Greed: Intense and selfish desire for something, esp. wealth, power, or food
Selfishness : stinginess resulting from a concern for your own welfare and a disregard of others.

E.x.
1. One can live with minimum wealth, power, and clothing.
2. One can also live selflessly by not having concern of oneself.

Those are the extremes.

Since this is an ambiguous issue, the real answer to it is not as simple as 0 and 1. We need to handle the concept of partial truth, where the truth value may range between completely true and completely false.

Back to the question, how does one achieve the sweet spot of greed and selfishness in order to achieve a fulfilling life? Is it wise for someone to label others as selfish or greed when most people may have different measures for selfishness and greediness?

tags: philosophy, sociology

I do not think "greed" and "selfishness" are diametrically opposed. You cannot balance them. Just look at your own definition of "greed".

A person can be both very greedy and very selfish. At the same time.

I don't subscribe to the idea that greed and selfishness is bad because everyone is greedy and selfish, we only hate those things in other people, not ourselves.

Who doesn't want the very best for themselves, their families and sometimes near and dear friends? We are all "greedy" for the best, if not for here and now then for somewhere after this place of existence. And why shouldn't we want the best? The very best! Those that created us have it all, the very very very best of everything, and we, their offspring, deserve no less!!!

We run into problems down here on earth because many of us don't want others to have the best if we ourselves don't think we have it. We call such people greedy and selfish. Makes us hate them, envy them, and throw tantrums about them, that's where most people fall short, and lose out or postpone receiving the best the universe has to offer.

This post has been edited by transhumanist92: Mar 14 2012, 08:26 PM