The thesis deals with the definition, understanding, evaluation and use of altruism, selfishness and related concepts. It builds on the findings of the philosophers and psychologists of the 19th and 20th centuries that the concepts of (un)selfishness are heavily laden with moral judgments and are understood as opposites of each other. This has prevented them from being understood in a more complex way in the past. The turnaround towards an unequivocal understanding of selfishness is illustrated first through the ancient understanding of self-care, and then through a philosophical-anthropological analysis of the 20th-century psychological theories. This lays the foundations for the research that is flourishing from the turn of the 21st century onwards. The new conceptual categories of pathological altruism and healthy selfishness show that (un)selfishness can no longer be understood as a one-dimensional scheme of selfishness = bad and altruism = good. The concepts take on a more neutral meaning as they are separated from immanent moral judgments. The thesis seeks to show that, for a comprehensive understanding, they are best understood as a slider between their "healthy" and "pathological" versions. Somewhere between these two extremes lie the actions of people in practice. Finally, the theoretical considerations are applied to the real-life example of the #selfcare phenomenon during the covid-19 pandemic. Through the global trend of self-care, the thesis has researched whether the general understanding of (un)selfishness is nowadays turning in favour of selfishness.
|
