<p>Can moral acts be rendered immoral by "immoral" intentions? In other words, would it be bad to package food to be sent to starving children in Africa partly because you think that it'll help you in college admissions later on? I would argue no, or else paid policemen would be the most depraved members of society. Firemen, policemen, judges, attorneys, etc. would be abolished. In fact, jobs would not exist at all. The most fundamental components of society would fall apart -- this is not the way our society works. The alternative to the community service described would be to do no community service at all. Even a nihilist might cringe. The alternative to saving starving children in Africa -- even if the motivation is to augment the college resume -- is not saving starving children in Africa. That may be one hell of a motivation, but by either motivation -- college or altruism -- the effect is the same: the same starving children are saved.</p>
<p>Yet skeptics sometimes denounce the same community service done by an individual who looks forward to applying to Stanford next year, while praising the exact same work done by an individual who was in no position to apply anywhere. Indeed, they denounce work done in self-interest -- the very foundation of our market system -- as greedy and selfish. But self-interest is not bad. If you cure cancer as a high school Junior in an effort to win the Intel SIS award, you worked in self-interest; the cancer cure is no less "bad." The same analogy applies to community service. Isn't this how our capitalistic system is supposed to work?</p>
<p>A common refutation is to claim that people who do community service naturally do poorly because they aren't "truly interested" in their work. But this is fallacious; paid policemen, firemen, and doctors do far better than their volunteer counterparts. As has been stated before, if the skeptic concerns were true, we would abolish all paid police facilities, fire stations, and hospitals. Our society does not operates under the principles outlined by these skeptics.</p>
<p>^haha my first thought exactly.
I think that it’s kind of sketchy when that’s the ONLY reason you do it. But doing something like community service because you like it, plus you know it’ll help college apps isn’t really a problem in my mind. Colleges want you to do things because you enjoy them and they represent you, not simply because you think it will help your chances of getting in to Stanford or some other college.
Also, lay off on the flowery writing. It just sounds like you’re trying too hard, imo.</p>
<p>Sikorsky, you assume that Smith is correct. There are philosophers with competing views. I don’t particularly subscribe to his views; in my opinion, many of his beliefs are not true. You may disagree, and that’s OK. But that doesn’t constitute a rational defense.</p>
<p>Your second link refers to a satirical website. Satire cannot constitute a counterargument as much as obliterating straw men can.</p>
<p>I believe no one does any sort of community service without hoping for some sort of utility, even if that utility is the happiness derived from helping. For others, that utility is not enough.</p>
<p>[I just realized this post is in the High School Life forum. The error is mine. This is a perfectly fine topic for you all to discuss, and I should not have intruded. I apologize.]</p>
<p>We can consider the motive separately from the end result. The motive can be icky even if the end result is positive.</p>
<p>(If I only help people when it would directly benefit me, that’s problematic even if a situation never comes up in which helping someone wouldn’t benefit me. It also implies that I might be willing to hurt someone when it would benefit me…cheating is a common form of this.)</p>
<p>I helped a person last year and he screwed me and yes I didn’t have any benefit. When there isn’t benefit to both parties, one party will assume</p>
<p>“why is he doing this? he has some sort of benefit. so, I should ask for more”
“Hell, I am doing this without a cause but he is to immoral. he is asking for more from me.”</p>
<p>bottomline: there should be some sort of benefit. It makes things better.</p>
<p>tl;dr: it’s ok to do community service just for college applications.
