Introduction
The question of whether truly selfless action is possible has occupied philosophers, psychologists, and theologians for centuries. Psychological egoism, the view that all human behaviour is ultimately motivated by self-interest, offers a powerful challenge to the notion of genuine altruism, arguing that even the most apparently generous acts are driven by the desire for social approval, emotional satisfaction, or the avoidance of guilt. This essay argues that there is no such thing as a truly selfless act, as all human behaviour, however noble in appearance, is rooted in the pursuit of some form of personal benefit.
Psychological egoism suggests that all apparently selfless acts are ultimately motivated by the pursuit of personal satisfaction
Explain
Even when people perform acts that appear selfless, such as donating to charity, volunteering, or helping strangers, they derive psychological rewards including feelings of happiness, moral superiority, or relief from guilt. According to psychological egoism, these internal rewards are the true motivation for the behaviour, meaning that the act is not genuinely selfless but rather a sophisticated form of self-gratification.
Example
Neuroimaging research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences has shown that acts of charitable giving activate the brain's reward centres, particularly the ventral striatum and the medial prefrontal cortex, producing a 'warm glow' effect that is neurologically similar to receiving a personal financial reward. This 'helper's high' suggests that altruistic behaviour is, at a biological level, a form of self-reward. In Singapore, the annual National Volunteer and Philanthropy Centre survey consistently finds that volunteers report increased personal happiness and life satisfaction as key outcomes of their volunteering, indicating that even civic-minded generosity yields significant personal benefits.
Link
The neurological and psychological evidence that helping others produces personal pleasure supports the psychological egoist claim that apparently selfless acts are ultimately motivated by the pursuit of self-gratification, lending weight to the view that purely selfless acts do not exist.
Altruistic behaviour can be explained by evolutionary self-interest, including kin selection and reciprocal altruism
Explain
Evolutionary biology offers a compelling explanation for apparently selfless behaviour that does not require the existence of genuine altruism. Kin selection theory explains why individuals sacrifice for genetic relatives, as helping those who share one's genes increases the probability that those genes will be passed on. Reciprocal altruism explains cooperation among non-relatives as a strategy for securing future benefits, a kind of biological investment in social capital.
Example
The evolutionary biologist William Hamilton's theory of kin selection, formulated in 1964, mathematically demonstrated that self-sacrificial behaviour toward relatives can be 'selfish' at the genetic level, as it maximises the survival of shared genes. Robert Trivers's theory of reciprocal altruism, published in 1971, showed that cooperation among unrelated individuals can evolve when there is a reasonable expectation of future reciprocation. Studies of vampire bats, which share blood meals with unrelated roost-mates but preferentially share with those who have shared with them in the past, provide a vivid illustration of how apparent generosity can be explained by strategic self-interest at the evolutionary level.
Link
If even the most dramatic examples of animal and human cooperation can be explained by genetic self-interest and the expectation of reciprocity, the existence of genuinely selfless behaviour becomes difficult to defend, supporting the claim that all acts are ultimately self-interested.
Acts of apparent self-sacrifice often serve the individual's desire to maintain a positive self-concept or social reputation
Explain
Many people who perform apparently selfless acts are motivated by the desire to see themselves, and to be seen by others, as good and moral people. This desire for a positive self-image and social reputation is itself a form of self-interest, as it serves the individual's psychological need for esteem and belonging. Even anonymous acts of kindness can be motivated by the private satisfaction of confirming one's self-concept as a virtuous person.
Example
Research by the psychologist C. Daniel Batson, while often cited in defence of genuine altruism, has been critiqued by scholars who argue that his experiments cannot rule out egoistic explanations such as the desire to avoid the guilt of not helping or the need to maintain a self-image as a compassionate person. In the philanthropic world, the sociologist Thorstein Veblen's concept of 'conspicuous consumption' has been extended to 'conspicuous compassion,' where high-profile donations by billionaires such as those in the Giving Pledge serve to enhance social status and public reputation. In Singapore, the public recognition of top donors through awards such as the President's Volunteerism and Philanthropy Awards arguably incentivises giving by linking generosity to social prestige.
Link
The role of self-image and social reputation in motivating apparently altruistic behaviour suggests that even the most admirable acts are entangled with self-interest, supporting the claim that a purely selfless act is a conceptual impossibility.
Counter-Argument
Opponents of psychological egoism point to extreme cases of self-sacrifice, such as the 343 firefighters who knowingly entered the collapsing Twin Towers on September 11, and French officer Arnaud Beltrame who exchanged himself for a hostage and was killed. They argue that when an act results in the agent's death, the claim that it was motivated by personal satisfaction becomes unfalsifiable and therefore intellectually vacuous.
Rebuttal
Even acts of ultimate self-sacrifice are consistent with psychological egoism when understood through the lens of identity and self-concept. Firefighters and soldiers are trained within institutional cultures that deeply internalise duty and honour as core components of identity, meaning that in the moment of crisis, inaction would cause greater psychological anguish than risking death. The decision to sacrifice is driven by the individual's inability to live with the alternative, which remains a self-regarding motivation. As the philosopher Thomas Hobbes argued, even the most dramatic acts of apparent altruism ultimately serve the agent's desire to avoid the intolerable pain of guilt or dishonour.
Conclusion
While acts of apparent selflessness are undeniably admirable, a rigorous examination of human psychology reveals that all behaviour is ultimately motivated by some form of self-interest, whether the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of guilt, or the satisfaction of a self-image as a moral person. This does not diminish the value of kind or generous acts, but it does suggest that the concept of a purely selfless act is more an ideal than a reality.
