Chapter 18 <Everyone is selfish>

There is an opinion that everyone is selfish. This point of view is argued thus: It is selfishness and individualism for a person to seek to realize his own interests and satisfy his own needs, and no one can live without his or her own interests; Therefore, everyone is selfish; selfishness is the essence of human beings, and there can be no selfless people in the world. The above argument uses the following syllogism: Whoever seeks personal gain is selfish, Anyone is asking for personal gain; So anyone is selfish. This syllogism has a correct form of reasoning but a wrong conclusion.

According to the laws of logic, it can be determined that there must be a false premise.The false premise is not the minor premise but the major premise.Because in the view of historical materialism, the satisfaction of individual interests is the guarantee for everyone's survival and development. Without individual interests, not only the individual will lose the conditions for survival, but society will also lose the basis for its existence.Therefore, the minor premise that everyone has personal interests, that is, everyone seeks personal interests, is correct, and the major premise is wrong.

Where is the major premise wrong?The mistake is that it confuses the desire for self-interest with selfishness.Because the concept of selfishness or individualism has its definite meaning, it refers to a kind of thinking and behavior that harms others to benefit oneself, harms public benefit, and puts personal interests above the interests of others or the collective. The selflessness in the impartiality we advocate refers to the lack of selfishness and selfishness, and it definitely does not deny a person's legitimate interests obtained through legal and honest labor. It can be seen that when some people argue that everyone is selfish and that it is impossible to be impartial, their sophistry tricks lie in indiscriminately equating the demand for personal interests with selfishness, making the mistake of confusing and distorting concepts .