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Posted

It's really different for everyone. Some people sacrifice because they've been taught that it's good to do so. Others because it's a loved one to whom they are giving. There are many religious theories out there on this, but you might want to check Evolutionary Psychology as well.

 

Ethics and evolutionary psychology - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A key question for evolutionary psychology to address is how altruistic feelings and behaviors evolved when the process of natural selection is based on competition between different genes.

 

Key theories

Kin altruism: Altruism between close relatives can be selected for (i.e. the genes disposing an organism towards the behaviour could have succeeded) if the donor and recipient are significantly more related than two individuals picked from the population at random. This is because there is a high-enough probability that copies of the genes predisposing the organisims towards the altruistic beahviour are contained in the genome of both parties involved.

 

(Direct) reciprocal altruism: This is the basic "You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" relationship and lies at the heart of evolutionary ethics. It states that by helping others at some cost to ourself, we can receive help in return which can make the altruism ultimately beneficial to the genes that predispose organisms towards it.

 

(Indirect) reciprocal altruism expands this concept to include reciprocation by third parties, and indicates the possible evolutionary importance of 'moral' reputation.

 

Group selection theories. These argue that genes which dispose organisms to benefit the entire group or species, regardless of any benefit to the individual concerned relative to others in the group, may still have succeeded during evolution, thus providing an additional, and possibly 'higher' basis for ethics.

 

 

I've moved the thread to Philosophy, as you're really asking, in a subtle way, a much deeper question than any one branch of science can adequately answer. :hyper:

Posted
Why do we sacrafice?
If you meant sacrifice; Some sacrifice to loose weight. Some may sacrifice their time to serve the needs of others. A good education deserves the sacrifice of not only time, money, and energy but also many times the preconceived ideas of the one being educated. It might be good if we examine the word a little. In my opinion, the sacrifice should never be of more value than the objective and or reason for it. One must then ask, can it really be defined as a true sacrifice? A fruitless sacrifice makes no sense and serves no purpose. A fruitless sacrifice can only be defined as foolishness........Infy
Posted

I don't know about you,

but deep down I want to sacrafice something.

I don't want to hurt any animal, but there's still this primal part of me

that wants to end life.

It's mysterious, very controlled, and subtle.

I've never actually sacraficed anything,

but the desire remains.

It's just fascinating . . I seek to know

why this impulse surfaces.

Posted
Why does a suicide bomber sacrifice his life and as many others as possible??
Because he's no longer with us, we can only assume that he falsely believes his act of suicide will promote the agenda of the group he follows. As I pointed out earlier, Foolishness........................Infy
Posted
Prefix:

Sac

 

Kind of like Sacred.

Indeed, sacrifice is from the Latin for "make sacred". It's like, "give something up for a superior purpose".
Posted
I don't know about you,

but deep down I want to sacrafice something.

I don't want to hurt any animal, but there's still this primal part of me

that wants to end life.

It's mysterious, very controlled, and subtle.

I've never actually sacraficed anything,

but the desire remains.

It's just fascinating . . I seek to know

why this impulse surfaces.

 

 

Save for arguably fruit, everything you eat was alive and killed and so sacrificed. No need to go out in search; much need to go in. :D

Posted

Sacrifices, from the word, sacred, is sort of an exchange of ego-centricity for a higher good. Back in the ancient days, when they would sacrifice cattle, for example, that sacrifice meant a loss of wealth. The ego doesn't mind giving it to charity, for consumption by others so they can recieve a warm fuzzy pat on the back (plus tax deduction). But to kill the cattle and throw them into the fire, so it is totally gone, meant one did not recieved any direct ego-centric benefit. It probably hurt. Many probably had to brag to get something back for the ego. In that case the sacrifice was worth less to the gods (minus what the ego took back).

 

In modern times, sacrificing ego-centricities, are still performed to reach a higher good. For example, the male will sacrifice his wild ways when he marries, so he can become a good husband and father. He is sacrificing ego-centric me for ego-centric us. If he doesn't make that sacrifice, he will often be worse at both.

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