It does not matter how much an individual loves serving his country or feeding orphans in Tanzania; he cannot be classified as selfless. Good or admirable, sure. But selflessness cannot exist, as long as individuals are independent actors. Why?

Game theory can easily explain. The basic concept behind game theory suggests that in making decisions, individuals choose between strategies with different payoffs.

The individual acts when the payoff he will receive for acting outweighs the payoff he gets from choosing another alternative or doing nothing. If his payoff is not high enough, or if he is not receiving enough personal benefit (either in the form of personal pleasure or vicarious pleasure through helping others), he will not act, regardless of how many orphans he could be helping.

Individuals go through the subconscious process of valuing different courses of action every time they make a decision. If an actor can choose either to cram for upcoming finals or to sing Christmas carols to children, he must consider his feelings on both. If he is pushing for an A in his Calculus class, we may find him studying at Powell instead of singing at the Ronald Reagan Medical Center. If, instead, he values seeing little kids smile over acing his Calculus final, we may find him in the children’s ward of the hospital singing away.

No choice is objectively superior: everyone’s payoffs are unique and meaningful only to them. But the question remains. Does the individual who places others over himself deserve the label “selfless”? Is the boy who is singing Christmas carols instead of studying for his finals inherently more “selfless” than one who would make the opposite choice? I argue no.

In conducting the valuation process at all, the individual remains just that – an individual, with his own hopes for himself and for others. He considers the payoffs that matter to him; he needs his payoffs to be high enough to motivate him to act. Although the individual may value helping others over helping himself, what matters most is that he asks himself what he wants to do.

In my example, the boy goes to sing to kids because he loves the feeling he gets from singing to them, or he loves the idea of them being happy. His aims may be completely altruistic and noble, but he is still considering his own feelings at the end of the day.

Thus, I conclude that the act of doing is all about the individual self. One can no more give up his “self-ness” (to take a bit about essence from Plato) than he can tear out his soul. Man needs motivation to act, and he can only find that motivation within himself, regardless of the form that motivation may take.