Selfishness is placing concern with oneself or one's own interests above the well-being or interests of others.[1][2] Selfishness is the opposite of altruism or selflessness.
Game theory [edit]
Main article:
game theoryGiven two actors, oneself and someone else, there are four types of possible behavior directly impacting the welfare of the actors: selfishness, altruism, spite, and cooperation. Selfishness is harming someone else in order to help oneself; altruism is harming oneself in order to help someone else; spite is harming oneself in order to harm someone else; cooperation is helping someone else and also helping oneself.[3] [4]
The implications of selfishness have inspired divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological, economic and evolutionary contexts.[citation needed] For example, Roman Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain, in The Person and the Common Good, made the Aristotelian argument that framing the fundamental question of politics as a choice between altruism and selfishness is a basic and harmful mistake of modern states. Rather, cooperation in a sense similar to the game theory usage above ought to be the norm: human beings are by nature social animals, and so individual persons can only find their full good in and through pursuing the good of the community.[5]
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