Selfishness denotes the precedence given in thought or deed to self interests and self concerns, the act of placing one's own needs or desires above the needs or desires of others.
The implications of selfishness have inspired divergent views within religious, philosophical, psychological and evolutionary contexts.
For the ethical doctrine, see Altruism (ethics). ... Egoism may refer to any of the following: psychological egoism - the doctrine that holds that individuals are always motivated by self-interest ethical egoism - the ethical doctrine that holds that individuals ought to do what is in their self-interest rational egoism - the belief that it is rational to act... In philosophy, two different theories are labeled egoism: psychological egoism is the view that one is always motivated to act in ones own best interests, while ethical egoism is the view that one ought to always act that way. ... Enlightened self-interest is a philosophy in ethics which states that persons who act to further the interests of others (or the interests of the group or groups to which they belong), ultimately serve their own self-interest. ... The ethic of reciprocity or The Golden Rule is a fundamental moral principle which simply means It is arguably the most essential basis for the modern concept of human rights. ... Look up generosity in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... A Theory of Justice is a book of political and moral philosophy by John Rawls. ... John Rawls (February 21, 1921 – November 24, 2002) was an American philosopher, a professor of political philosophy at Harvard University and author of A Theory of Justice (1971), Political Liberalism, Justice as Fairness: A Restatement, and The Law of Peoples. ... Objectivism is the philosophical system developed by Russian-American philosopher and writer Ayn Rand. ...
The phrase "selfish gene" in the title of the book was coined by Dawkins as a provocative way of expressing the gene-centric view of evolution, which holds that evolution is best viewed as acting on genes, and that selection at the level of organisms or populations almost never overrides selection on genes.
In particular, phenomena such as kin selection and eusociality, where organisms act altruistically, against their individual interests (in the sense of health, safety or personal reproduction) to help related organisms reproduce, can be explained as genes helping copies of themselves in other bodies to replicate.
Prior to the 1960s, it was common for such behaviour to be explained in terms of group selection, where the benefits to the organism or even population were supposed to account for the popularity of the genes responsible for the tendency towards that behaviour.
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