Dictionary

rational selfishness en · NOUN

Meanings

1. (uncountable) Objectivist position that, in order to promote one's own life, the morally proper beneficiary of one's own rational actions should be oneself.
   • The Objectivist ethics proudly advocates and upholds rational selfishness—which means: the values required for man’s survival qua man—... 1961, Ayn Rand, “The Objectivist Ethics”, in The Virtue of Selfishness, Penguin Group:
2. (uncountable) The conviction that it is moral to act for one's own good and that this is rationally in line with a greater good.
   • 1870, Francis A Walker, An Oration at the Soldiers' Monument Dedication in North Brookfield, Goddard & Nye. [Society] has arranged all its parts and offices on the principle that a rational selfishness is the best preservative of peace, and the most efficient agent of progress; ...

Synonyms

rational egoism