SarahC comments on Fake Selfishness - Less Wrong

28 Post author: Eliezer_Yudkowsky 08 November 2007 02:31AM

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Comment author: [deleted] 12 August 2010 04:51:41AM 1 point [-]

There's all kinds of incoherency with the idea of "selfishness" being defined as "acting in your own interest." What is your own interest? Can't you define it circularly as being anything you desire to do? Being a "selfish person" doesn't necessarily make sense by that definition.

Maybe it's better to go the opposite direction. Selfishness is indifference to the desires and well-being of others. Whatever else you may be doing (let's drop the question of whether it's "self-interested" or not), it's more important to you than other people. I wouldn't be surprised if 100% selfish people exist in this sense. All you'd have to do is never make a decision where the deciding factor is someone else's well-being.