You missed a few, but you got most of them.
Well, as I said, it's been awhile, so I'm curious which ones I left off.
I'd also like to note that most of them are invalid. For example, if you are dead, there is no social reward that you can receive.
You proceed from the false assumption that application is exclusive to only one aspect of the list provided. There can be, and usually are, more than one reason for any such heroic effort. Although there may be a primary motivation for any action, they are rarely singular.
But to your specific example, you are incorrect in the case of social reward, as: the individual may not consider that their actions would result in their death; found death to be a secondary consideration; or felt that the social reward (honor, glory, remembrance, etc.) would be worth their death.
Most ethicists consider "sense of honor" to be a badge of altruism in and of itself.
Great, then you can provide evidence from these ethicists to support that claim. And since we're being so technically specific, do be certain to reflect the "most" portion of your claim.
Additionally, from my reading and understanding on the concept of honor, especially as it applies to altruism, the individual measures himself/herself against a set of strictures, a code if you will, set up along lines social, cultural, economic, etc. They are then motivated to conduct themselves along the lines of that code as a reflection within the defined group, the perception of themselves to that group, and how the group will react to them in most matters. To keep themselves in good standing, be heard on certain matters, held to be trustworthy and so forth, they must maintain the code. Alternately, if they do not hold to the code, they find they have reduced or poor standing, are less to unlikely to be listened to on matters great or small, and are not considered trustworthy. It is, therefor, a very selfishly motivated concept.
I'd also like to note that "training" is not necessarily in your self-interest; in fact, it's very easy to "train" animals to do stuff that is decidedly NOT in their self-interest.
Untrue. There is a reward/reason for acceptance of the training. For the animal it is usually postive/negative reinforcement. If the animal does a thing correctly, it receives a reward. If it does not, it receives a punishment or lack of reward. Same with humans. To go against Mark Twain here,
that is very,
very much a self-interested reaction.
But the real challenge: Prove that ALL such "valor in battle" incidents can be explained away by one or more of the valid elements of the previous list; that that list is exhaustive.
Not really a challenge, but I'll address that in a moment. The
real chellenge: provide me with one instance where "such [a] 'valor in battle'" incident can be explained away by" pure altruism. Just one please.
You can't do that. And the reason is very simple : you're wrong, and it's very hard to prove a statement that just isn't true.
Oh sure I can, and no I'm not. I wouldn't continue to argue a concept, belief, idea that I believed was wrong or untrue. Altruism is a myth.
However, in order to keep the argument going at a reasonable rate, I could not address your specific requirement without a great deal of time and effort. Time and effort I am certainly willing to put forth in specific research and response, but which would hold up our otherwise jaunty discussion. On the otherside, I will concede outright if you can provide one instance where a Congressional Medal of Honor recipient acted out of pure altruistic motivation.
To quote you, "You can't do that. And the reason is very simple: you're wrong, and it is very hard to prove a statement that just isn't true."
