| Mnementh said: I agree that are more flaws on the model. But you are not right on altruism. There are cases, in which altruism benefits you personally long time. But in other cases, you clearly get no personal benefit. It is explainable with evolution, there are evolutionary benefits of such behaviour. But the model of homo oeconomicus is based on PERSONAL profit and I think if the OP talks about maximizing profit he also means personal profit. Humans do things, that are not so. Sometimes people even willingly die for others. But also less extreme cases of true altruism (not long term egoism). |
I believe in the end we mean almost the same. For example, I am fully aware of phenomena like the bee that decides to sting and therefor dies, I don't consider them a contradiction to my belief. I believe that in such situations the brain computes that this is the best/most desireable option, but you are right that such decisions can hardly be considered "personal profit" or "egoism" in the common understanding of these words.
