1C Ethical Egoism

EDQUAS Agent focused ethic based on self-interest as opposed to altruism; ethical theory that matches the moral agent's psychological state (psychological egoism); concentration on long term self-interests rather than short term interests; Max Stirner, is self-interest the root cause of every human action even if it appears altruistic? Rejection of egoism for material gain; union of egoists. Challenges: destruction of a community ethos; social injustices could occur as individuals put their own interests first; a form of bigotry (why is one moral agent more important than any other?)

Ayer

-Speaks on ideas of Nietzsche who believed in death of God > less believed as there was no reason to believe in a being with such attributes

-If there were such a being his will could not supply a basis for morality as shown in Euthyphro dilemma > for saying God ‘willed what was good’ is illogical > tautology ‘he willed what he willed’

-theists are grateful for his goodness > doesn’t make sense that means they are grateful that ‘his wishes were what they were’ > arbitrary what if devil was in charge?

-Theists believe ‘God's goodness issues from his nature’ but ‘nothing whatsoever follows about his moral character’ knowing he created everything, ‘devotees are assuming that he satisfies their own moral standards’ as he created the standards amongst everything but ‘children many find reasons to adopt different standards’ against parents

‘Morals cannot be founded on authority’ whether divine or human

Is it better to be a good person or to do good deeds

Good Person- being a virtuous person

-perfecting personal qualities will allow you to approach any situation

Good Samaritan experts of law obeyed purity regulations and didn’t touch a dying body but failed to be compassionate

Attempts to codify deeds as good or bad will lead to immoral acts

laws about abortion leading to a minority being sacrificed UTILITARIAN or force people to obey laws without compassion DCT NATURAL LAW

Julia Annas virtue encourages us to reflect on and find inadequacies in moral law to develop into ideal people

Becoming good sometimes involves making mistakes

deed focused ethics condemns this but Vitue ethics recognises this doesn’t make a person evil

Can make a mistake and not have this reflect on their character

NF Gier generous people aren’t not virtuous because they don’t donate to a particular charity

Good Deed- actions that are deemed morally good

Deeds directly effect others

vital we receive specific and useful guidance

VIRTUE ETHICS measures consequences are superior

More effective route to morality no way to codify virtue

virtue at best supplements rules

Practical reason is reaujred

-question assumes a distinction- dont good people do good?

Aristotle

-JS Mill argues it doesn't matter why you saved a drowning person (being good less imp) BUT if you're good you're more inclined to do good

Glaucon on justice

-Doing immoral things is usually desirable because it serves our self-interest, but suffering from the immoral actions of others is undesirable

-Since we do not want to suffer from the wrongs of others, we compromise and form a social contract not to harm each other > justice in society

-People thus behave justly in society because it is in their interest to (Psychological egoism)

-Plato- Glaucon with the story the Ring of Gyges people act justly because to avoid punishment.

-If there was no fear of punishment (eg invisible) the virtuous and non-virtuous alike, would no longer act morally (a person that would not use the ring to further their own self interest through immoral means would be a 'most wretched idiot'- ethical egoist view)

Psychological Egoism

"Psychological egoism offers an account of human nature and is non-normative. It concerns how people actually behave, not how they ought to behave."

Julia Driver

-Psychological egoism claims that each person's behaviour is motivated by only one aim: their own welfare or self-interest (focused on how we do act not should)

-In its strongest form we can only act from self-interested motivation (DETERMINISM)

-Altruism - the view that we can and should sometimes act in the interests of others' interests - is impossible

-This is different to ethical egoism which provides a normative theory about what we ought to do: I should perform some action if, and only if, performing that action maximizes my self-interest

-Often match each other (if strong psyc egoism says we cannot act not in our self interest then we have to be following ethical egoism)

Ethical Egoism

-Based on selfinterst
-Self interest has many definitions (acting out of own desire, to ensure wellbeing...)
-Focused on longterm short term
-What we should do
-Normative ethics

Ayn Rand rejecting altruism

-In her book The Virtue of Selfishness

-Argues selfishness=virtue altruism=vice

-BECAUSE the goal of humans is to achieve personal happiness

Altruism sacrifices our interest in favour of others (vice)

describes altruists as ‘parasites’

Ethical Egoism seems own happiness and is thus the right theory

Eg drowning person

Stranger- “it is morally proper to save him only when the danger to ones own life is minimal” to save him in a risky situation is the product of low self esteem “ones life cannot be valuable to him as his own”

