The distinction between "how" and "why" questions is largely what divides the STEM subjects from the humanities in the academy. The former crowds tend to think "how" questions suffice and that the humanities are therefore dispensable, that those in the arts are wasting their time, whereas the humanities folks think that if you don't ponder the "why" questions, you're a philistine.

I'm not entirely sure what you're saying about philosophy. I'd agree that philosophy can work about egoism, but I don't see how philosophy promotes neoteny, in the sense of the elimination of our adult phase. If anything, philosophy does exactly the opposite: it defeats the infantilizing effects of anti-philosophical, consumer culture.