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

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

The result of this discussion was to take no action for the time being an not merge, due to the reasons described by 174.24.15.101. Instead, the two articles ought to be made more distinct. - - mathmitch7 ^{(talk/contribs)} 08:21, 10 May 2018 (UTC)

---

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

-

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)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 21 August 2023 and 15 December 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Tmx5027 (article contribs). Peer reviewers: IRiptide, JoeDer415.

— 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)

The example used isn't an example of mutualism, as mutualism describes a relationship between two or more species. Wild dogs are one species that have a cooperative relationship among members of the same species. It is true that each participating dog potentially benefits from its cooperating behavior (and that any one dog alone couldn't accomplish what a pack can in cooperation) and so, could be considered a self-interested party. But then the article section should be re-written to either give an actual example of mutualism, or use the current example to show how cooperation can be shown to display selfish behavior. Or, both can be used.

By the way, since the link through Yuzu no longer works, I found an alternative link through the internet archive, here, (chapter 12.2, pages 267-272) -->> https://archive.org/details/ecologyevolution0000kroh/page/267/mode/2up?view=theater

Hamamelis (talk) 13:40, 20 November 2024 (UTC)