a conversation on the morality of selfishness
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The following is a conversation between me and [REDACTED] on the topic of the morality of selfishness. I will present the opening argument from the book "The virtue of selfishness" by Ayn Rand.
In popular usage, the word “selfishness” is a synonym of evil; the image it conjures is of a murderous brute who tramples over piles of corpses to achieve his own ends, who cares for no living being and pursues nothing but the gratification of the mindless whims of any immediate moment. Yet the exact meaning and dictionary definition of the word “selfishness” is: concern with one’s own interests. This concept does not include a moral evaluation; it does not tell us whether concern with one’s own interests is good or evil; nor does it tell us what constitutes man’s actual interests. It is the task of ethics to answer such questions.
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Yotam, Kris. (Sep 2025). A discourse on egoism. krisyotam.com. https://krisyotam.com/blog/philosophy/a-discourse-on-egoism
@article{yotam2025a-discourse-on-egoism,
title = "A discourse on egoism",
author = "Yotam, Kris",
journal = "krisyotam.com",
year = "2025",
month = "Sep",
url = "https://krisyotam.com/blog/philosophy/a-discourse-on-egoism"
}