There are no absolute "first principles". What you choose as first principles reflects who you are.
If I were to guess, I'd say this was written by someone who's young and has never been in love (truly in love, as opposed to narcissistic love). Has never been a parent and loved a child. Has a sadly ignorant understanding of poverty, wealth and social injustice, or simply doesn't care enough to learn (narcissism), and thus is not at all moved by a desire to better the world, but only better themselves (and will smother any stirrings of conscience by convincing themselves the best way to better the world is to better themselves as much as possible).
Or, if it was written by someone who's older or been a parent, narcissism prevented them from ever growing beyond themselves because they could never see beyond themselves.