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Comment by backlava | Hacker News Reader

Your rhetorical style here is off-putting. I don't think he's committed any logical fallacy. It's perfectly possible to do charitable work selfishly. For example, if you were offered a choice between saving two lives or, for the same money, saving only one life but getting a nice packet documenting the one life saved, it's selfish to choose the latter for the purpose of making yourself feel better. Even though you're still doing good.

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Actually you're wrong, using a variant of a false dilemma, both options are selfless, you're also annoyingly redefining the word selfish. Yes my last reply was a bit harsh, but the previous guy's a bit of an idiot in trying to claim I was 'not convinced' rather than admit his obvious mistake.

The key to your intellectual fallacy is that you've presented it as a 'choice', while missing out option 3, which is do nothing, or option 4, which is exploit the situation and ask to be paid for saving the life, or option 5 which is to expediate the deaths.

Suddenly both option 1 & 2 look good.

Both you and the op are suggesting we live in a world where perfection is the only possible way you can be selfless. The real world is a spectrum of white to black. In the real world it's impossible to be perfect and pretty good outcomes are still morally acceptable.

That binary outlook is convenient for you, but not the whole story. Something can be more selfish when compared with something else. It isn't a switch. I understand ignoring that makes for righteous indignation which feels good, so go right ahead.

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