Do we really need to go into the question what “selfishness” actually means? In ordinary situations I’d say that “the actual altruist [is] whichever one actually holds open doors for little old ladies”; maybe in certain situations we need different words to specify whether they do so because it’s in their own utility function or because of religious/game-theoretical/superrational/acausal/whatever-they-call-it-these-days reasons, but...
I don’t think this is just a problem with definitions. This is fake morality.
She’s giving a fake justification for helping others as her own self interest. Someone who finds a way to justify buying a million dollar laptop is clearly just being selfish and doesn’t really care about their claimed morality of altruism. Similarly, someone who tries to justify helping others is clearly just being altruistic and doesn’t really care about their claimed morality of selfishness.
Do we really need to go into the question what “selfishness” actually means? In ordinary situations I’d say that “the actual altruist [is] whichever one actually holds open doors for little old ladies”; maybe in certain situations we need different words to specify whether they do so because it’s in their own utility function or because of religious/game-theoretical/superrational/acausal/whatever-they-call-it-these-days reasons, but...
I don’t think this is just a problem with definitions. This is fake morality.
She’s giving a fake justification for helping others as her own self interest. Someone who finds a way to justify buying a million dollar laptop is clearly just being selfish and doesn’t really care about their claimed morality of altruism. Similarly, someone who tries to justify helping others is clearly just being altruistic and doesn’t really care about their claimed morality of selfishness.