Question: I realized that I had asked the same question twice, essentially. So I'm going to change my question to something more like "what is the difference between selfish and self-interest. The purpose of this will be two-fold; I will lay out my own understanding of these terms and hope that others will come to read and understand it.
Selfishness, actually, is better defined as wanting what is best for only yourself and always at the expense of someone else. Self-interest, however, is the interest in your own desires and benefits at no overall cost to others.
Selfishness is only caring about yourself while giving no concern for another person; it's hoarding all of the food for yourself in a survival scenario. Self-interest is doing something that will benefit you at no harm (but maybe benefit) to others; it's like getting food so that you will survive, but choosing to give part of it to other people, or like choosing not to fight a bear to kill it and eat it (as it's the only source of food); While this will cause both of you to starve, it's self interested because it would probably come at great harm to you. You would be almost heroic if you did fight this bear, but you shouldn't be punished if you had not.
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