Agumentation

Rationally Selfish!!!

The word self- interest has been given a negative definition and denotation. The definition given to self-interest is: "selfish or excessive regard for one's personal advantage or interest. Self interest is primarily concerned with benefiting ones self." Because self- interest is defined with "selfish", we must understand what selfish is as well. Selfish is defined as: "concerned chiefly or only with ones self."

The main contrast of the two is that selfishness is not in ones best interest. The best interest of an individual would be that, that would in general benefit them and help them thrive. The components of being selfish consist of only caring about oneself, not having concern for others. To more clearly understand this we must put down the circumstances. An example of the self- interest would be taking care of ones health. Pursuing a healthy life does not negatively affect the lives of others and of course not the individual. If one were to do drugs and/ or rob stores, for example, that would be acting selfishly with no regards to others and for that matter not in ones best self-interest. Many philosophers like Lester Hunt, emphasis the fact that most all humans base all or mostly all of their actions out of their own self-interest. It is important for everyone to look after his or her self-interest.

One instance of how this comes into play would be if a family member were hurt and about to die. Now, one would think it unselfish to spend all of ones savings to provide medicine to save the family members life. In all actuality the person is looking out for their own self-interest because the other individual provides them with something. The caregivers actions are pursuing their own benefit, it inevitably runs back to the fact that they do not want to lose that individual because there is a value they hold that they wish to maintain.

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