comment: >
  
  
  I want to get rid of it, and I hope that it can be logically disproved or debunked. 
  
  Tell me one thing that someone could do that would disprove this? 
  Walk by a homeless man and you give him money, it can be used as evidence for this being true. Don't give him money and it can be used as evidence for this being true.  Kick him and it can be used as evidence for this being true. Do anything that makes you happy and it can be used as evidence for this being true. Do anything that makes you sad and it can be used as evidence for this being true. 
  No matter what you do in any situation, it can be twisted into being evidence as this being true. There's no actual substance to this idea because it's completely impossible to disprove and it has no predictive power.
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  ^Delta System Explained ^| ^Deltaboards >
  
  I just pinched myself hard enough to cause pain and leave a mark. I expected no happiness out of this. I experienced no feelings of happiness out of this.
  My motive was just to prove the easily provable point that humans only motive is not happiness. Just observing humans doing things will also reflect this truth repeatedly.
  You could argue that self happiness is one of the strongest human motivators, but clearly it isn't the only human motive. >
  
  Pinching yourself did bring you happiness, although you may not be fully conscious of it. Maybe it brought you happiness because you thought it would be a factor in proving your point, or maybe it brought you happiness because you liked the feeling. How it brought you happiness doesn’t matter. 
  You wouldn’t have done it if it didn’t bring you happiness >
  
  You're wrong. It didn't bring me happiness. I know this because I experienced it personally. You insist it did without any knowledge or evidence only because if it didn't that disproves your point.
  Typing this comment brings me no happiness, yet I'm doing it. >
  
  So let me ask this: if not for your own benefit, why did you make the comment? Why didyou pinch yourself? 
  It's easy to say "nuh uh". It's harder to actually really justify your position. Are you saying you don't like being right? You don't enjoy answering reddit cmvs? You don't want to participate in the community? If all that is so, then why are you here? If it's not so, are you not then motivated by a personal desire to enjoy yourself? To find happiness? >
  
  Lazy copy/paste from another response because I think it fits here also:
  ...
  I could have chosen to look at cute animal pictures or watch a funny video. Both of those things would have brought me more happiness than engaging with this thread. So why did I do it? What was my motive? It clearly wasn't seeking happiness.
  I'm not sure what my motive is. But the fact that there is more than one motive to choose from means OP's claim that there is only 1 motive must be incorrect. >
  
  Perhaps you chose to reply here because engaging in this discourse makes you a more intelligent and well-rounded person, while watching cat videos most certainly would not? You become happier as a result of further enhancing your skills. >
  
  This gets posted quite a bit and inevitably relies on the fact that the poster has redefined selfishness to define any voluntary action when most english speakers use selfish to describe behavior that priorities oneself unreasonably to the detriment of others.
  Yes -- people, when they're making conscious choices, do things for reasons. You might donate to charity because it makes you feel good that you're improving the conditions of those less fortunate than you. You might leap in front of a bus to protect a child because you don't think you could live with being the kind of person who allowed a child to perish. You might rob a bank because you want money and you don't care about the emotional distress and physical risk you'll cause the teller.
  Those are all reasons that the doer found satisfactory (I guess you could say that made them happy, although I think happiness is more complicated than that). but clearly we can make distinctions as to the quality of each justification relative to the impact of the action. >
  
  Your first point effectively means nothing other than you recognize the difference. Wouldn't this then make it easier to respond to, not more difficult? Or do you find the question tedious? 
  You didn't actually attempt to prove him wrong as much as you emphatically agreed with him. You listed no examples where someone does things for no reason, only that there are reasons someone would do good things(all personally beneficial). >
  
  Well I am curioous why you think it is a negative view or something you want to get rid of. I don't understand the negative implications of it. 
  How is it bad for someone to do good things because it makes them happy?
  And what is the alternative, doing good things because it makes you feel sad, or nothing? >
  
  It’s a negative view because I find myself using it to justify people’s actions that aren’t just. It’s also oversimplifies humans and the reasoning as to why we do the things we do. I would like to believe that humans are complex than this. 
  
  How is it bad for someone to do good things because it makes them happy?
  
  That in itself is not bad. I’m saying that having the ideology is disadvantageous to me and that is why I want to change it. 
  
  And what is the alternative, doing good things because it makes you feel sad, or nothing?
  
