1993/09/01 by Jerome C. Wakefield · 1 citation
Health Professions · Medicine · #Ethics and Legal Issues in Pediatric Healthcare #Ethics in medical practice #Palliative Care and End-of-Life Issues
paper · doi:10.1086/603998
crossref issued 1993/09/01 · crossref published 1993/09/01 · crossref published-print 1993/09/01 · openalex publication_date 1993/09/01 · crossref created 2009/06/17 · crossref deposited 2018/04/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · crossref indexed 2026/07/31 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
Altruistic goals are at the foundation of social work's humanitarian mission, yet almost all current theories of human motivation suggest that people are essentially egoistic and that altruism is not part of human nature. In this article, I survey the conceptual and theoretical arguments and paradoxes by which scientists, philosophers, and much of the lay public defend an egoistic view of human nature, and I show how such arguments might be overcome to allow for the possibility of altruism.