Jump to content
Objectivism Online Forum

Isn't Everyone Selfish

Rate this topic


Recommended Posts

So Mother Theresa would say that she never works in her self interest.

I would not even go so far as to say that Mother Theresa acted in her own self interest (in her value system), as it was put, since her value system is irrational. One cannot act rationally to attain the irrational. Yes, she would have implicitly thought that her self interest was to deny herself a selfish life. But as I have come to understand, you cannot explain the irrational because it is just that -- so don't even try.

If you're going to apply rational concepts, you can't be concerned with what anyone says their motivation is or is not, or what they claim their reward for that action is or not. Only the facts of what they do and what they receive in trade for it are relevant.

The problem here is that Mother Theresa has no idea what she is claiming. Her idea of "self interest" is in fact a package deal, so her claim has no basis in reality. If she were to have made this claim, one would have to dismiss it entirely. The fact of her values being irrational is sufficient to ignore any further analysis, including her method of achieving them.

So, after the first sentence, you can stop right there and not even proceed to asking the question. Do not pass go, do not collect $200.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 years later...
  • Replies 62
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

He argued that Mother Teresa achieved happiness through helping people, so she was actually being selfish.

I disagree with this because I think that happiness has a specific nature, and can only be achieved in certain ways.

Since Mother Teresa is an oft-used example used in this type of argument, here's a link to a relevant time article. It is review of a book of Teresa's letters. Supposedly, it reveals a suffering Teresa who, despite her calm public face, and despite her strong belief in God, could not really find Him when she looked. She appears to have had exceptionally strong faith -- a faith that she clung too even though she did not see confirmation of it in reality, even though she introspectively did not feel convinced, and even though she suffered and was depressed as a result of it. She's definitely a perfect candidate for Christian sainthood.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 4 weeks later...

Every action is inherently a selfish action. The decision to shoot yourself in the head is selfish because it's what you think is best for you at the time. Obviously that does not mean that every action is in your self interest. Whether or not your actions are in your best interest depends on the degree to which your decisions are rational.

There is only rational and irrational selfishness.

Edited by avampirist
Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is only rational and irrational selfishness.

The Objectivist definition of selfishness *includes* rationality. Selfishness doesn't mean "doing whatever you want" it means "pursuing your own interests". This is taken literally to mean pursuing what is *actually* good for you, not whatever random thing you choose to declare is in your interest.

Since the only way to discover what *is* actually good for you is to use reason (i.e. behave rationality), reason is pre-supposed by selfishness. Irrational selfishness would be a contradiction in terms.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd never noticed this topic before, and it's interesting you should reawaken it. I've been having the same discussion over Facebook with a friend of mine. I'll copy and paste the most relevant parts here:

but how can it be selfless when the reasons for doing such acts are probably too for personal gain.... However, there must be a small part of us that recognises that these events and doing things that are considered "selfless" by others and can illicit rewards, whether these be from alliances of reciprocal altrusim (you scratch my back, ill scratch yours -theory) to even rewards of a monetary value. Therefore we may look selfless, but really aren't we just watching our own backs and looking after number one, which is ultimately selfish by then using this money, or knowing we have allies if times ever got rough. You see this every day too Rory, why do in office blocks every day do we see people suck up to their bosses.

There must be some reason that people do such acts which you consider to be "selfless" otherwise if they were of no reproductive or survival value they would have most certainly been eliminated from our "psyche", especially of course as some selfless acts can be dangerous to the individual. Why if i wanted to keep myself alive (the most important thing evolutionary psychologists would say) would i save someone from a burning building?? surely by doing this i put myself at risk of death. Well how about if it was because the next day if i save the woman my name is plastered around the press and im celebrated by my peers, thus the act illicits rewards such as a raised status and admiration from my peers. We know this by watching it happen to others as i said by the media, or back in the days where these behaviours stemmed via word of mouth.

My Response:

What you're missing here is the importance of values: that selflessness and altruism are concerned with men somehow producing some sort of values for other men, as their primary goal in life, as the good, and that men creating for themselves is evil.

