Selfishness

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(Redirected from Egotistical)

"Selfishness" is, at base, the concept and/or practise of concern with one's own interests in some sort of priority to the interests of others; it is often used to refer to a self-interest that comes in a particular form, or above a certain level.

1 Selfishness regarded as bad
2 Selfishness regarded as good, or a healthy thing
3 Group selfishness (as compared to individual selfishness)
4 General
5 See also
6 References
7 External Links

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Selfishness regarded as bad

In modern western culture, the term usually connotes self-concern that is excessive or improper (in the sense of harming others) rather than self-interest itself. It is considered by many to be a negative character trait.

In particular, it is traditionally proscribed by most religions, and many non-religious philosophies see it as either evil in itself or a source of evil (because human society would be unable to function if everyone chose to be entirely selfish: some give and take, generosity, cooperation and a willingness to help others who may presently not be in a position to reciprocate are all needed if civilisation is to work happily, peacefully and effectively).

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Selfishness regarded as good, or a healthy thing

There are some non-religious philosophies that hold a positive view of selfishness, usually on the basis that it isn't what the common usage refers to, and that the identification of 'promotion of the self' with 'evil' is an unhealthy practice that actually devalues some good qualities such as productivity or the taking of personal responsibility. After all, one needs to act in a mainly self-interested way, using one's time, energy and resources for one's own benefit to some degree, focussing on the advancement of the self, in order to get anywhere useful in life, so why should doing that be regarded as wrong, or labelled as harmful or inappropriate?

Similarly, an individual might ask himself why he ought to choose to act unselfishly anyway if he has no guarantee in advance that others in the world will not act selfishly. One will tend to act selfishly for one's own self-protection, in a world where one mainly encounters others doing the same.

The best known example is probably the Objectivist philosophy of Ayn Rand, which focuses on what it calls "rational selfishness" or "rational self-interest." The philosophy holds that individuals should not act on momentary self-interested whims but on what is in their long-term self-interest, which is defined to require respecting the individual liberty of others by refraining from initiating coercion against them.

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Group selfishness (as compared to individual selfishness)

Naturally, selfishness usually refers to the self - that is, to the individual. However, in common speech, a group of people can be accused of "selfishness" too, in the sense that members of that group are not concerned with the welfare of anyone outside their group but are only inward-looking: concentrating on the needs of the group.

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General

In philosophy, the term egoism is usually related to "self-interest" rather than "selfishness." Professional writers are often careful to make a clear distinction between the words egoism and egotism, with the second referencing the character trait virtually everyone agrees is negative, and the first referring to the controversial, philosophical ideologies affiliated with the individual.

Based on the theory of the iterated prisoner's dilemma, evolutionary biologists and game-theorists come to the conclusion that selfishness is - besides cooperation among relatives and genetically programmed behaviour - the basis for cooperation among individuals of the same or different species.

For the opposite of selfishness, see altruism.

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