course you should get a little wet. I was under the impression we were referring to helping people in the everyday manner.

I just meant factor in as in don't take them out of the equation when you consider the population as a whole. Besides I thought this thread was about people doing anything good and trying to look at the rationale for them doing such things, this can apply to "heroes" or those of us who just help people out from time to time.

:S Confuzzled. I wasn't referring to any type of equation or to what people as a whole do, I was really only talking about myself.

You were in the beginning of your post, then went on to talk about what you'd do. :P

Anyway..I think it's better if we go back on topic.

I said IMO. I think that means that's what should be done in my opinion. I never said other instances of courage didn't happen outside that parameter, I just said those are the precautions I think one should take before trying to help someone or throwing themselves into a rescue operation.

Everything we post here is in our own opinions unless they are straight facts like numbers and the like. People debate using their own opinion..which means that what people say can be taken as being a statement.

IMO or not, (I agree with you there, I find all the IMOs painfully redundant) it was plainly a statement of what "should" be done, not what is done.

True, but I could still take it as a statement and reply to it as I had done. Anway this thread is getting into semantics quite a bit so I think we should swing it back on topic.

Very true. Someone who knows that he always gets help won't even try anymore to get things all done. He'll tend to rely too much on others, which may be a problem in many situations.

Sometimes the hard thing is to know when it's in someone's interest to help him and when it's not. Okay, most of the time it is pretty clear. If a child is about to drown in a lake, you probably won't think "Hey, that's a good chance for him to learn swimming!" :D