  I don’t think there is any alternative. >
  
  Everything is super simple if you reduce them down far enough. Humans are complex, but if you boil every possible motivation to do something as “happiness” then they stop being as complex. Then when you discard any morality around WHY they’re “happy” and call all happiness seeking as equally “selfish,” then they’re even simpler. 
  Nobody has ever used “selfless” to refer to a person who does something that they have absolutely no reason to do, and hate doing. Most people would consider somebody who does things that only makes them miserable mentally ill. And yet the words selfish and selfless continue to exist.
  Why? Because when people use those terms they’re talking about the reasons behind a person’s happiness. Somebody who is made happy by helping other people is considered selfless, while somebody who is only made happy by hoarding wealth or power is considered selfish. 
  The myriad of reasons we feel what we feel are what makes humans complex. The end result of actually feeling the emotions is just a biochemical response and can seem simple if you remove all other context. >
  
  Sometimes people sacrifice their lives, for other people's happiness, survival or various other motives.
  This means they no longer get to experience happiness, at least earthly happiness. >
  
  Well they sacrifice their lives because it benefits them to save others.
  For example, in some religions kids are taught that if they die in a heroic way, or if they die for their God, they will go to heaven. This is why they find happiness in sacrificing their life. But the motivation was still their own happiness. >
  
  Atheists sacrifice their lives for others too. People voluntarily spend their final moments in pain while fully expecting no happiness to come of it. >
  
  I understand that atheist do it too. That was only an example. I agree with your first sentence. I only disagree that anyone can voluntarily do something without happiness being the majority factor of why they did it. >
  
  
  I only disagree that anyone can voluntarily do something without happiness being the majority factor of why they did it.
  
  But how?  You agreed that some people sacrifice their lives, and the only advantage was that maybe there's some religious reward.  So take away the religious award, and presume that the person didn't sacrifice themselves as a suicide measure, and what "selfish happiness" is left? >
  
  Like most circular disprovable hypothesis this is also probably false.  It is intellectually identical to something like "god".  
  Beyond that trap, you can certainly point to depressed people who relieve misery of the deepest level bit only to make things tolerable.  They find no happiness, and don't think it even a possibility.  If you don't believe happiness can exist for you generally or experiential then it can't motivate you.
  Or...you can look at it as a consequence not a motivator.  I would stop a bullet from hitting my child even if it made me sad.  It just happens that it wouldn't.  It is not the motivator, just a consequence of following and achieving you more root motivation. >
  
  I would argue that it is not selfish to pursue happiness; it is selfish to pursue happiness at the expense of other people’s. >
  
  The only issue I can see with this is that your definition of selfish mentions "lacking consideration for others," and people are capable of considering and acting for others in a way that is irrelevant to your own needs. You could make the argument that the reason to do this is some form of self-preservation or desire, but I think it's an area to consider. >
  
  
  You could make the argument that the reason to do this is some form of self-preservation or desire
  
  I agree with that argument. >
  
  I understand the reasoning for this view. It simplifies people and creates a baseline for every act a person could commit. If only happiness was the root cause for everything people do. If it were, I think we'd be able to understand each other. 
  At the very least, psychologists would stop tearing their hair out trying to quantify motivation. 
  There's a LOT that goes into it. There's roughly four approaches, I think? Behaviorist, Humanistic, The hierarchy of needs, and Cognitive. But Im not sure any of them would simplify all human motivation as a pursuit of happiness. 
  Why? Mainly, what is happiness? Think seriously: How do you define the state of being happy? What does that mean? I know, not something you usually think about in an internet thread. 
  So according to the oxford dictionary:  The state of pleasurable contentment of mind; deep pleasure in or contentment with one's circumstances.
  Cool. What's pleasure? 
  Pleasure:  a state of feeling or being happy or satisfied
  Wow, that was circular af, thanks oxford. Fine, what chemicals make happiness?
  Science says: Serotonin. Dopamine. Endorphins.
  So I pose this question to you: if all motivation is solely the pursuit of these three chemicals, do you think, at some point in the future, humanity will eventually just dunk our brains into a cocktail of this stuff? >
  
  This was extremely insightful. 
  
  Science says: Serotonin. Dopamine. Endorphins.
  
  So I pose this question to you: if all motivation is solely the pursuit of these three chemicals, do you think, at some point in the future, humanity will eventually just dunk our brains into a cocktail of this stuff?
  Yes, if we think that it will bring us pleasure. >
  
  Let's say We know it will. It is a fact. So let's say this magical brain jar is offered to you. Science can put your brain in serotonin, dopamine, endorphin mix. 
  Do you accept? >
  
  No I don’t only because I don’t actually think it will make me happier. Science says it will, but it sounds terrible. It sounds like hell in my opinion. >
  
  Why? I am telling you that in this scenario, you will be happy all the time if you do this. >
  
  Too absolute. >
  
  I'm not sure this position is actually that meaningful.
  There's still a difference between a person who is happy to make others suffer and a person who is happy to make others happy. And we should try to train ourselves - and our children - to be happy at the happiness of others, and sad at the sadness of others. 
  All your position does is change virtue from "helps people even if it makes them sad" to "has learned to be happy when helping others", which is not, in practice, all that different. I think it sounds different to a kind of person who really doesn't value feelings very much, but the whole point of kindness, of goodness to other people, was feelings in the first place. If anything, an action that provides +500 units of happiness to someone else and +1 unit to me is better than an action that provides +500 units of happiness to someone else and -1 unit to me. >
  
  All of this seems to be true, but it doesn’t disprove or change my view. It was insightful though. >
  
  
  Humans are only capable of doing what will make them happiest or what we think will make us happiest.
  
