  Expected utility theory does not require that preferences be selfish or self-interested. Someone can prefer giving money to charity over spending the money on lavish dinners, or prefer sacrificing his own life over allowing his child to die. Sen (1977) suggests that each person's psychology is best represented using three rankings: one representing the person's narrow self-interest, a second representing the person's self-interest construed more broadly to account for feelings of sympathy (e.g., suffering when watching another person suffer), and a third representing the person's commitments, which may require her to act against her self-interest broadly construed.