"Personal gain" is irrelevant. That's not what I'm talking about. Every action is to fulfil some desire, of course - the problem is what men desire, what men value; and if, indeed, they even know what sort of value they're seeking. Does a man value, living for himself, for the thriving of his own existence, by pursuing human values (such as work, productivity, creativity, etc); or does he live off of other people, looting and mooching money, never having an original thought, taking everything by force - living as a sub-human, as a brutish animal.

The key point here is that a selfish action - by the definition I have given - is one which furthers rational values. Anything else, is not done with one's long-term interests in mind, and is thus not done for one's self, but is done for the destruction of oneself.

"I scratch your back, you scratch mine" is not universally selfish or selfless - what matters is the degree to which it is done. Do you destroy your own values whilst supporting someone elses? Do you invest more than you recieve back? Ultimately, the question is, are you sacrificing something to get something of lesser value from the other person? That is selflessness.

Selfishness is the trading of value for value - and could be well defined, but not accurately, in the 'scratch my back, scratch yours' context.

And back to this idea of humility - words have meaning! If someone lives their life, trying to impress others by debasing their own value - that IS selfless! What you're describing is the thought process of millions of people - "If I self-deprecate myself, people will think I'm 'honest' and 'human' and will like me more". Any action committed with a goal towards gaining a disingenuous favour, is second-handed - is selfless.

"There must be some reason that people do such acts which you consider to be "selfless" " Yes, there is - it is the fact that man is not some slave to his genes, constantly acting in the name of survival and reproduction - it is the very fact that man has the choice, between survival and death! Men can choose to take actions furthering their life, or take actions debasing and lessening their lives.

It is this choice, and as I have argued, the want of men for to conquer other men, that has lead to the parasitic behaviour known as altruism.

And again, your example of the burning building - going in, risking your life, just to gain favour with members of the public - that is a selfless action! The goal of it was not to promote your own values, but to sacrifice your highest value - your LIFE - for the sake of the approval of others.

Approval is NOT a virtue, nor a value. It is certainly a standard for judging certain things (such as democractic elections), but a VALUE it is not. A man canot live for the sake of pleasing others, and I think it's quite accurately explained by Ford, when he stated that if he made what other people wanted, he'd simply make carriages with more horses, rather than cars.

The common dictum of economics is a fact of reality - producers set the demand, not the public.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Others in the thread have provided the answer and the VoS reference, so I figure I'll tackle this from a different angle. Take the following conclusion:

There is only rational and irrational selfishness.
"There is" seems to imply some type of pre-existing categorization already out there in reality. Did you specifically mean "there is only X and Y", or do you really mean "it's useful to form only these two groupings"?

The way you've chosen to categorize actions, the term "selfishness" is redundant. In effect, you're saying that you only wish to group actions as rational and irrational, and not make any other distinction. This would be like saying people are either ill or well, and you don't want a further categorization into different families of diseases. Fact is, that it is useful not just to identify the very specific concrete bad thing that people are doing in any one case, but it is also useful to identify the major pathological groupings.

Every action is inherently a selfish action. The decision to shoot yourself in the head is selfish because it's what you think is best for you at the time.
People can do things that they believe are not in their self-interest, because they think it is the "right" thing to do. Often, such actions are actually and objectively not in their self-interest.

A good way to think of this is to leave aside the term "selfishness" (for a moment) and think about the choices people actually make. There are certain things that are objectively in the interest of a person, and certain things that are not. Even if a person is attempting to gain and/or keep those things that are of value to him, he may not identify them correctly. So, we need to break these two types down, conceptually. However, there is also the fact that some people are not attempting to actively seek out what is good for them; in figuring out the right thing to do, they're asking questions like "how can I help others?"

We can bring the cocaine-sniffing Mafia playboy and Mother Teresa into a single conceptual category, and call it "irrationality". However, this is not useful, because it fails to make an important identification of where each of them went wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Objectivist definition of selfishness *includes* rationality. Selfishness doesn't mean "doing whatever you want" it means "pursuing your own interests". This is taken literally to mean pursuing what is *actually* good for you, not whatever random thing you choose to declare is in your interest.

Since the only way to discover what *is* actually good for you is to use reason (i.e. behave rationality), reason is pre-supposed by selfishness. Irrational selfishness would be a contradiction in terms.

I agree with you.