  I'll pick apart the word "only" in that statement. Humans are social animals, and we're perfectly capable of doing things that benefit the group at the expense of ourselves. In evolutionary biology, altruism is behavior that increases the fitness of others at the expense of your own fitness. Like when someone sacrifices themselves to rescue others, they are trading away all future profits and pleasures for the benefit of others. That simply doesn't add up from a personal utility perspective. Indeed, if everyone always selfishly pursued their own immediate interests at the expense of group survival, we would have died out as a species; living together and sharing resources meant making compromises on our personal freedom and happiness. >
  
  I have £5 in my wallet, I'm heading to the bar to buy a pint which will make me happy.
  Instead I give the £5 to charity and head home.
  The act of giving money made me feel some satisfaction but that's because I was concerned about others. It also cost me the happiness of having a pint, so overall my happiness may be lower then not giving the money. >
  
  Devil's advocate: 
  Whatever choice would have brought you more happiness is hypothetical. However, the decision you made on the spot is what matters. If it was possible to thoroughly analyze all factors that went through your head at the time, your donation was still out of self-interest and at the time outweighed the negatives. 
  For example, even if you didn't "gain" happiness, you avoided suffering from guilt/shame etc. >
  
  If my expected opportunity cost of happiness was higher than the happiness generated though then I haven't acted to maximize my happiness, and I feel no guilt or shame for having a pint instead of giving money to charity. so that argument doesn't hold up. >
  
  The problem is that you assume it didn't maximize your happiness. The decision you made on the spot was made to maximize your happiness, otherwise you wouldn't have been capable of performing it. In retrospect we can evaluate that it was the "wrong decision", sure, but not based on the information you had at the time.
  We're speaking hypotheticals so neither if us can prove our position nor do I know how much you like beer or charities (guilt was just an example). Personally, I can't think of a single conscious decision human beings could make that's truly selfless. >
  
  
  The decision you made on the spot was made to maximize your happiness, otherwise you wouldn't have been capable of performing it.
  
  I'm saying the opposite, humans can and do things that they don't believe will maximise their happiness. All of these actions are therefore selfless. >
  
  The usual problem here is with what does it mean to be selfish. 
  Because being concerned chiefly with your own personal profit and pleasure as defined in your "every action is ultimately concerned with ones own search for pleasure" is not necessarily the same as "lacking consideration for others".
  Like there's a difference between long and short term selfishness. Like a shortsighted act of selfishness might be to steal something because you want it. You have it now someone else doesn't, clear win-lose situation. But you could also cooperate with others form friendships and relationships that make you both better off because of it. You could still argue that "... but ultimately it makes you happy", but that's fundamentally a different set of actions than the short sighted version of selfishness. The letter kind of selfishness might even lead you to perform acts that would, out of context, be described as altruism. So are you still talking about the same thing and would the long term selfishness still fit the "lacking considerations for others" part? Because maybe you draw happiness from the happiness of other people so your happiness relies chiefly on their happiness. >
  
  Your argument is reductionary.   All cars have tires.  So all cars are tires?  It is just an attendant component of the complexity of motivation and drivers that push humans forward.  
  Even altruism and dying for loved ones can be reduced to an act of ego.  A person finds their literal death preferable to the death of the person they believe themselves to be quite often. 
  This is more so a lense that speaks about you the observer than it does the subject.  
  Logic is a good tool but a bad master.  You have said yourself it does not comport with reality seeming better or more good to you.  Jesus would call it the spirit, Socrates his Daemon, and Freud your conscience.  Whatever it is, always listen to it first and foremost and have a great day.😊 >
  
  Thank you 
  
  Your argument is reductionary.   All cars have tires.  So all cars are tires?  It is just an attendant component of the complexity of motivation and drivers that push humans forward. 
  
  Well it’s more like me saying that all cars are at least 51% (or majority) tires. Now imagine the definition of “tires” is “majority of tires” (similar to how the definition of selfish is concerned chiefly with your own personal pleasure). That means that all cars are tires. 
  
  Even altruism and dying for loved ones can be reduced to an act of ego.  A person finds their literal death preferable to the death of the person they believe themselves to be quite often. 
  
  This is similar to what my point is. 
  
  Logic is a good tool but a bad master.  You have said yourself it does not comport with reality seeming better or more good to you.  Jesus would call it the spirit, Socrates his Daemon, and Freud your conscience.  Whatever it is, always listen to it first and foremost and have a great day.😊
  
  I think that being disproved is what I need to get rid of this ideology and that’s why I posted this. You have a great day as well. >
  
  How exactly do you expect someone to change your view? Because it seems that anything someone argues does not bring happiness, you would argue it does. If I have a piece of information that would hurt someone else and I withhold that information to spare their wellbeing, even if they told me they didn't want to know, is that still selfish? Have I brought myself happiness even if the information is painful and I think they should know but telling them would unwillingly hurt them?