Doing The Right Thing

For the wrong reasons...

I recently heard this saying, doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, and it has me thinking about it. In the context that I heard this quote, it was from the perspective that it was actually wrong to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, and I am not so sure I agree with that. Frankly, when it comes to personal motivations, I am not certain those have any bearing on the outcome.

Let’s say I meet someone new. I am nice to them because it is what I have learned is necessary. I wasn’t nice to them because I was nice, but because I consider it a necessary action in order for my life to be simpler. Do they need to know that? Does that create any change to the outcome?

This comes to mind because of the mask that I utilize. Every interaction that I have with others is guided by this mask. I create a person that they can feel is giving them the emotional feedback that they require to be okay in any given situation. I do this to make my life easier. It has little to do with them, other than I am governing their reactions to me. If you break this down to more basic terms, it is social nicety that they are accustomed to, and I am obligated to provide if I am interested in not dealing with negative fallout.

This of course is a minor version of doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, but I think this is equally applied to neurotypicals, and what they choose to do. Should we care that the lady who runs the charity drives does it because it makes her feel good or useful? Or, should we just be glad that someone is doing it, and people benefit?

Altruism is something where this argument gets a lot of traction. There seems to be a race to claim what the term means and when it matters. I don’t think that it does matter. Do you care if your life is saved by someone that did it for clout, or would you rather have died? I personally would rather live. Altruism has this unspoken requirement of selflessness, which I would argue makes it nearly impossible for it to exist. I have been asked if psychopaths are the only altruistic people because our actions are simply done without care about the possible recognition for doing so.

Psychopaths will help someone in need if it is something that needs to be done. It isn’t going to be done because we want people to praise us, it doesn’t make us feel good about ourselves, it is just something that needs to be done, so we do it. I call this necessary action, but it is something that neurotypicals seems to have a difficult time understanding. It seems, in order to undertake actions for others, there is a need to feel something in order to motivate that behavior. Psychopaths lack this. We simply see a problem, then solve it.

For me, compassion is dispassionate. It is action absent of feeling. It is seeing something that needs doing, and doing it without the drive of compunction to get me going.

If I see a loaf of bread lying on the floor of the grocery aisle, I pick it up and put it away. It is an action that needs to be done. I don’t empathize with the bread, I don’t need kudos for doing it, and I don’t need the bread to be suffering. All there needs to be is an action in necessity of doing, and it is done. The same can be said for putting my cart away back at the front of the store, or in a cart return. I consider this a requirement.

Another example:

One of my inner circle and I were driving around and went under an overpass that was right next to the train tracks. Stuck on the tracks with two wheels in the rut of the tracks was a homeless man in a wheelchair. He was hopelessly stuck, and no one else would be around anytime soon. Trains ran through this area multiple times a day. I happen to know that a train takes well over a mile to come to a stop, so should one come, this man would be hit, without a doubt.

Neither my friend nor I said anything. She stopped, and we both got out and lifted his chair out of the rut. He thanked us profusely, we made sure he was on the side of the tracks he needed to be, and we went on our way. It was done because it was a solvable problem. It was addressed, and we went on with our day.

Same thing. I feel no empathy for him, I don’t need kudos for helping him, and he doesn’t need to be suffering. There is an action, and a solution. I enact that solution and move on.

However, my friend did feel bad for him, and she did feel good about helping him. Does that remove her actions, or cancel out the results? No. That guy lived that day. I couldn’t have lifted that chair by myself, and neither could she. So, should our individual actions be canceled out because we had different motivations? Should she have thought to herself, “Hmm, I would only be helping him because I will feel good about myself, so I’m not going to indulge my selfish side”?

Or, how about, “I won’t get anything out of helping this dude, so nuts to him”?

I don’t think that anyone would find either of those reasons to be acceptable. Nor do I think if we had helped him, but also informed him of our thought processess, he would care all that much. He didn’t get hit by a train. Who cares why the people did what they did. He didn’t die.

Compassion to me is action without feeling. I find action with feeling to usually be entirely rooted in self-service of the ego and emotions in the end. Psychopaths tend to be more pragmatic about things.

