People act in benign selfishness. A person wakes up, showers, eats, brushes his teeth, and preforms other activities to take care of himself. If selfishness is focusing on oneself and acting in a way that benefits oneself, then everyone should strive to be selfish. The opposition would argue that if each person acted selfish then the world would be an aggressive campaign to compete and do better against one another. That belief is caused by the word selfish being unclearly defined. Benign selfishness, egoism, promotes individual welfare without interfering with other’s resources or well-being.
Altruism is defined as the practice of fair-minded and selfless concern for the welfare of others. The driving factor of altruism is that a person does …show more content…
Normative meaning establishing a standard, especially concerning behavior. Egoism is not the standard, but it does offer a theory of how people should behave. An egoist would state that something is good when he possesses it, but that would imply that goodness would be circumstantial, not universal. Egoism is qualified with phrases such as ethical or psychological. According to Machan, “the human self or ego consists of a bundle of desires (or drives or wishes or preferences) and to benefit oneself amounts to satisfying these desires in their order of priority, which is itself something entirely dependent upon the individual or, as it is often put, a subjective matter” (Machan 18) implying that it is understood that each individual desire is subjective to the person, but states that satisfying these desires benefits the person. Interest of others should not be the main factor in moral decision-making. Self-sacrifice is not a moral action, and should only be done when the person completing the action will benefit short term or long term. A justifiable reason to help others or act in self-sacrifice would be that one feels good because of the action the person took, which is an ethical behavior. The idea that charitable actions are done in benefit of the person receiving the charity is false. The motivation to help another person is too feel good, meaning the motivation stems from self-interest. The receiver’s benefit is the by-product meaning it was not a self-less act. For example, the wealthy that donate to charities. Those are not altruistic people, or selfless in that sense, because the motivation stems from their success and the appearance that they are good. According to Webster, the definition of sacrifice is to give up for the sake of other considerations and the definition of self-sacrifice is the giving up of one’s own interests in order to help others or to advance a cause. Therefore, people are not self-sacrificing or
Altruism is defined as the practice of fair-minded and selfless concern for the welfare of others. The driving factor of altruism is that a person does …show more content…
Normative meaning establishing a standard, especially concerning behavior. Egoism is not the standard, but it does offer a theory of how people should behave. An egoist would state that something is good when he possesses it, but that would imply that goodness would be circumstantial, not universal. Egoism is qualified with phrases such as ethical or psychological. According to Machan, “the human self or ego consists of a bundle of desires (or drives or wishes or preferences) and to benefit oneself amounts to satisfying these desires in their order of priority, which is itself something entirely dependent upon the individual or, as it is often put, a subjective matter” (Machan 18) implying that it is understood that each individual desire is subjective to the person, but states that satisfying these desires benefits the person. Interest of others should not be the main factor in moral decision-making. Self-sacrifice is not a moral action, and should only be done when the person completing the action will benefit short term or long term. A justifiable reason to help others or act in self-sacrifice would be that one feels good because of the action the person took, which is an ethical behavior. The idea that charitable actions are done in benefit of the person receiving the charity is false. The motivation to help another person is too feel good, meaning the motivation stems from self-interest. The receiver’s benefit is the by-product meaning it was not a self-less act. For example, the wealthy that donate to charities. Those are not altruistic people, or selfless in that sense, because the motivation stems from their success and the appearance that they are good. According to Webster, the definition of sacrifice is to give up for the sake of other considerations and the definition of self-sacrifice is the giving up of one’s own interests in order to help others or to advance a cause. Therefore, people are not self-sacrificing or