That's just a phrase I've adopted to try to explain the objectivist point of view to those who have a false understanding of the word "selfish". Most people, it seems, negatively and falsely associate selfishness with greed or something else. What I was trying to say is, "if you're not actively and purposefully employing reason in your decision making, by default you're acting irrationally (not in your best interest)". Now, I realize that being rational doesn't automatically mean someone's acting in their best interest, but it might shed some light for someone who has no clue. Remember that some (maybe most) people don't even believe that using reason to guide their actions is a good thing to do.

I'm not used to speaking to objectivists. On other forums, nobody questions the validity of anything I say... it's very refreshing.

People can do things that they believe are not in their self-interest, because they think it is the "right" thing to do. Often, such actions are actually and objectively not in their self-interest.

A good way to think of this is to leave aside the term "selfishness" (for a moment) and think about the choices people actually make. There are certain things that are objectively in the interest of a person, and certain things that are not. Even if a person is attempting to gain and/or keep those things that are of value to him, he may not identify them correctly. So, we need to break these two types down, conceptually. However, there is also the fact that some people are not attempting to actively seek out what is good for them; in figuring out the right thing to do, they're asking questions like "how can I help others?"

We can bring the cocaine-sniffing Mafia playboy and Mother Teresa into a single conceptual category, and call it "irrationality". However, this is not useful, because it fails to make an important identification of where each of them went wrong.

I agree with most of what you said. Maybe it would be more appropriate to say that everyone is inherently a hedonist, that everyone does what they think (or feel) will make them happy. Whether or not someone applies reason to their decision, their goal is still the same. Because even those who hurt themselves, they do it to escape pain (gain pleasure). Also, anyone who acts out of duty to their religion does so with the belief that they'll gain happiness later.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 10 months later...

*** Mod's note: Merged with a similar thread. -sN ***

When originally reading VOS, I was troubled by the concept of selfishness, not because Rand was calling it virtuous, which I agree with, but rather because I can't understant how anything isn't selfish at it's base.

I read Rand's response to this proposal (also contained in VOS), yet her argument didn't satisfy me. I believe the last line of the essay goes something like, "To say that every act is selfish is to pay man a complement he doesn't deserve." I just don't think this really answers the question. Keeping this in mind, I came up with my own conclusion, which makes sense of things at least in my mind.

I had an economics teacher who, more than anything, pounded into my class the idea that "we all make choices." Whenever the class asked him to not give us a test, he would reply, "You don't have to take the test", to our applause. Noticing that it seemed too good to be true, one student asked, "Well what happens if we don't?". He said, "You get an automatic fail, obviously." The student said, "But you just told us we didn't have to take it!", to which he stated, "You don't. We all make choices." This is exactly what I'm getting it.

Basically what I'm saying is, every action performed is done so for some kind of selfish (as in personal) gain, or else it wouldn't be done. The boy who gives up his college dreams to stay at home and work on the farm does so because he values his parents' opinion of him moreso than he values his education. What's the key subject here? "he". He's doing the choosing, he's doing the valuing, because he wants to. I'm not saying it's the normatively correct choice. I don't think it is. But nevertheless it's selfish.

Someone else told me that to say such actions are selfish is to strip the meaning of the word, because of its negative connotation. I charge that Rand did the same thing. But simply interjecting the word "rational" into the definition (as in rational self-interest) changes the definition in the same way I atrempt to change it from its common meaning.

So here's my conclusion: Every action is selfish, because it necessitates personal motivation. Not every action is self-oriented, as in one could have in mind that they are doing a good deed for someone else, which would make that other person the primary recipient of beneficial action. But this does not negate the fact that the person who performed such action had vested interest and desire to do it.

The definition of altruism is an action performed with no benefit to the performer. But I don't think this is possible. Someone could ask, or even demand another to commit an altruistic act, but if they actually listen, it becomes selfish (whether or not it is self or others oriented). Disregarding the fact that they are an idiot for being guilted into "sacrificing" themselves to the masses because of some kind of "duty", which actually translates to an issue in their value structure, I just can't seem to shake the idea that altruism doesn't exist in practice.

Thoughts? Ideas?

Edited by softwareNerd
Added 'merged' notice
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To say an altruist is selfish because he acts to attain his values, is to miss the fact that his values are not selfish. Proper/rational/objective selfishness entails acting to attain selfish values. Unfortunately, altruism does exist.

