Question

. What is “Benevolent Selfishness” and how is it different from “Selfishness?”

Answer 1

Benevolent selfishness is used to describe a kind of mental framing of a situation of prosocial behaviour where individuals decide in favour the good of others by gaining something postive for their own selves in return. This Term is used to understand how appeals to self-interest sometimes increase and sometimes decrease prosocial behavior. Thus, when people choose to a buy a commodity whose proceeds would go to an underprivileged community, they may be more likely to participate in the cause instead of a situation where they are required to only donate money. Thus this action is different from selfishness as the latter is used to describe the situation where individuals make choices which appear to be in conflict with the interests of others. Benevolent selfishness however would involved making decisions where the individual attempts to attain a balance between his/her own self-centered needs and the requirement of other people. Here the person extends ‘benevolence’ or kindness by demonstrating love for himself/herself at the same time.