Does Human only Care About Self-Interest?

Thousands upon thousands of actions are done by each of us every day, most of them are purposive, intentional and conscious, such as studying, helping the needy, making every decisions, etc. All the activities done by the human and with conscious, no matter how trivial it is, can be defined as ‘human action’. There must be purposes or motivations for people’s behaviors. They are the result of decisions which are made of reasons and choices. Some may say that all the people are acting based on their self-interest. It means that people are self-oriented and care about their own well-being. However, being self-interested is not detrimental when it is not to an undue extent. Self-interested people just make sure that their needs can be satisfied and this is not necessarily harmful to the others. They do concern about the benefits of other people while they are focusing on their own, but just in an indirect way. This essay will show that people are self-centered and the ultimate motivation behind their every actions is their self-interest. It will reveal the motivations behind human’s behaviors by demonstrating examples of good feeling, survival, kin directed and reciprocal altruism and showing the effects of being self-interested.

The key reason to go for self-interest being the ultimate motivation for all human actions is that all humans do what make them feel good. Humans do everything in order to pursue pleasure or happiness as they are the meaning and goal of humans’ lives. So, the main criteria for all humans to make a decision should be based on how they would feel as a result. For example, Abraham Lincoln lifted the pig from the mud and water to save them because he wanted to have a peaceful mind. He did not want to worry about the pigs for the whole day if he disregarded them (Rachels, 2010). Another example is that Dorothea in Middlemarch, was disappointed when she found out that no one in the village needed her help, which was out of her expectation (Eliot, G., & Faber, M., 2004). Both of them were actually doing something that aim at gaining good feeling for themselves, like peaceful mind and sense of satisfaction. Without doubt, they were really helping others or at least attempted to take the action. However, they were not as altruistic as people thought since they took the steps based on their own feeling first. Humans basically take their concerns and feelings into consideration first before they take an action and this obviously shows that all human actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest.

Humans are born to be self-interested based on the principle of ‘Survival of the fittest’ which are applicable to all living things. According to Richard Dawkins, humans are actually built as gene machine but cultured as meme machines that their genes make us to be selfish naturally but just they are taught not to do so (Dawkins, R., 1976). However, humans are still self-interested because they are required