Benjamin asked:

I was reading some old entries in hope to expand the knowledge of philosophy in my simple college
student brain and I found one topic, which was brought up a few times, very interesting. It was on
egoism and altruistic beliefs. What I gathered from the entry was that people who are unselfish
practice this only for themselves. Which is selfish. My question is... Could someone elaborate on this
idea for me so that I can understand it more clearly?

Reason: Every time that I go out of my way to help someone now I think that I am just trying to be
selfish. It is obviously one of those human instinct things that everyone does, but how can I try to
control my selfishness and when do you draw the line between selfishness being a good thing or a
bad thing?

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First of all, I think, you have to distinguish between being selfish and being self-interested. A person is
selfish only if he is taking something from another to which he is not entitled in the first place. He is
not selfish just because he is acting in what he believes to be his own best interest.

Let me illustrate what I mean:

A mother leaves two pieces of cake for her sons, and writes them a note telling them that one is for
Billy, and the other is for Johnny. Billy arrives home first, and takes his own piece of cake, and leaves
the other for Johnny. Billy is doing something he believes he is in his own self-interest. But he is not
being selfish. Now suppose that Billy arrives home first and not only takes his own piece of cake, but
also takes his brother's as well. Now, when Billy's mother finds out about this, she would certainly be
justified in calling Billy selfish. But would she have been justified in calling Billy selfish just because he
took his own piece of cake and not Johnny's? Of course not. But in that case, Billy was acting
self-interestedly, wasn't he? So, it is a confusion to mix up self-interest with selfishness. To call
someone "selfish" is to make a negative moral judgment about him. But "self-interested" is neutral.
Most of what you and I do is motivated by self-interest. If I go to bed when I am tired, that is
self-interest.

Now to deal with your question more specifically. You say that when you go out of your way to help
someone you think you are being selfish. But why? Going out of your way to help another is exactly
the sort of action which is called unselfish. Why would you call what is called "unselfish," "selfish?"

You don't say except that you "gathered" that from a book. I don't know whether the book actually
said that, or whether you were just misinterpreting. But it is true that some people (and the author of
that book may be one of those people) have got it into their heads that just wantingto do something
you do, makes your action, selfish. But that is nonsense. It is not wanting to do something that makes
your action selfish, but it is whatyou do, that makes your action selfish. That you want to do what you
do, just makes your action voluntary,but surely, not selfish. And that you voluntarilygo out of your
way to assist another (without being compelled to do it) makes your action laudable, and the very
opposite of a selfish action. To repeat: it isn't wanting to do something that makes that action selfish;
it is, rather, what you do when you do that action that makes it selfish (or, of course, unselfish) In fact,
that you actually wantto help others, makes you a nice person.

Ken Stern

Take a look at these:

Gintis, H. "The Hitchhiker's Guide to Altruism: Genes, Culture, and the Internalization of Norms."
Journal of Theoretical Biology220, no. 4 (2003): 407-18.

Gintis, H., S. Bowles, R. Boyd, and E. Fehr. "Explaining Altruistic Behavior in Humans." Evolution and
Human Behavior24 (2003): 153-72.

And you might also look at The Selfish Geneby Dawkins.

The idea you've seen is that any behavior can be rationalized as selfish or egoistic... if you're helping
someone else it's because it makes you feel good or some such. Yes, very nice and very slick, and
probably not easily refutable... I mean, how couldyou establish whether helping someone really
makes you feel good, bad, or indifferent? You can argue this one until the cows come home and
starve to death, and not resolve it.

But what you cando is look at animals and try to find examples where there is no obvious benefit for
the one sacrificing themselves, and ask why that happens. The genetic argument is that animals
sacrifice themselves more readily the closer the (genetic) kinship is. And this does seem to be borne
out by data... thus, the "selfish gene", i.e., our genes "want" to continue, and we're here more-or-less
just to help them do that. Not unreasonable, I suppose. But all that stillneglects the feedback abilities
of a chaotic neural net, i.e., ourselves, and how that feedback can modify virtually (I hedge with that
term) any "hard-wiring".

So the likelihood, I think, is that we canact altruistically, but that it's difficult. We have to get around all
the above.

Steven Ravett Brown

If an ethical theory such as egoism states that a person who acts in the interests of another is acting
from selfish motives, then it is difficult to understand. It wouldn't really amount to an ethical theory at
all. Being selfish is a personality trait to be distinguished from being generous. Being selfish is
something we believe we should try to overcome as moral beings. If this is so such a theory would
lead us to conclude that we should try to overcome our selfish motives in acting in the interests of
others. So we shouldn't be selfish or altruistic.

Ethical egoism is the view that people do what is in their self-interest. This is to be contrasted with
doing something for its own sake. If you think that we just do act ethically because you believe in
human instinct, then this could be seen as a natural or psychological altruism yet this wouldn't be
doing something for its own sake because we would be compelled by instinct rather than acting
purely on external reasons.

Ethical theories can be confusing. I think the best way to look at it is to see that it is not selfish to be
moral at all. Rather, self-interest is involved in morality as it determined normatively, by society, that
we should have a certain amount of self-interest. It is part of personal responsibility to wash and not
to give away all of your belongings so that you become dependent on others. Morality isn't solely
about the good of others. If you are overly self-interested it becomes a personality defect which would
be described as selfishness or self-obsession. It is difficult to say how to draw the line between
self-interest and acting in the interests of others. I don't think you can do sums or plot a graph to work
it out. However, to an extent we have shared interests in that we want to live in a peaceful and
friendly world.

Rachel Browne