you kind of need to volunteer to be accepted to colleges iirc. isn’t there like a 160+ hr req?</p>
<p>Of course not…no college application that I’ve ever seen asks anything about volunteer hours. It can be one of your ECs, but it doesn’t have to be, and it’s not as impressive as people think. (Why would colleges be impressed by unskilled menial labor you did for probably fewer than five hours a week solely for the sake of college applications? I mean, 160 hours in your whole high school career isn’t even an hour a week.)</p>
<p>so, it’s not the deciding factors. but there are people who would want to write essays on “voila! how one afternoon with ( ) changed my entire belief” or for community service scholarship applications.</p>
<p>As long as you understand what you’re doing is helping people, and aren’t being a **** and saying things like “uhhhh, I don’t want to be here” it’s fine. If you understand the importance about volunteer work it’s fine I guess.</p>
<p>You’re assuming that the college admissions process or getting paid for work is immoral. I wouldn’t say those things are immoral.</p>
<p>How about an unambiguous example? You’re trying to kill someone by poisoning him. Unbeknownst to you, you grabbed the wrong pill and actually gave that person medicine, helping him. What would you say about the morality of the attempted poisoner’s actions?</p>
<p>omg nvm ignore this post
I need to read things more carefully >.<</p>
<p>Edit 2: Actually, my counterexample still works. Giving someone medicine is a moral action, and I would think in this situation most people would condemn the attempted poisoner even though the result is positive.</p>
<p>Wow. I liked your argument tomatox. I’ve got to say, that sometimes the world can’t get along with good intentions alone. We need to be self-centered to get ourselves ahead, and that allows humanity to get ahead. Progress is something we value, right? I know what you’re talking about. I’m an officer in a club, and to get more donations for a drive, I suggested to one of my English teachers that she offers extra credit to students who brought canned food in. I felt ashamed later,because she said that action was lacking in morals, teaching people to be generous for self-gain, rather than being truly altruistic. Yet, I thought about it later, and I thought, I don’t think the people getting the food care whether or not it was because of true kindness from the heart, because they actually have something to eat. In that case, I think it’s fine to value someone else’s well-being over teaching “morals” to teenagers. We’ll learn altruism when we have kids anyways, right?</p>
<p>Because who needs morals, right?
Of course you should encourage people to help others regardless of how they feel about it, and you should give them incentives if necessary…but IMO it’s not ideal for incentives to be necessary. </p>
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<p>So everything was okay in this case. But the problem is in the fact a theoretical person who only cares about her own self-interest might fail to help when it wouldn’t benefit her.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m too optimistic, but I think the vast majority of people already care about at least a few things other than themselves. People who completely lack empathy are considered mentally ill. I don’t believe it’s unnatural to try and coax altruistic feelings out of people. Empathy can be developed.</p>
<p>And I don’t think you need to feel warm and fuzzy to be moral or altruistic. It helps, but caring about others isn’t really about off-and-on emotions.</p>
<p>Halcyonheather…yeah I know I realized I was arguing a total either/or. It’s definitely true that many teenagers are empathetic, and willing to donate out of goodwill, but we’re busy, we’re forgetful, and extra credit is a wonderful incentive sometimes. Yes, it’s not ideal, but it works, and in the end, someone’s stomach is full because of it. Yep, and I agree that being altruistic isn’t about getting the “warm, fuzzy feeling” (I only really get that when I make my family/ friend really, really happy, but not through just putting some cans in a donation box). And no you’re not being too optimistic I do think most people have a selfless side that comes out when their heartstrings are pulled.</p>
<p>when it comes to college applications, i think the point is to show favorable traits. doing community service for college admissions still has the same outcome for those who are helped (assuming the volunteer cares enough to work hard), but it’s kind of ruining the point of showing it to colleges. if you can fake generosity to colleges then good for you, but volunteering all over the place may look phony. not that i think colleges will look down upon community service, but it might not be as great an impact if it doesn’t show anything special</p>
<p>I do community service for selfish reasons. I don’t really care about what I’m doing, but it’d hurt me a lot more not to have community service than it would hurt me to do some work I don’t like. I guess it’s disingenuous to try to appear to care about things that don’t matter to me, but that’s just the system. Hate the game, not the player. You can’t not have community service because there’s so many people who do. I’m willing to do some things I don’t like to get into college.</p>
I do think most people have a selfless side that comes out when their heartstrings are pulled.</p>