Edited by Jake
Link to comment
Share on other sites

lol I had a professor do something similiar once. I was taking a deterrance theory class and I jokingly made the comment, " I wanna kill Bill Clinton" and when the professor insisted that i didn't, I was confused. To this he responded, "If you wanted to - you would do it. The reason you don't is because you don't want to be arrested.... and besides that would make Al Gore president, and you definately don't want that."

Non-Objectivists are those new to Objectivism would probably better understand to replace the word "selfishness" with "rational self-interest" and it will make more sense. I think I remember Rand saying somewhere that people don't understand the meaning of the word "selfish".

Edited by KevinDW78
Link to comment
Share on other sites

To say an altruist is selfish because he acts to attain his values, is to miss the fact that his values are not selfish. Proper/rational/objective selfishness entails acting to attain selfish values. Unfortunately, altruism does exist.

altruism: behavior non-beneficial or disadvantageous behavior to an individual that serves to benefit others of a species

in Atlas. Hank Rearden tells Dagny he would give his life for her selfishly, because he does not want to live without her. That's not altruism. You say this is proper, rational, objective selfishness in action. Rand even expands upon this idea in, i believe, For the New Intellectual, or at the very least another one of her non fiction works. What's the difference between the man who would give his life for the woman he loves, and the boy who would give his life to help the parents he loves (my original example)?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

altruism: behavior non-beneficial or disadvantageous behavior to an individual that serves to benefit others of a species

The American Heritage Dictionary has 2 definitions of altruism:

1. Unselfish concern for the welfare of others; selflessness.

2. Zoology Instinctive behavior that is detrimental to the individual but favors the survival or spread of that individual's genes, as by benefiting its relatives.

I think the first is more applicable to your original question.

in Atlas. Hank Rearden tells Dagny he would give his life for her selfishly, because he does not want to live without her. That's not altruism. You say this is proper, rational, objective selfishness in action. Rand even expands upon this idea in, i believe, For the New Intellectual, or at the very least another one of her non fiction works. What's the difference between the man who would give his life for the woman he loves, and the boy who would give his life to help the parents he loves (my original example)?

It's been a long time since I read A.S. and I don't remember that scene. Was Hank Rearden equal to John Galt, or was he one of Rand's quasi-Galts, used for the sake of demonstrating a specific philosophical failure (like Wynand in The Fountainhead)?

The farmboy in your example is altruistic, because he values the supposed well-being of his parents (due to his presence) over the properly selfish value of educating himself and achieving greater things than he might otherwise. Like I said, acting on one's values is not a sufficient criterion for selfishness; the values must be selfish.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does cutting up innocent victims make me a surgeon? Does the fact that I then boil their flesh make me a chef? Does my preference for Asian flesh over Caucasian flesh make me a Connoisseur?

The description of someone as something is not based off of their wishes and desires, but based off of their actions. In ethics, this means identifying why a man chooses his actions, and whom is the ultimate beneficiary of ones actions. The problem you seem to be having is that you think ethics is defined on a superficial level - 'what effects whom?' or 'Does something I do effect another person? If so, it is morally appraisable'. It's this kind of thinking that leads to the whole argument over 'externalities' in Economics, and over what is a positive or negative externality.

When we think about ethics, we have to think, "Who will ultimately benefit from this?" or in other words, "When making this decision, who was this person ultimately trying to benefit? Was this decision the end in itself or was it serving something beyond this?"

Basically, everyone isn't 'selfish'. Yes, they have a self, a self who makes decisions, a self who consults itself for those decisions - we are, as your professor astoundingly points out, volitional beings! - but that doesn't mean that the reason we make decisions is ultimately in our self-interest. You destroy the very meaning of the concept 'selfish' if you ascribe it to everyone, because you're basically saying, 'Everyone chooses'.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Objectivist definition of selfishness *includes* rationality. Selfishness doesn't mean "doing whatever you want" it means "pursuing your own interests". This is taken literally to mean pursuing what is *actually* good for you, not whatever random thing you choose to declare is in your interest.

Since the only way to discover what *is* actually good for you is to use reason (i.e. behave rationality), reason is pre-supposed by selfishness. Irrational selfishness would be a contradiction in terms.

This is pretty much it, folks.

