Yes, and the reason is that you are essentially trying to argue that right can mean wrong. I am assuming that right and wrong have two distinct meanings.



Because we are talking about right (moral) acts. A right action is self defeating if and only if the right action is a wrong action.

Maybe the confusion is over the phrase "self-defeating". A self defeating action is an action that accomplishes the opposite of it's intent. If action X is determined to be a right action, action X cannot be self defeating because we have already determined that action X is right.

Let's be careful, here. You say to give all of your food to the poor would be morally right, but the wrong thing to do because you would then starve. But there is a problem: you are suggesting that the morally right thing to do is to have no concern for your wellbeing. This seems to be an inadequate account of morality.

Alright, so we agree that a moral action cannot, by its very nature, be self defeating.

With this established, we can go back to the initial issue: whether or not a moral action can completely neglect the agent's well being. Because giving away all of your food will cause you to starve, giving away all of your food cannot be the right action because it defeats the purpose of acting rightly: it leads to your death which makes the purpose of acting rightly, to live rightly, impossible as you would then be dead.

So, we are left with the conclusions: 1) doing the moral thing cannot be self defeating, 2) the executives who accepted immense bonuses as their companies folded acted immorally, 3) said executives should not have accepted the money and should return the money.

The initial point of the thread was to discuss whether or not some executives should have accepted bonuses.

You argued that, due to some pragmatic concern, the executives should have taken the bonuses regardless of moral concerns.

Because acting rightly is just acting rightly, and because taking the bonuses was acting wrongly, your initial argument must be abandoned.

Yes. You were saying that it can't be moral to do what's not in your self-interest.

I don't see why. My point was that you don't have to act rightly.

I happen to agree that human beings are capable of acting wrongly.

So, sometimes the purpose of acting rightly is, to an extent, for the agent to defeat himself?
Do you mean actions such as scape-goating, whereby one individual takes the burden of the community's problem? It's an archetypal story line, Jesus being the most famous example. Or like Luke Skywalker. If so, I agree and there is no question on this point.