Saturday 2- Philosophy Café - Do we ever do anything out of true unselfishness ?

Redefine the question : selfish - do something for yourself at the expense of others. Unselfish do something in a fair way or detrimental to self interest. Do we do somethings that are detrimental to ourselves ?
- of course crazy people sometimes do
- redefine question : Do rational people do somethings that are detrimental to themselves relative to others ?
- of course the doer always has a positive feedback effect - he gets something the others don't the positive feeling from doing the right thing and maybe a reward in Heaven.
It's impossible to quantify the effect of feeling. If her mother gives her time to children, but doesn't get a large good feeding then she is irrational. -
So I say no action can be unselfiish and rational.
- If we do something for self interest, but doesn't effect others : it's not selfish. But it can't be unselfiish.

Andrew illustrated with the 2 robbers dilemma
2 brother robbers caught and will get 1 year unless they dob the other for the big theft, then they will be pardoned : options A1 B1, A0 B10, A10 B0, A10 B10, If both are unselfiish then the family loses 2 years, if both are selfish the the family lose 20 years - so this says it’s best to be unselfiish. but I would argue that doesn't apply generally, cos could come up with another example whereby it would be better to be selfish : Drawing competition prize is $10, no one else enters, so if one enters he will win, if they both enter then at least they will get half each.

Saturday 3 - Philosophy Cafe - Is self delusion ever justified ? - Define - is lying to yourself OK ? , No cos good decisions are based on truth. Can be argued that the rule can't be "hard and fast", sometimes it's OK to lie, if it prevents suicide etc. An important point is most people spend most of their lives deluded .. They believe in a happy Christmas when almost certainly there will be rows. They are constantly chasing dreams, big house, ideal marriage, dream vacation etc which won't make them as happy as they think... It gives them something to live for, but spend a lot of time running up the wrong track. Andrew tried to tie it in with dilemma games, but this is just errors in logic not self delusion. I think