What about an issue of personal beliefs? Say you absoltely hate someone. You truly hope they die a painful death. Then you see that person getting jumped by three guys in an alley simply cause the guy is jewish or whatever, and you really disagree with hate crimes. So you help him out, he lives, you go on hating him. If anything, it would pain you to stop such a thing and you get no satisfaction out of it, since you hate him so much, but you've helped him out. Or is there an implied satisfaction gained by doing the right thing, despite the fact that your own dissatisfaction for helping this individual is greater?

By the way, Philosophical arguments both intrigue me and make me want to kill philosophers.

Lee

Although I'm inclined to agree with Cactus Jack I think it is a percentage proposition. We do things for say 85% selfless motivations and 15% selfish.

Then I run into stories like this:

If you understand that courage isn't the absence of fear; it's taking action in spite of your fears, then maybe selfless acts happen in spite of selfish thoughts/motivations that argue against their happening?

In the Marine's case I'd argue 95/5 and be very willing to eat the 5....