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Message: <blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 1930807" data-attributes="member: 27012">It's my experience that when someone defines a word used to make a distinction in such a way that the distinction can't be made or the concept can't exist, the problem lies in the definition being used and not in the word or distinction.For an act to be altruistic or selfless in a meaningful and recognizable sense, it doesn't need to be joyless or without any emotional benefit to the person doing it.  It simply has to put the welfare of others before the welfare of the person doing the act.  That they get such a great feeling of happiness from the act such that they are willing to sacrifice their own wealth, property, or even life in order to help others does not negate the fact that they are sacrificing of themselves to help others or that they are putting the welfare of others before their own welfare. One of the characteristics of a sociopath is that they can believe that what they are doing is good, to the point of even claiming that their victims enjoyed being victimized.  The last thread where I talked about criminal psychology and real world examples got locked so I'll simply say that it looks to me like your definition is morally relative and could allow a sociopath to be defined as Good.Do you really find it that difficult to differentiate an action motivated out of altrusim from an action motivated out of pragmatic self interest or cruelty?</blockquote>