BUT

Loved one- “one can be willing to give one’s life to save [loved one]- for the selfish reason that life without the loved person could be unbearable” more risk and effort not because there is existence is valuable but because it benefits us

In keeping with evolutionary purpose of survival

BUT fulfilment can be found in altruism (not incompatible)

Not all agree our personal happiness is the ultimate purpose

Selfishness

Lack of consideration for others

Ayn Rand would define it as considering your own interest
She would argue it is a virtue as it is compatible with our telos (achieving happiness)

Altruism

Selfishness concern for the well-being of others
Putting others interest before your own even to the point of detriment

Ayn Rand claims it is a vice as it inhibits our telos (achieving happiness)

Max Stirner summary

-Ethical egoist

-Rejects psych egoism as an explanation of most behaviour - even things that seem self-interested may be subject to other things (e.g. duty or guilt, woman rejects man for husband)

-Has a unique interpretation of egoism based on 'ownness' (Eigenheit), becoming complete master of oneself, rejecting obligations or subjugation to others (anti-institutions)+ own desires

-Calls these controlling abstractions 'spooks'

-Rejects conventional forms of morality (involves obligations, some view it as leading to immorality (BUT can be authentically kind))

-Rejects the State (seeks to subjugate through obligation to obey the law)

>Proposes the creation of a union of egoists which would allow for the creation of impermanent relationships of mutual benefit, but which do not constrain the individual.

Comparing Ethical Theories

DCT

Clear Guidance

We act as God commands (objective foundation + scripture to look to)

BUT Pluralism Objective

New Situations

-Some teachings can encompass new situations

-BUT If God hasn’t directly commanded it conduct is unclear

His commands are fixed and old, dont speak on contemp

Lead to Good

-Many of the teachings promote good

-BUT absolute rules overlook nuance (eg murderer at door) can never break the commandments (eg dont lie) regardless of situation

-What if Goid commands cruelty ?

-BUT Alston, Ockham, Adams

Account for good and bad

-Goodness and badness are grounded solely in Gods nature (it

VIRTUE THEORY

Clear Guidance

-Anscombe v-rules, act in accordance with the virtues

-BUT Frankena virtues without principles are blind

Mackie it is often unclear

Culturally relative (Louden)

Virtues conflict

New Situations

-Can apply v-rules to any situation

-Being good will become habitual, can use phronesis

-Virtues as opposed to rules are more widely applicable

-BUT virtue relativity

Lead to Good

-GH Von Wright ‘the courage of the villain’ (virtues may aid in cruelty, an action isn’t good merely because of the presence of a virtue)

BUT Phillippa Foot (virtue isn’t virtuous in an un virtuous situation) Aquinas (deficiencies can neutralise others)

Account for good and bad

-Virtues (which contribute to flourishing) are good- it is good to do what cultivates these qualities and what expresses them

-BUT ‘courage of the murderer’ if virtues are what make an act good then what of instances such as this

There is a lack of clarity between virtue and vice

Virtues conflict

ETHICAL EGOISM

Clear Guidance

-Act according to self interest

-BUT differing definitions (eg Eigenheit) makes it difficult

New Situations

-Act in self interest

BUT

-May be unclear?

Lead to Good

-If societal conditions promote kindness then it will be in your selfinterest

-Niemoller act when victimised

-Altruism can promote joy (Rand)

-BUT Glaucon (without conseq we would act unjustly)

-Benthon (people’s happiness should be equal)

Account for good and bad

-Rand (good is whatever promotes your own happiness)

-BUT there is no good or bad beyond what benefits you (Stirner takes this to the extreme, no good or bad at all)

Are all moral actions motivated by self interest?

Concerns the descriptive theory of Psychological Egoism

People only perform good actions when it benefits them

-to avoid punishment

Eg Glaucon

Eg religion, provides divine incentives to moral actions appeals to individuals long term self interest in a way that benefits society

moral acts are not fundamentally altruistic

BUT

Soldier, who sacrifices himself receives nothing in return, hard to explain benefit.

Batson’s study suggests negative consequences did not affect the actions of high empathy individuals

SO

more likely to act out of altruism

Feeling happy by helping someone shows the altruism is selfish/ moral actions performed for emotional gain

Feeling happy by helping someone shows the altruism is selfish

defining self interest as ‘satisfaction of all one’s preferences’

Psyc egoist would argue the soldier was acting to avoid guilt and is deluding self

The good for others isn’t the ultimate goal, the pleasure is

Eg Abraham Lincoln stopped his train to help piglets ‘essence of selfishness’ as it would have bothered him if he didn’t

BUT

James Rachel Joy as a byproduct is not selfish – a selfish person would act begrudgingly/not at all -It is the unselfish person that gains joy from helping others.

