Baby Boomers were sometimes called the "Me Generation" in the 1970s and 80s, reflective of their desire to look out only for themselves first and foremost. But selfishness has spun on a continuum these past couple decades, according to Dr. Jean Twenge, author of Generation Me.

She calls the newest crop of under 35s the iGeneration. It both describes the "I" for Internet, but also what she sees this generation most consumes itself with: I.

The people she refers to are those who value the primacy of feelings-oriented decisions, based on their passions and emotions, not based on logic, morals or even evidence: If it feels good for me, I do it; if it feels uncomfortable, stop. You might hear them often say, "I don't have to if I don't want to." Volumes have been written on how this came to be, reasons ranging from permissive parenting, materialism, overzealous questioning of authority, the feelgood self-esteem movement, and the steering clear of right vs. wrong via moral relativism.

Eternal values are thus jettisoned for what the individual values. Being feelings-oriented in decision making means that passions win out over principles. An example of this in the macro is teaching immigrants in their own language instead of immersion in English. We feel badly for the poor folks who must learn a new language, but don’t think of the long-term consequences (i.e. that these practices don’t work and will prevent immigrants from engaging in the rest of society).

On a micro level, if I decided to live by my emotions, that would likely mean that I would eat chocolate all day, not bother going to work, and sit in front of the tube. My actions would turn me into a narcissist, that I deserve to live in comfort and that my needs outweigh those of everyone else’s. If everyone lived like this – putting themselves first above all – the world would be in chaos.

A grown-up is someone who understands that while passions do have its place, principles are not subordinate to them. There are times when we need to place others before us, such as community, family, loved ones, country and God.

A recent example of a childish adult is that of a man from Atlanta who decided that his health was so much more important than the health and safety of others, that he took what can mildly be called foolish risks, or worse, attempted homicide.

Andrew Speaker, 31, is an adult by biological age. His actions speak entirely differently. He recently contracted a dangerous form of tuberculosis. Although doctors advised him not to travel, he decided to take his honeymoon in Europe. He was contacted in Italy by the Centers for Disease Control and told to stay in isolation at hospital there, for fear that he would spread the disease.

He chose instead to be treated in America. To evade quarantine, over the course of the next week he flew to Prague, then Montreal, and then drove to New York. His response to the CDC’s quarantine? "You’re nuts. I wasn’t going to do that…"

But what about all the people on those planes? Did he have the right to put other people’s lives at risk?

My answer, and I presume the answer of those who shared those airplanes with him, is that he does not have that right. Let’s suppose that as an average prudent layperson he could magically determine his health would deteriorate by staying in Europe, he still should have worked harder to prevent the spread of the illness. I’m sure that the health care in a nearby first-world European country could have helped him. Or, he could have spent his own money to charter a private plane to take him home.

It makes Speaker’s story even more disturbing that he’s a personal injury lawyer, and thus seems to personify all that people believe about soulless lawyers. He’s a man that cares more about himself than anyone else around him – his new wife included.

At least 100 people were affected by close proximity to Andrew Speaker, and that’s not counting people they were in contact with subsequently. They require testing for TB, tests that will affect them for the next five to ten years because they are going to have to keep getting tests even if they are negative.

His defense? "I’m a very well educated, successful, intelligent person," he told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. "This is insane to me that I have an armed guard outside my door when I’ve cooperated with everything other than the whole solitary-confinement-in-Italy thing."

What if everyone acted like Speaker did? It’s a simple question that should be asked of most behaviors that test moral boundaries. He did the equivalent of sitting in the middle of a movie theatre while battling a bad flu.

What divides children from grown-ups isn’t age. An adult becomes a grown-up when he realizes that the child in him must yield to rules, moral reflection, conscience, and consequences. None of which children have developed the awareness of. A child has to be taught to share; a child naturally does not place other children before him.

Captain Spock from Star Trek used to muse, "Does the good of the many outweigh the good of the one, or does the good of the one outweigh the good of the many?" For such a logical man, the answer should be easy: putting others in front of yourself, while sometimes counterintuitive, signifies moral character.