Like this:

Would you describe yourself as egoistic?

Being egoistic somehow seems to be normal nowadays. The people I asked aren’t really ashamed of confessing this characteristic. In fact some are even proud to be like that.

But before talking about egoism I should find a definition for it. You can trust me – this was really hard because there are A LOT out there that are in addition quite complex. I try to keep it short and simple, okay?

The term “egoism” derives from “ego,” the Latin term for “I” in English. In philosophy, egoism is the theory that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and the goal of one’s own action.

Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy

It is assumed that egoism always goes along with self-interest and the own well-being. I guess we cannot leave out this characteristic when talking about human beings. Of course we are interested in ourselves, our own welfare. Would be strange if we wouldn’t care about that… The important thing though is to what extent we are egoistic.

I wonder how selfish we are when we are born. What information, which parts of our brain and DNA prove that we are egoistic? Maybe we are selfish only to a certain extent and are extremely influenced by our environment? Isn’t it true that we live in a world which is dominated by a selfish idea of man? How much does this point of view influence us? How egoistic are we indeed? Right from the beginning?

Richard Dawkins once answered this question as follows: “Be warned that if you wish, as I do, to build a society in which individuals cooperate generously and unselfishly towards a common good, you can expect little help from biological nature. Let us try to teach generosity and altruism, because we are born selfish.”

In his book, “The Selfish Gene”, published in 1976, Dawkins argues that, instead of ourselves, our genes would be responsible for evolution. According to the ethologist, genes aim at reproducing themselves and at being better than other genes. Dawkins thought that human beings subserve these genes: “We are survival machines – robot vehicles blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes.”

The so-called sociobiology supports this claim, saying that genes are the basis for selfishness. That is why sociobiologists assume that genes  play an ultimate role in human behavior and that traits such as aggressiveness can be explained by biology rather than a person’s social environment.

Far from it! In my opinion a person’s environment is crucial! In fact it is proved that even if our genes contain certain traits (such as cancer for example) it is not assured that they “develop” – this is highly influenced by our sourroundings. I doubt that being selfish is encoded in our DNA to an extent which programs us to only be survival machines. Egoistic genes? That’s shit.

What’s your opinion on that?