Many people confuse self-interest and selfishness. The two are distinct. All selfishness is a form of self-interest. Not all self-interest is a form of selfishness. Selfishness supervenes on a misunderstanding of what the self really is. The self is not atomized and individualized. Who you are is in part only discovered in your relation to the whole of things. You are a part of a whole. As a part you must seek some self-satisfaction as a part. As a part of a whole, you must also find self-satisfaction IN the whole. A part that acts as if it is not a part but the whole is ultimately self-destructive.
A cell must seek nourishment for itself. If it doesn't it won't survive. And if enough cells die, the body too dies. If the cell doesn't do it's part to keep the body alive, it fails to properly account for it's own self-interest. For if the body dies, so does the cell. Truly finding your place as a part of the whole is to discover how to maximize your own benefit. But what is your 'own' benefit is, in part, the benefit of the whole. Selfishness, as I see it, is simply acting without proper regard to one's place as a part of an organic whole, as indeed a part of God Himself. When we give ourselves to God, we must find a deeper self-satisfaction, a more complete wholeness of self, or else our very impulse to reach outside is lost. We reach beyond because we find the life of the atomized individual, as only inclusive of 'just so much' to be inherently unsatisfying. It is only by giving ourselves to a vision of the overall that we finally, truly, find our place and a more complete satisfaction. Thus other-interest is a type of self-interest.
But there is all the difference in the world between this other-regarding self-interest and the self-interest that is selfishness. Selfishness is living a lie. It is to act as if some subset of the world less than the totality of it is the limit of one's own soul. In truth, one's own soul empties out into God. Yet we are not the whole, we are a part of the whole. We must regard ourselves as part, and as part of. When I brush my teeth, I am being self-interested. I am doing something for myself. Yet I am not being selfish. For brushing my teeth is a maintenance that is necessary for me to contribute my proper part to the whole of things, not unlike that cell that must nourish for the body to survive. If I hit your car while it is parked, yet fail to leave a note, then I am being selfish. I am acting for myself, but to the detriment of you, I am acting as if you and I are discreet individuals, when in fact, we are two parts of the same whole. We are different parts, but interconnected. Something of myself is lost if I act this way, a deeper satisfaction that can only be found in awareness of the overall, in relationship with the center of the complete whole, God.
The martyr is not completely other-seeking even while they give all of themselves to God. For what they give themselves too is in truth a very important part of themselves. This kind of deeper satisfaction is demonstrated in the joy they often express in making such a profound statement of faith as martyrdom, and in their confidence in an afterlife, where they will find the ultimate satisfaction and fulfillment. There are easy cases, and in truth most of the moral quandaries we face are easy. We simply make them hard. But there are more difficult cases. Organ donation is an example. If my life is shortened, so that yours is lengthened, who is to say what the whole loses or gains? If I stop a robbery by killing the perpetrator, similar questions arise. It is at the grey area of the boundary between me and God, and between me and the other, that serious and difficult questions arise. I am confident, that there is, ultimately, some God's eye view, some final judgment on the rightness of these matters. The principle remains. Evil, as I see it, is simply to act in and for oneself or some subset of the totality that is God, over and against that totality, over and against God and the other parts of God. Good, as I see it, is to act in harmony with the whole of things, with the Ultimate Self, with God.
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