---
id: papers/withington-paradoxical-egoism
title: "Paradoxical Egoism: Acting Without Motivation in the Interest of Self-Preservation"
license: CC BY 4.0   # paper is CC BY 4.0 (Zenodo record metadata, verified 2026-10-20); note is our own summary
updated: 2026-10-20
status: published
date: 2026-10-20
approved: true
approved_by: "Cole Withington, 2026-10-20 18:30 PT: \"Yes, publish all three papers\""
category: zenodo-preprint
peer_reviewed: false
attribution: "Summary by iinventedlight (AI-assisted). Source: Cole David Withington (ORCID 0009-0006-0374-4277), \"Paradoxical Egoism: Acting Without Motivation in the Interest of Self-Preservation\", Zenodo preprint, doi:10.5281/zenodo.23506838 (CC BY 4.0)."
sources:
  - id: S1
    title: "Paradoxical Egoism: Acting Without Motivation in the Interest of Self-Preservation"
    authors: "Cole David Withington (Portland State University; ORCID 0009-0006-0374-4277)"
    url: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23506838
    record: https://zenodo.org/records/23506838
    doi: 10.5281/zenodo.23506838
    posted: 2026-10-20
    accessed: 2026-10-20
    license: CC BY 4.0
---
# Paradoxical Egoism: Acting Without Motivation in the Interest of Self-Preservation

> **Unreviewed preprint.** A theoretical paper with testable predictions and sketched studies. No data were collected.

**Source and license:** Cole David Withington, "Paradoxical Egoism: Acting Without Motivation in the Interest of Self-Preservation", Zenodo preprint, [doi:10.5281/zenodo.23506838](https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23506838). Licensed [CC BY 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). This page is an AI-assisted summary by iinventedlight, not the paper itself.

## Summary
Most theories assume people act because they want something. This paper names the case where someone has no motivation for any action but acts anyway, choosing "any random thing", to protect their sense of self. Its resolution of the paradox is that there is no motive for the specific act, but there is a higher-order drive not to lose oneself, and any small self-generated movement satisfies it. The concept covers only small, harmless acts such as breathing deliberately, standing up, walking or speaking (Abstract; Introduction; Defining Paradoxical Egoism).

## When to apply
- Background on acting without motivation, the "inaction trap", and how small self-generated acts relate to boredom, behavioral activation, sense of agency and self-continuity.
- Source of ten falsifiable predictions plus a lab experiment and an experience-sampling study design.
- Not a clinical recommendation, and not about acts that endanger anyone.

## Key concepts
- **Paradoxical egoism**: acting without motivation, picking an arbitrary act, to preserve the self [F1].
- **Five conditions**: low motivation, inaction available, self-initiation, arbitrary selection, self-maintenance reason [F2].
- **Inaction trap**: staying stuck because every choice feels weighty, even though acting at all would ease it [F3].
- **Preconditions**: the state of a system before an event; a small act changes the preconditions of the next decision. The author's speculative framework, "reconstruction of the retroflexive preconditions by the future" [F4].

## Facts
- id: F1
  claim: The author defines paradoxical egoism as deciding to perform some arbitrary action despite having no motivation to act, in the interest of self-preservation.
  confidence: medium
  date: 2026-10-20
  sources: [S1]
  license: CC BY 4.0
- id: F2
  claim: The paper operationalizes the concept with five conditions and contrasts it with amotivated inaction, default passivity, boredom-driven activity, behavioral activation and habit (Table 1).
  confidence: medium
  date: 2026-10-20
  sources: [S1]
  license: CC BY 4.0
- id: F3
  claim: The paper presents the inaction trap, refusing to let outside forces decide one's fate, and pain teaching people to care for each other as its philosophical context.
  confidence: medium
  date: 2026-10-20
  sources: [S1]
  license: CC BY 4.0
- id: F4
  claim: The preconditions framework is offered as speculative and conceptual, not as an empirical claim.
  confidence: medium
  date: 2026-10-20
  sources: [S1]
  license: CC BY 4.0
- id: F5
  claim: The author traces the idea to his 2019 notes.
  confidence: medium
  date: 2026-10-20
  sources: [S1]
  license: CC BY 4.0

## Related
- [The Supreme Thought](https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/zenodo-23511078-supreme-thought.md): cites this paper's preconditions framework for resetting a train of thought.
- [The Cigarette as Last-Resort Self-Soothing](https://iinventedlight.com/library/notes/zenodo-23506946-cigarette-last-resort-self-soothing.md): same author; another account of coping when nothing else is available.

## Review notes
- Draft written 2026-10-20 from the published PDF and abstract. Approved by Cole Withington 2026-10-20 and published.