I disagree that selfishness is the root of ethics; I think the root of ethics is the desire for a higher good, for the world to be a better place for the people

I disagree that selfishness is the root of ethics; I think the root of ethics is the desire for a higher good, for the world to be a better place for the people living in it, which is fundamentally altruistic. I agree that moral frameworks are more of a guideline than a ruleset because no one model is going to be both simple and map onto messy reality. Ie, like all models, they're reductive but can still be useful. My point was that deontology is just an appeal to rigid consistency, where at least utilitarianism takes context into account, leading to better flexibility to match up with reality.