Talk:Selfishness

Game theory section
I deleted it again after checking both sources; took me a bit to get ahold of the Palgrave. Result: altruism is defined, somewhat differently, in the SEP entry. Neither the classification nor the individual definitions are contained in either source. These sources do not support the statements in the article, as they have to per WP:BURDEN. Since we're concerned with selfishness here, the entire section is inappropriate. If you can find a reliable source supporting the definition of selfishness, please cite it. It is possible that I have overlooked something in the lengthy Palgrave entry, I do not have web access. In that case, please provide a page number/subsection heading and a quotation of the relevant passage, see WP:BURDEN. Paradoctor (talk) 06:14, 15 December 2013 (UTC)

Proposed merge with Egoism
Content in this article is limited, and the two concepts are very similar. Farang Rak Tham (talk) 15:41, 6 February 2018 (UTC)

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Absolutely not. The concepts are completely different and are already confused far too frequently. While the Egoism page lacks much of its own content, note how it links to the pages Ethical egoism, Psychological egoism, Rational egoism, etc.

I feel that there is already much detraction in page quality due to the common notion that any word remotely connected to egotistic or egocentric should be immediately taken to mean the same thing, with images of an arrogant, selfish prick coming to mind. "Egotism" already describes that fine, and it needs to be recognized that "egoism" refers to something else. For example, someone may believe in psychological egoism and describe themselves as egoistic, but be extremely altruistic and caring towards others. They would simply believe that their actions are ultimately derived from self-interest, perhaps to improve their mood or increase social lability.

The first sentence of the Psychological egoism page: "Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest, even in what seem to be acts of altruism."

The second sentence of the Selfishness page: "Selfishness is the opposite of altruism[.]"

Why on earth would these different and contrasting concepts ever be merged? 174.24.15.101 (talk) 01:34, 11 February 2018 (UTC)

Strong oppose egoism is not selfishness, I believe this is apparent from the articles in their current form. Given the lack of discussion on this, I'm closing the proposed merge. - - mathmitch7 (talk/contribs) 08:15, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

Unclear term "commercial society"
The phrase "With the emergence of a commercial society, Bernard Mandevile proposed etc" is undefined. By implication it seems to be the British or Dutch society, and perhaps during the lifetime of Mandeville (1670-1733), but perhaps not. Could someone clarify please, or even better provide a Wikipedia link to a "commercial society"? 2A00:23C6:549D:C301:5D9E:1F2E:F4E9:BCFC (talk) 08:05, 14 November 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: BISC 2 Genetics, Ecology, and Evolution
— Assignment last updated by 20carnesa (talk) 22:09, 10 November 2023 (UTC)

Perspective in ecology
In ecology, species sometimes would cooperate each other, which would considers as a mutualistic behavior. But species choose to have mutualistic behaviors, because the mutualistic behaviors could provide them more benefits to fit in the environment, which ultimately is a selfishness behavior. For example, animal cooperation exists in wild dogs community. They hunt together, for hunt large mammals easier. During the hunting, each individuals would have specific roles, like chase the prey toward a cliff and make other individuals easy to hunt. Tmx5027 (talk) 20:53, 20 October 2023 (UTC)