Still, i would like better definitions, or at least clarifications for what words to use for the following persons:

1) A person is hungry, and wants to be nourished in order to live - he goes to the supermarket and buys food, that he then eats. (This person lives)

2) A person is hungry, and wants to be nourished in order to live - he sits down in his apartment and prays that god makes food appear in his refrigurator (This person dies)

3) A person is hungry, and wants others to be nourished with no regard for his own nourishment - he uses all his money to buy food for others, and doesnt eat himself (Others live, This person dies)

4) A person is hungry, and wants others to be nourished with no regard for his own nourishment - he sits down in his aparment and prays that god makes food appear in starving peoples refrigurators. (Others and this person dies)

So in essence, it is "motivation - course of action". Person 1 clearly acts "selfish - rational", but what would be the correct definitions for the others. Person 2 is not really altruistic, as there was no motivation to sacrifice himself for others. You cant call person 2 selfish, because in my mind only person 1 is that, but there clearly is a distinction between this person and persons 3 and 4.

Also, person 3 had immoral motivations, but he pursued his motivations in a way that were consistant with his motivations. Person 4 on the other hand also had immoral motivations, and also acted in a way that wasnt consistant with reaching his immoral goals.

Sadly, in reality we have a lot of varying mixtures of 2's and 3's walking the streets, but can we really lump both these into the same definition? Immoral yes, but in different ways...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Still, i would like better definitions, or at least clarifications for what words to use for the following persons:

1) A person is hungry, and wants to be nourished in order to live - he goes to the supermarket and buys food, that he then eats. (This person lives)

2) A person is hungry, and wants to be nourished in order to live - he sits down in his apartment and prays that god makes food appear in his refrigurator (This person dies)

3) A person is hungry, and wants others to be nourished with no regard for his own nourishment - he uses all his money to buy food for others, and doesnt eat himself (Others live, This person dies)

4) A person is hungry, and wants others to be nourished with no regard for his own nourishment - he sits down in his aparment and prays that god makes food appear in starving peoples refrigurators. (Others and this person dies)

So in essence, it is "motivation - course of action". Person 1 clearly acts "selfish - rational", but what would be the correct definitions for the others. Person 2 is not really altruistic, as there was no motivation to sacrifice himself for others. You cant call person 2 selfish, because in my mind only person 1 is that, but there clearly is a distinction between this person and persons 3 and 4.

Also, person 3 had immoral motivations, but he pursued his motivations in a way that were consistant with his motivations. Person 4 on the other hand also had immoral motivations, and also acted in a way that wasnt consistant with reaching his immoral goals.

Your question as stated doesn't match up well with reality, which is probably why you're having a hard time answering it yourself.

Why would person #2 and #4 just sit and pray to God and allow themselves to starve? Even dedicated religionists know that they have to eat. Are they saving money for some other purpose? Or are they offering their life in exchange for something? In a real-life scenario, they are most likely sacrificing themselves for others in some way, which would make them altruists like #3. Otherwise, they would be straightforward suicides.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Your question as stated doesn't match up well with reality, which is probably why you're having a hard time answering it yourself.

Why would person #2 and #4 just sit and pray to God and allow themselves to starve? Even dedicated religionists know that they have to eat. Are they saving money for some other purpose? Or are they offering their life in exchange for something? In a real-life scenario, they are most likely sacrificing themselves for others in some way, which would make them altruists like #3. Otherwise, they would be straightforward suicides.

They were obviously extremes, and i thought it was obvious what i meant. Here is the bored down version of it:

1) a man who values something that is of value to him - does things that are consistant with achieving that value

2) a man who values something that is of value to him - does things that are not consistant with achieving that value

3) a man who values something that is not of value to him - does things that are cosistant with achieving that non-value

4) a man who values something that is not of value to him - does things that are not consistant with achieving that non-value

And here are more watered down examples:

1) a man wants to become an engineer - applies to MIT, works for his tuition as long and as much as it takes(if he doesnt get a scolarship), stays focused on his dreams...

2) a man wants to become an engineer - applies to MIT, squanders his tuition money on partying, doesnt graduate...

3) a man wants to become a ballet dancer, but doesnt want to disappoint his parents who wants him to be a structural engineer - applies to a MIT, works for his tuition(if he doesnt get a scolarship), stays focused on his parents dreams...

