But once I do, I can notice my selfishness and work to overcome it.
But why do you work to overcome it? You've said it's not due to evolution or to rational reasons, but if it's due to e.g. social conditioning, why would you use your reason to assist this conditioning?
I can think of reasons to do so - although I am not sure they are weighty enough - but I'm interested in other people's reasons, so I don't want to reveal my own as yet.
But why do you work to overcome it?
Because I care about other people. I expect that social conditioning, especially from my parents, has led me to care about other people, although internal exercises in empathy also seem to have played a role. But it doesn't matter where that comes from (any more than it matters where my selfish impulses come from); what matters is that I consider other people to have the same moral worth as I have.
Looking over this conversation, I think that I haven't been very clear. Your comments, especially this one, seem to take...
- This thread has run its course. You will find newer threads in the discussion section.
Another discussion thread - the fourth - has reached the (arbitrary?) 500 comments threshold, so it's time for a new thread for Eliezer Yudkowsky's widely-praised Harry Potter fanfic.
Most of the paratext and fan-made resources are listed on Mr. LessWrong's author page. There is also AdeleneDawner's collection of most of the previously-published Author's Notes.
Older threads: one, two, three, four. By tag.
Newer threads are in the Discussion section, starting from Part 6.
Spoiler policy as suggested by Unnamed and approved by Eliezer, me, and at least three other upmodders:
It would also be quite sensible and welcome to continue the practice of declaring at the top of your post which chapters you are about to discuss, especially for newly-published ones, so that people who haven't yet seen them can stop reading in time.