"Selfishness is being concerned, sometimes excessively or exclusively, for oneself or one's own advantage, pleasure, or welfare, regardless of others.[1][/url][url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selfishness#cite_note-2][2]", ,according to Wikipedia. I would say that for the most part Sherlock is mostly concerned with his own advantage and pleasure. 

I think someone said it well in this thread when they stated that Sherlock was mostly selfish when it came to the small things (if you would call the general cases for "small"), and selfless in the bigger things (John's welfare). 

 

Last edited by Vhanja (April 9, 2015 8:02 pm)

I am not sure if I would call it pleasure. Is it not more the attempt to keep boredom away, to fight the demons that possibly made him a drug addict, to use his mind to keep it from driving him mad? Of course there is also shameless joy about fascinating cases but I do not think that pleasure is the main motivator. And if this is true, I would not call it selfish but self-protective. 
(Just have a look at nakahara's sig)
 

Last edited by SusiGo (April 9, 2015 8:59 pm)

He often does it at the expense of others, and you don't have to do it excessively or exclusively for it to be considered selfish.

A lovely light wrote:

I think it is safe to say that Sherlock is rude, for him the end of the road is more important than how is the way, he doesn't spend too many thoughts about morality. [...]
I see Sherlock very seldom as selfish (for example when he makes Molly compliments to get his way).

This is a very good example for how difficult it seems to be to agree on what is really selfish and what isn't - even though two definitions have been given already in this thread.
Because in my opinion when he's paying Molly compliments to make her help him - that's rude and a bit mean. But I never thought about him being selfish here, because yes, at first sight it seems as if he were doing this to get his way and get an advantage out of it, but there is more to it. He wants to solve the case. And yes, he could just explain this to Molly and ask her to help him, but not doing it like this doesn't mean he's selfish. He's not doing this regardless of others - regardless of Molly, yes, but at the same time trying to solve the case and save somebody's life.
If he'd played Molly like this in order to make her let him have the food she just bought because he's hungry, that would be selfish. And also pretty rude.
 

Last edited by SolarSystem (April 10, 2015 8:49 am)

Sherlock is doing his job for Lady Smallwood, nothing else. As far as we know, he never had any contact with Magnussen before. Would you say that everyone who does his oder her job and gains satisfaction from it was selfish? 

I don't think selfish is quite the right word for Sherlock's behaviour. I was thinking perhaps narcissism would be a better description, but I wasn't sure (I've never studied psychology), so I did some googling. I'm still not sure, but I came across this interesting article Just for Fun: Has Cumberbatch’s Sherlock Holmes Erred in his Self-Diagnosis?. I guess selfishness or self-centred behaviour is part of narcissism. What do you think?

Last edited by ukaunz (April 10, 2015 12:50 pm)

ukaunz: Sherlock's mental health has been largely discussed here:

http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=1197
Sherlock- Asperger's syndrome and sociopathy

and here
http://sherlock.boardhost.com/viewtopic.php?id=2164
Sherlock OCD?

so let's keep this topic there, thanks 

Harriet wrote:

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

This. 

Harriet wrote:

"Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

But having great love for someone, and being brave and caring enough to risk his life for it, does not mean we can't admit that he also has negative qualities. 

I'm just waiting for someone explaining to me why this caring and brave love is actually a selfish thing