Aristotle would suggest that acting altruistically would not always bring a selfish person joy e.g. miser wouldn’t gain happiness from generosity + acting virtuously is to achieve pleasurable lives

Stirner recognises other motivations when discussing spooks, though he claims they are wrong

SO

Challenge is unfalsifiable (contrary evidence is reinterpreted)

An action cannot be morally right if it’s selfinterested

Thomas Aquinas – the motivation and action must be aligned to be good.

Stolynov any self-interest act is immoral as it reduces the value of others

BUT

Ayn Rand We have a Moral duty to secure personal happiness. Only moral duty is to the self . The arguments make self interest, trivial

SO

Rand valuing individual over collective leads to conflict

Some

People indulge in damaging activities like drinking and or drinking

May avoid doing things that are enjoyable out of a sense of duty eg popstponing a night out for a friend

Actions can have multiple motivations- they are not mutually exclusive

Our interests dont always conflict with others

Challenges to ethical egoism

Destruction of community ethos.

-Ethical egoism suggests a person should only be concerned with their selves.

Eg Ayn Rand disagrees with Good Samaritan

Embodies by hyper individualism in 1980s politics.

Margaret Thatcher “there is no such thing as society“ “it is our duty to look after ourselves“ (seems to reject community)

-An egoist cannot experience friendship.

Louis Pajman questions whether Egoists can have friends, as to him a friend will forget their selfinterest, “the paradox of egoism“ to reach the goal of egoism, we must “give up egoism, and become to some extent and altruist“ which is the antithesis of it.

-Stirner’s union of Egoists appears to destroy community ethos by viewing relationships as instrumental, and his philosophy leading to an atmosphere of distrust

BUT

Margaret Thatcher does envisage some form of community ethos, mainly framed through egoism.

Stirner union of egoists, provides an opportunity for something kind of friendship

SO

-True egoism would destroy community ethos and prevent deep friendship.

-The union of egoist theoretically works in the community, which is unrealistic as we form attachments

Social injustices could occur when self interest is prioritised.

-Allowing harm to occur

-E.g. Peter Singer, people in the affluent north, failed to alleviate global poverty.

-In a societial level ego as a may justify system such a slavery.

-On a personal level, murder, theft, etc become excusable eg Max Stirner’s allows us to act according to authentic will

-There is no obligation for pro social action.

-E.g. Glaucon we’d act injustly without consequence

BUT

-Egoism can support challenging social injustice to avoid being victimised.

Eg Martin Niemoller didn’t speak against Nazism until they tried to control the church

-Thomas Hobbes laws are for the interests of everyone- it is not the case that immorality would arise instantly

It is a form of bigotry.

-Most ethical systems suggest everyone should be taken into consideration.

Jeremy Benthon “everybody to count for one, nobody more than one” peoples happiness should be considered equally along with our own utilitarian

-Vladimir Stolynov, Eegoists “unjustly refuses to others, the same significance” he use himself as “the centre of life, he relegates others to the circumference” and “only an external and relative value”

BUT

-Rand would argue we have a right to self prioritisation Altruism follows natural instincts – psychological egoism.

-Psychiological Egoists argue it is natural

JS Mill Egoism

“He who saves a fellow creature, from drowning, does, what is morally right, whether his motive be duty, or the hope of being paid for his trouble”

Evaluating Max Stirner

His concept of owness

-very influential, taken on by Jean Paul Sartre

-Help us recognise that apparently self-interested behaviour may be actually constrained

BUT

- Assume it is possible to have this kind of complete freedom

Assume it is possible to have this kind of complete freedom

-At what point can we say that our actions are completely influenced by our will alone?

-At what point can we say that our actions are completely influenced by our will alone?

