Meliton wrote:
On Thu, 2002-12-12 at 20:31, Charlie wrote:
[snip]
How can you irrationally act in your own interests? You seem to equate interests with benefits with desires, which is certainly a tenable position, and has the virtue of simplicity, but then may include genuinely altruistic behaviour - if I desire to help people more than I desire to act on what an econmist would class as my interests, I will do so, and in your terms, I am acting in my interests.Or is egoism as an answer appearing as to flip, to simplistic to fit the record?
"Egoism" is just a word, I use it a lot because it shocks some people into not lying to themselves. Too few people. And I do believe that we all act strictly according to our interests, though not as rational beings (which we are NOT). Those interests may be (often are) hidden from us, and we often act in ways that harm us (drugs...) or seem altruistic (sharing your knowledge of Linux ;). But absolutely every act of every human being in History, including all the moving ones of self-sacrifice, are for the actor's benefit. I'm not being cynical here.
Sir Robin
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