You are the accidental byproduct of nature. As an overgrown germ, your life has no intrinsic worth, nor do those within your kin. All of the emotions that you feel, all of the worth that you give them is illusory. For they are overgrown germs, just as you are. They are just as worthless as you are.
In a relatively short time, you will perish. Your children will offer stories of you in an effort to recreate your personality. Alas, similar to a game of telephone, it will become more distorted as the generations pass. Eventually, recollections of your life will devolve in recollections of recollections of your life. It can be taken as certain: a time will come wherein nobody will know that you ever existed.
One might reply that you affected the human race in a positive manner; that while your memory has faded into irrelevancy, your positivity carries on. But to this I can only reply that this will perish as well. Mankind's extinction can be taken as invariable. The sun will incinerate the earth and all of its' inhabitants in a relatively short time. Any minor role you might have played; whether you fed hungry children in the continent of Africa, pulled an old man from a burning car, made your neighbor feel welcome, in the final analysis, renders completely irrelevant. Empty space will reign the universe, and all traces of your existence, your DNA, your studies, and your good works will be forever forgotten.
Perhaps another life will form somewhere else in the universe and evolve with a completely different set of ethics. Perhaps they will believe that we ought kill, that we ought steal, we ought lie, that we ought serve ourselves. Perhaps they will be born with inherent knowledge of their mortality, and thus, also born into the philosophy that aligns most coherently with the truth of mortality, namely, that we ought to live exclusively for the self.
If there is no immortality, then any impulse to rescue a human being would be a foolish endeavor. It is merely a byproduct of the herd altruism, and thus, to abide it, is to act in the benefit of the herd. But as a highly evolved species, we know better than to blindly trust our instincts, for they quite often suggest that we do what is not in our best interest.
MSNBC recently carried the story of a man who blindly followed his instincts. Christopher Willden saw an overturned vehicle caught in a river. Two young girls were being rapidly carried downstream. Without a thought for himself, Willden plummeted into the rushing water and saved the girls.
Upon examination, Willden's actions become one of stupidity. He jeopardized his very mortality in obeying primitive instincts. If the risk entails ceasing the exist, we ought to be aware, as highly evolved primates, that such an impulse that would dictate that we execute it is the mere byproduct of our evolution, no less than a pre-inclination toward rage.
We have no real obligation to each other, but rather, it would benefit the self further if we trained ourselves to become indifferent toward the suffering of others, lest we find ourselves acting in the wretched stupidity that is self-sacrifice.
In conclusion, I cannot conceive of any reason that on naturalism, an action like self-sacrifice would be anything other than foolish.
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