Psychological egoism
View that true altruism in humans is impossible / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Egotism. For broader coverage of egoist philosophy, see Egoism. For other uses, see Egoist (disambiguation).
Psychological egoism is the view that humans are always motivated by self-interest and selfishness, even in what seem to be acts of altruism. It claims that, when people choose to help others, they do so ultimately because of the personal benefits that they themselves expect to obtain, directly or indirectly, from doing so.
This is a descriptive rather than normative view, since it only makes claims about how things are, not how they "ought to be" according to some. It is, however, related to several other normative forms of egoism, such as ethical egoism and rational egoism.