Journeyman Philosopher

Due to a special request today I’m writing on the issue of selfishness that will reflect a discussion I had with a friend the other day.

To start first, what is selfishness? My friend and I defined it differently during our time of discussion and it seems as if the actual definition is somewhere in between, which in a sense makes the argument you are about to experience seemingly more muddled. Being selfish than is “lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one’s own personal profit or pleasure”.

There are two issues that arise from this definition.

‘Arguer One’ believes that as we always act out of self interest we are in essence always selfish. This is because when every you break something down to its root reason for doing it, it begins with a “I want…”. Its easy to see this. For example, when you are nice to someone you are nice to them for a reason, that reason being maybe you want them to be nice, or maybe you just want to be nice, or maybe it is an elaborate spiteful ploy. Regardless which way it is you still are nice because “I want to be nice in light of my reason x.”

His argument would flow as such:

‘Arguer Two’ believes that although we act out of self-interest we can act out of self interest of others, and in light of this have the ability to not be selfish. It is true that when one acts they act because they want. Be it the want to survive, the want to be nice, or the want to get candy it all starts with “I want”. However although we do have root selfish motivations, if we adopt a want such as being nice it in turn forces us to take into account the wants of others. This happens because in order to be nice, we need to observe that which the other would take as nice or what is nice and act in accordance with this. Thereby making the want “I want to be nice to X, which requires me to take into consideration X’s wants.”

His argument would flow as such:

In a nutshell: Arguer One believes that being selfish is unavoidable due to root wants, whereas Arguer Two believes that being selfish is avoidable due to root wants leading to the consideration of external wants.

What do you think?