I said something in my last post that many people will argue with. So I want to deal with those objections. I asked ChatGPT to point out exceptions to my statement “When you help others, you help yourself. When you hurt others, you hurt yourself.” Here is what it said.
Certainly. While the statement “When we help others, we are always helped. When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves” reflects a noble and often true ideal rooted in many philosophical, psychological, and spiritual traditions, it is not universally true in every context. Here are exceptions and nuances to consider:
🧭 Exceptions to “When we help others, we are always helped”
1. Exploitation by Others
Helping someone does not guarantee reciprocal benefit. Some people may exploit kindness repeatedly without offering help in return or even acknowledging it.
- Example: An employee continuously covers a coworker’s responsibilities, only to be overlooked or even undermined by that coworker.
2. Helping Can Harm the Helper
Some acts of help may harm the helper emotionally, financially, or physically—especially when boundaries are not respected.
- Example: A person drains their savings helping a friend, falling into financial ruin themselves.
3. Unintended Consequences
Sometimes help backfires and creates dependency or even resentment.
- Example: Helping someone avoid consequences (e.g., enabling an addiction) may actually delay their growth and hurt both parties.
4. Self-Sacrifice in Unjust Systems
In unjust societal or corporate systems, helpful people can be systematically marginalized or punished.
- Example: Whistleblowers often act to help others or society but suffer retaliation or career damage.
🩹 Exceptions to “When we hurt others, we hurt ourselves”
1. Lack of Empathy or Conscience
Some individuals (e.g., sociopaths) may harm others without remorse or personal distress.
- Example: A ruthless leader may exploit employees for personal gain without apparent psychological suffering.
2. Systemic Harm That Benefits the Perpetrator
Some actions hurt others while directly benefiting the one causing harm—at least in the short or medium term.
- Example: A corporation profits from polluting the environment, harming local communities without feeling any “hurt” themselves—at least not immediately.
3. Displacement of Harm
Harmful actions may not boomerang on the individual but may instead impact society, future generations, or distant others.
- Example: Policy decisions that hurt marginalized groups might not affect the decision-makers directly.
4. Unawareness of Harm
Some people may harm others unintentionally and never realize it. Without awareness, there’s no psychological cost to them.
- Example: Someone spreading misinformation in good faith may harm others’ health or decisions without ever feeling any harm themselves.
🧠 Philosophical and Psychological Context
- Karma, humanistic psychology, and moral philosophy tend to support the idea that helping is good for the self and hurting others erodes the self.
- However, realpolitik, behavioral economics, and evolutionary psychology acknowledge that self-interest often leads to harm of others without direct self-harm—especially in competitive environments.
🧩 Conclusion
The statement is a moral aspiration or guiding principle, not a universal law. It holds true often, especially in the long term or in emotionally rich human relationships, but many short-term exceptions and systemic distortions prove otherwise.
Human here. I am going to address its points to show it is wrong.
- You can’t avoid exploitation by others. In its example it talked about a short term situation. I have had the situation where I did another coworkers work because they weren’t doing it and that coworker undermined me and even got credit for it. I left that company but not because of that. Kindness is always exploited and it is difficult to tell when that is the case. Many times you will take what someone says at face value and later find out it is a lie. I choose to believe in peoples good intentions, and I would rather live a life where I sometimes am exploited then always being suspicious of others motivations.That will only make me bitter and lead me to a non positive and unhelpful attitude.
- That is an extreme example. If you help someone in that way by draining your bank account, you can’t help yourself or others. A wise helper doesn’t do for others what they need to do for themselves. This is not a valid objection because you are causing yourself a problem, which doesn’t help you or anyone else.
- There are always unintended consequences. You have to be wise again in how you help someone. Being codependent or not facing the consequences doesn’t help people to grow. However it is hard for people to grow when they are in an addiction or metal issues or many other situations. Almost always there is a possibility of kindness, and the world needs more kindness. When we had cruelly in history, it only caused more cruelty and resentment.
- Without whistle-blowers and other people who self-sacrifice we wouldn’t have the quality of life that we do. No matter the consequences at times all citizens need to act. This part of being a citizen. With rights come responsibilities. You are arguing for a world in which you only think of yourself, and that is not society it is mutual narcissism.
Now lets tackle the other side.
- I worked for ruthless leaders and they abused me and other coworkers. They are suffering, and they are suffering worse than anyone. They can’t love themselves and so they can’t love others. No one avoids responsibility. They may have short term financial or other benefits, but eventually the truth comes out. Even if it doesn’t, the quality of their interpersonal relationships are poor. I know this first hand from seeing it. Rich people are afraid of others only liking them for their wealth. They are highly predisposed to suicide and other factors. Heavy medication and alcohol use. How is that not apparently suffering?
- Same arguments as #1.
- If it affects society it affects them. Deporting immigrants hurts food prices and agriculture. How does that not hurt them? A divided desperate society makes rich people a target, and they are a target right now. Remember United Health Care CEO being shot?
- Everyone has unintentional awareness of Harm. We all ignorantly hurt others by our actions and our inactions. We are all guilty of hurting others by our indifference and apathy. We will all be judged if there is a god for this. If there isn’t a god, we all have made a world that is cruel and needlessly so.
These arguments haven’t convinced me. They will never convince me that hurting our human family or failing to help them is what we are called to do.