4) a man wants to become a ballet dancer, but doesnt want to disappoint his parents who wants him to be a structural engineer - applies to MIT, squanders his tuition money on partying, doesnt graduate...

Edited by JJJJ
Link to comment
Share on other sites

They were obviously extremes, and i thought it was obvious what i meant. Here is the bored down version of it:

Some of what I think you might be getting at sounds like the mind / body dichotomy in philosophy. People act irrationally for any number of reasons: pragmatism, empiricism, altruism, etc. Even rationalists can act irrationally. It's impossible to label or even differentiate the people in your example without firmly connecting them to reality, including knowing the reasoning behind their decisions, not just the decisions alone.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It's impossible to label or even differentiate the people in your example without firmly connecting them to reality, including knowing the reasoning behind their decisions, not just the decisions alone.

But that is exactly what i have given you. Not the decisions alone, but also the motivations behind them. As in, "i want to become an engineer, but due to the lack of self-esteem, courage and my nack for "rush-seeking" i squander my college years drinking and never graduate" versus "i want to become a ballet dancer, but my parents have instilled a sense of duty to the family heritage, and therefore i will apply to MIT and become an engineer like my father was even though engineering is not my passion"

Both are irrational and immoral, but still different, and in reality these both types exist. Ideas and actions cant be differentiated, but i still would like to have some sort of good definition to what to call people in category 2. No. 3 and 4 are clearly altruists, but no.2 cant be called altruistic, as there is noone this person is sacrificing himself to.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

...but no.2 cant be called altruistic, as there is noone this person is sacrificing himself to.
There's many a slip between explicit moral philosophy and actual action. So, you're right that those examples -- and various others -- exist. Someone can have an explicitly selfish philosophy, but may not implement it in action. (Others may actually have a mistaken philosophy, but make errors about what it means in action.)

I don't know if one needs a term for each combination; I suppose it depends on one's purposes.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1) a man wants to become an engineer - applies to MIT, works for his tuition as long and as much as it takes(if he doesn't get a scholarship), stays focused on his dreams...

2) a man wants to become an engineer - applies to MIT, squanders his tuition money on partying, doesn't graduate...

3) a man wants to become a ballet dancer, but doesn't want to disappoint his parents who wants him to be a structural engineer - applies to a MIT, works for his tuition(if he doesn't get a scholarship), stays focused on his parents dreams...

4) a man wants to become a ballet dancer, but doesn't want to disappoint his parents who wants him to be a structural engineer - applies to MIT, squanders his tuition money on partying, doesn't graduate...

1) rational selfishness

2) short-range

3) "successful" second-hander

4) "bum" second-hander

Actually, though, I hope you realize that only number one is selfish; the other one's are living their lives according to the interest of others -- even the party animal, because he wants to be accepted by the "in" crowd. You know, you don't want to be a geek and study in school. Be cool, and hang out with the guys.

It may not be altruism in the sense that someone has something that he gives to another strictly materially, but they are giving their motivations to others. They are letting others decide the outcome of their lives.

Can you capitalize "i" by the way, for if you belittle yourself by not doing so, you have non-selfish premises.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

As in, "i want to become an engineer, but due to the lack of self-esteem, courage and my nack for "rush-seeking" i squander my college years drinking and never graduate"

Not getting what you want because you never worked for it isn't a sacrifice. I think a person such as you describe sounds like a hedonist -- doing what they want to because it feels good.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not getting what you want because you never worked for it isn't a sacrifice. I think a person such as you describe sounds like a hedonist -- doing what they want to because it feels good.

Actually, such a person is sacrificing his long-term interests to his short-term urges. It's not altruism in the sense of sacrificing his interests to someone else necessarily, as in being one of the guys, though that is why someone usually does that sort of thing, but it is not taking a life-long goal orientation. For man, taking a life-long goal approach is possible because he can think long-range. However if one doesn't do this and goes by short-term interests at the cost of not being able to achieve his long-term interest while knowing this, then he is sacrificing his life in essence to momentary pleasures.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think using self interests for the point of motivation can be explained by the flow theory.

I can't do the theory justice by breaking it down into simpler terms than what I know, but it truly is relevant to the causes of motivation and types of productivity.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...