Is Selfishness a Virtue?

Since a concern with one's own interests is a character trait that, when translated into action, enables one to achieve and guard one's own well-being, it follows that selfishness is a virtue. ... Many people use the adjective "selfish" to describe regard for one's own welfare to the disregard of the well-being of others.

Is selfishness a virtue or a vice?

So understood, selfishness is a fundamental virtue. Objectivist ethics is thus a form of ethical egoism. Conversely, altruism, which Rand characterized as “the placing of others above self, of their interests above one's own,” is precisely the negation of virtuous activity and is therefore a fundamental vice.

Is being selfish moral?

“Selfishness” is simply “concern with one's own interests.” The definition does not include a moral evaluation. It does not preclude that one's own self-interest might correspond to the self-interest of others (and in a free-market society must necessarily do so).