Introduction
While the cynical view that all human action is fundamentally self-interested has a long philosophical pedigree, it fails to account for the full range of human moral experience. Across cultures and throughout history, individuals have sacrificed their comfort, safety, and even their lives for others with no expectation of reward or recognition. This essay contends that truly selfless acts do exist, and that reducing all human motivation to self-interest represents an impoverished and empirically unsupported understanding of human nature.
Genuine empathy can motivate action that prioritises others' welfare without calculating personal benefit
Explain
The psychologist C. Daniel Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis, supported by decades of experimental evidence, argues that when individuals feel genuine empathic concern for another person, they are motivated to help that person for their own sake rather than for any egoistic reason. While helping may produce incidental personal satisfaction, the primary motivation is the relief of the other person's suffering, making the act genuinely selfless in its intention.
Example
In a series of experiments conducted over three decades, Batson demonstrated that participants who felt high levels of empathic concern for a person in need chose to help even when easy escape from the situation was available and even when helping involved personal cost, contradicting the predictions of egoistic models. Real-world examples abound: in 2015, Singaporean diver Velu Ramamurthy rescued a toddler who had fallen into the Singapore River, acting on pure instinct with no time for calculation of personal benefit. Such spontaneous acts of rescue, common across cultures, are difficult to explain as products of rational self-interest.
Link
The experimental and real-world evidence for empathy-driven helping behaviour that prioritises others' welfare over personal gain provides a strong rebuttal to the claim that all acts are ultimately selfish, demonstrating that genuine altruism is both psychologically real and empirically observable.
Self-sacrifice in the face of certain personal harm or death cannot be adequately explained by self-interest
Explain
While psychological egoism can offer plausible reinterpretations of everyday acts of kindness, it struggles to account for extreme cases in which individuals sacrifice their own lives for strangers or for a cause, with no possibility of enjoying any personal reward. If the act results in the individual's death, the claim that it was motivated by the pursuit of personal satisfaction becomes unfalsifiable and therefore intellectually vacuous.
Example
During the September 11 attacks in 2001, firefighters knowingly entered the collapsing Twin Towers to rescue strangers, with 343 losing their lives. In 2019, French police officer Arnaud Beltrame exchanged himself for a hostage during a terrorist attack in southern France and was subsequently killed. These individuals acted with full awareness that they would likely die and could not enjoy any post-hoc psychological reward. In Singapore, the memory of Elizabeth Choy, who endured torture by the Japanese during the Second World War for sheltering prisoners of war, exemplifies self-sacrifice that defies reduction to self-interest. These cases resist egoistic explanation because the agent cannot benefit from an act that costs them their life.
Link
The existence of individuals who knowingly sacrifice their lives for others, with no possibility of personal gain, represents the strongest evidence against the claim that all acts are selfish, as the egoistic framework becomes meaninglessly tautological when applied to such cases.
The psychological egoist argument is unfalsifiable and therefore philosophically weak
Explain
Psychological egoism's central claim, that all behaviour is ultimately self-interested, is structured in a way that makes it impossible to disprove. Any apparently selfless act can be retrospectively reinterpreted as self-interested by invoking hidden motives such as guilt avoidance or the desire for a warm glow. A theory that cannot be falsified by any conceivable evidence is, by the standards of both science and philosophy, not a meaningful empirical claim but a definitional assertion that explains nothing.
Example
The philosopher Joel Feinberg, in his influential critique of psychological egoism, argued that the theory commits the fallacy of redefining all motives as self-interested regardless of their content, rendering the concept of self-interest so broad as to be meaningless. If a mother who sacrifices her career for her child is deemed self-interested because she 'wanted' to do so, and a soldier who dies for his comrades is deemed self-interested because he preferred death to dishonour, then the concept of self-interest has been stretched to include everything and therefore distinguishes nothing. The philosopher Thomas Nagel similarly argued in 'The Possibility of Altruism' that the capacity to recognise the reality of others' needs is a basic feature of rational agency, not reducible to self-regarding motivation.
Link
The unfalsifiability of psychological egoism significantly weakens the claim that selfless acts do not exist, as the theory's inability to be disproven by any evidence renders it a philosophical tautology rather than a genuine insight into human motivation.
Counter-Argument
Proponents of psychological egoism argue that all apparently selfless acts are ultimately driven by personal satisfaction, citing neuroimaging research showing that charitable giving activates the brain's reward centres, producing a 'warm glow' indistinguishable from receiving a personal financial reward. They contend that evolutionary biology's concepts of kin selection and reciprocal altruism explain cooperation as a sophisticated form of genetic self-interest.
Rebuttal
The fact that helping others produces incidental pleasure does not prove that pleasure is the primary motivation for the act. C. Daniel Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis, supported by decades of experimental evidence, demonstrates that individuals experiencing genuine empathic concern help others for the other's sake, not their own, even when easy escape from the situation is available. As philosopher Joel Feinberg argued, redefining all motives as self-interested renders the concept of self-interest so broad as to be meaningless, a tautology that explains everything and therefore distinguishes nothing.
Conclusion
The claim that there is no such thing as a selfless act is a philosophically provocative but ultimately unconvincing generalisation that distorts the evidence of human behaviour. While self-interest undoubtedly plays a role in much of what we do, the existence of genuine empathy, principled sacrifice, and acts of compassion that defy rational self-interest demonstrates that human beings are capable of transcending egoism in meaningful and measurable ways.