Topics — What a work is about. Nucleation holds whatever reading the owner files here, whether or not an Anthology of the SOTA topic could also hold it; instruction for ML practice belongs to the anthology (ADR-048). The words are seeded from the clusters the reading-time triage of 2026-09-25 found, and grow by decision.
Altruism and self-interest — whether and how action can aim at another’s good rather than one’s own — psychological egoism and its rivals, the empathy–altruism debate and self–other merging, inclusion of others in the self and identity fusion, team reasoning and group-directed preferences, identity in the utility function, the evolution of unselfish behaviour (kin, reciprocal and group selection), and the extent of the self as it bears on what counts as self-interest (ADR-062).
3 of 371 QUESTION documents. Back to the full index.
| # | Title | Summary | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| QUESTION-299 | What, if anything, do the living owe people who will live in the far future, and does that obligation rest on the good of those people, on an impersonal good, or on what the living themselves value? | The owner’s extension of 2026-10-29 of the legacy line (QUESTION-301) to obligations toward the future, “e.g. longtermism”. Longtermism holds that the far future’s size makes its welfare dominate present choices, on an impersonal view. Person-affecting views owe nothing to merely possible people, and the non-identity problem makes even harms to actual future people hard to state. Scheffler grounds concern for the future in what the living value. Lay judgement reaches the far future only when prompted. Which ground holds decides whether the owner’s thesis has a counterexample here. | Open |
| QUESTION-300 | Is any motivation aimed at another’s good and at the good of no self, however far a self can extend to include others and groups? | The owner’s question, from the discussion that first raised self-categorization theory (2026-10-28 and 29). If selves can be more or less inclusive, as self-categorization theory, self-expansion and identity fusion all say, is apparently selfless action just self-interest on an enlarged self? An answer needs a criterion of the self’s extent that is independent of what the agent cares about, and evidence on whether other-directed motivation survives once that extent is controlled. | Open |
| QUESTION-301 | Is acting for one’s legacy, for how one is remembered or for people who will live after one’s death, self-interest on a self extended in time, as collectivism on the owner’s thesis is self-interest on a self extended across people? | The owner’s angle of 2026-10-29, opened by Johnston’s Surviving Death, whose good person lives on in “the onward rush of humankind”. The owner’s thesis (CLAIM-491) enlarges the self across people; legacy enlarges it across time, past death. Psychology measures the temporal extent the way it measures the social one (overlap circles for the future self), and finds legacy motivation drives concern for future generations. Philosophy offers three readings of that concern: an extended self, interests that outlast death (Pitcher), and dependence on a future we will not see (Scheffler). | Open |