Selfishness and self-interest

Selfishness and self-interest

Dictionary.com defines selfishness as being "concerned chiefly or only with oneself".

It is my contention that selfishness, if it is to be a useful analytical concept, should take into account the possibility of being applied to a social unit other than the individual. That is to say it may pertain to the collective consciousness of a nation, a group, or a couple as the case may be. Its usage in this case would be similar to the notion of self-interest and one may have to regard the traditional view of selfishness as an extreme measurement of self-interest in general, but more likely as an indication of a consciousness that is dissonant with the estimating consciousness.

Francisco Varela states that “there is mind in every unity engaged in conversation-like actions, however spatially distributed or shortlived” and calls this a “conversational domain”.

Following this it may be more accurate to say that self-interest is realized only through this shared consciousness – even though it may manifest apparently monadically in an individual.