Food for Thought: A passage on altruism

[Unbound]

The core problem with her approach, imo, is the assumption that all people have desires which are self-centric and so she appears to be incapable of fathoming the idea that for some people the needs and the desires of the self ARE the desire to help/love others. Thus, she views all giving to others as self-sacrifice because she views all individuals as innately selfish and that any giving to others is at the cost of the self. However, I strongly believe that there are those who give to others and it is not ever a sacrifice because the giving is exactly what they want to do and also how they give to themselves. The idea of altruism is, of course, flawed so long as the assumption is made that everyone is, by their nature, innately selfish.

So, that being said, I think her whole argument is an abstraction that doesn't actually include all the factors that are at play. She is arguing against a particular form of 'altruism' which, I bet, is modeled after the christian concept of it.