Chapter 5, "Isn't Everyone Selfish?" Nathaniel Branden (1962) Summary and Analysis

Similar to the intention identified in Chapter 4 of refuting a commonly held idea, in this chapter Branden attempts to refute the notion that everyone is selfish because people only do what they really want to do. On the same note, he also refutes the notion that no one ever really sacrifices oneself because every direct action is motivated by a person's desire; thus, people always act selfishly. Branden asserts that these "faulty" notions are the result of intellectual confusion and that these "faulty" believers confuse the terms "selfishness" and "egoism", and "self-sacrifice" and "altruism". Furthermore, they confuse the principles behind, and the results of, selfishness with those behind, and of, self-sacrifice. Branden states that issues of selfishness versus self-sacrifice arise in an ethical context; ethics being "a code of...