We don’t do things for the sake of altruism. We do things that need to be done in the moment provided a couple of criteria are met. One, it is a solvable problem. I am not interested in world peace, or the social justice movement, or things of that sort. They are problems trying to solve problems. There is no solution to these sorts of things, so that sort of thing is never undertaken.

Two. What are we doing in that moment. If I am busy, occupied, what have you, I likely will not notice anything outside my current purview. Even if there is a solvable problem, unless I am bored, I won’t notice.

After this, it’s just a problem that I can solve. I do so without real concern for the altruism of it, or lack thereof. It is a course of action, I take it, and that’s the end of it. I won’t think of it again unless it is asked of me, or someone else brings it up.

I don’t feel anything regarding these actions either. I don’t think that doing something to help another person because it makes you feel good fits the definition of altruism.

al·tru·ism

ˈaltro͞oˌizəm/

noun

the belief in or practice of disinterested and selfless concern for the well-being of others.

It specifically says disinterested and selfless concern. Gaining pleasure from it is an interest for the person undertaking it. It also isn’t selfless, they want a payoff. That makes me think that the definition is dumb.

Can neurotypicals be good people? Can they have good intentions? Can they actually have the desire to cause good, or are they entirely predatory/selfish? I think that assuming that because actions have personal motivation that they are somehow not as significant in terms of world impact. If the action is done, that seems to be the important part in my estimation.

This question is easily asked the other way round and the response is going to be the same. NTs are individuals. The way that they are wired is certainly part of them, but it is not all of them. How they are raised, their individual personalities, their goals, and their self reflection capability all comes into play here.

Let’s pose an experiment. Let’s evaluate the same situation with two different people. One psychopathic, on neurotypical. The scenario is as follows.

Driving along one day in an isolated area, the person comes across a young woman walking alone. She has no water, she is dirty, she looks exhausted and bruised. Pulling alongside after assessing that she posed no danger, but might be at risk, the person driving offers her a ride. After picking her up, it is discovered that she has run away from an abusive relationship. She has been walking for hours, and she is terrified that her soon-to-be ex will come looking for her, and accost her along the side of the road.

The driver decides to help. They offer to drive her to the police station, or to the hospital. She agrees to go to the police station and file a report. The driver stays the entire time, at the end, taking her to get some food, and get her to a battered woman’s shelter where she will be safe. Then the driver leaves.

For the person that is neurotypical, this event is significant. They feel pretty good about themselves, and they tell the story to their friends. They enjoy the kudos, and think that they have done a very good deed for the day. Maybe has an extra drink or dessert as a reward.

The psychopath drops the young woman off, and doesn’t think about her, or the situation again. If they are asked about their day, they don’t say a word. Not because they are hiding it, or something like that, it’s just not significant to them. They did what needed to be done, it’s over, they don’t dwell on it. There is no self congratulations, or reward for themselves.

Which set of actions do you judge good? Which set do you judge bad? Can you judge them at all? Does the NT getting a good feeling off of it sully it in any way? Does the psychopath not thinking about it again after mean that their intentions were bad, or just that it doesn’t continue making an impact?

I doubt you can find fault either way. Motives might be different, or they might be identical. The results for the young woman are the same, but the results for the drivers are not. For the psychopath, good or bad doesn’t come into play. It is a set of actions that need to be undertaken, and a situation that needs to be solved. That’s the beginning and the end of the story for them. What you take from that story is your own subjective view of good or bad.

I think that it is important to think about the outcome, and not worry so much about the motivation, unless you suspect that the person is trying to do something underhanded that might cause more harm than good. That whole, “too good to be true”, thing that you need to look out for. son?

Altruism, compassion, I think that the reasoning behind it is far less important to the effect on the world. Does it matter that the reason you took your grocery cart back instead of leaving it in the parking space, is because you want to feel good about being a good person? Good lord, no. I think that the next person that goes to pull into the space will just be glad that it’s clear, and they don’t have to stop their car, move a cart, before they can go into the store.

Maybe in the comments section, you guys can make an argument that will challenge my thoughts on this. I encourage it, I like thinking about things from another angle, so by all means, tell me if you think I am wrong.