-The idea of an ego is itself, another abstraction or spook

-Kowski was critical that owness was a challenge to the state, led to individual, freedom, or challenged fascism, it did not have anything against conformism, only objection to the ego being subordinated, the ego is free to adjust to the world if it is clearly for its benefit

Rejection of Morality

-it Champions absolute freedom. In our actions, we do not rely on abstractions of morality, and offered from Acting blindly

-Argues that acting in self interest is rational

-Allows for subjective interpretations of self interest, both selfish and altruistically – not necessarily antisocial

BUT

-Since he rejects all moral obligations at its most extreme, it can be used to justify anything as long as the action as world by their authentic self

-May lead to an environment of distrust as no person is ever bounded by moral obligation or social

Union of Egoists

-many of our current social relationships already exist along these lines, easily applied to others

-Since it is a voluntary association. It would avoid issues such as hierarchy and oppression.

-Emilie Armand Applied it to sexual relationships, arguing for free love and polyamory, allowing people to gain sexual and intimate gratification without rejection and possessiveness

-Influential in anarchist thought and traditions

BUT

-May benefit more from these unions than others-They may take without giving-Or agreements may go on fulfilled

>No guarantee that this prevents antisocial behaviour

-May create a view of human relationships as instrumental where people are not valued as people, but as what they can offer

>May lead to some facing social exclusion or poverty, if they are unable to offer something

Intro are all Moral Actions Motivated by Selfinterest

-Moral actions are those to which we traditionally ascribe the quality of being good or bad, right or wrong.

>Typically performed by a moral agent (i.e. a rational creature that is able to understand the significance of their actions), done with intention, and that they often have significant consequences for others

 -Psychological egoism is the theory that all human actions are motivated by self-interest

>self-interest’ means is contested (and this may make a difference to whether you consider all actions to be performed out of self-interest).

 -Many normative ethical theories consider the intention to be an important part of the morality of an action BUT Ethical egoism argues that we ought to act in ways that are in accordance with our own self-interest.                

Egoism Soldier Example

-Some behavior does not seem to be explained by self-regarding desires eg a soldier throws himself on a grenade to prevent others from being killed

Was he selfinterested?

-psychological egoist the soldier is lying or self-deceived in claiming he didnt act out of selfinterest- maybe aware he could not live with himself afterwards and his welfair was improved by this action

-According to (trivial) psychological egoism a soldier who sacrificed himself to save others v one who sacrificed someone else would be equally selfish as they are both acting according to their desires (though traditionally we would view one as more selfish)

BUT no reason to think it covers all cases + guilt suggests an awareness of actions outside of self interest

Was it good?

-The psychological egoist would view the action as good, the soldier did what he most wanted to do- true if self-interest is identified with the satisfaction of all of one’s preferences

BUT then all intentional action is self-interested and psychological egoism is trivial

The psychological egoist would claim that self-interest explains all behavior (we develop with age to learn that duty satisfy our self-regarding desires) BUT does not defend since it admits that we sometimes ultimately aim at things other than our welfare. The soldier’s desire is to save others, not increase his own welfare, even if he would not have desired to save others unless saving others was connected to increasing his welfare.

Daniel Batson’s Psychological Egoism Research

-psychological egoist argues that we do not come to pursue things other than our welfare for their own sakes + define empathy NOT as altruistic desire to help BUT a desire to prevent an unpleasant experience (guilt/punishment) for us or gain a reward

BUT Daniel Batson and colleagues found that increased empathy leads to increased helping behaviour. 

Compared the egoistic hypotheses of empathy against the altruistic hypothesis- finding that the altruistic hypothesis always made superior predictions. 

Unpleasant experience- giving high-empathy subjects easy ways of stopping the experience other than by helping did not reduce helping

Self-administered reward- mood of high-empathy subjects depended on whether they believed that help was needed, whether or not they could do the helping, rather than on whether they helped (and so could self-reward).

BUT Perhaps subjects did not believe that the provided easy ways of stopping eg leaving the viewing room, would stop it. OR that subjects believe that the only way of stopping the pain (or avoiding self-punishment) is by helping 

Predominent Egoism

Gregory Kafka

We act unselfishly only rarely, and where the sacrifice is small and the gain to others is large or where those benefiting are favourites.

Not troubled by the soldier counter-example, since it allows exceptions; it is not trivial; and it seems empirically plausible.

Psychological Egoism and falsifiability

If a theory is a genuine scientific theory, then even if it cannot be proven it must be able to be falsified- There must be some type of evidence or argument that could count against it.

It is good for a theory to be strong, to be able to withstand criticism -- but it is not a good thing if nothing can possibly count against it.

The psychological egoist can always reply that we act not because of the good of another but because we get satisfaction- nothing could count against it. This is circular reasoning and has no place in scientific theorizing. It is, in principle, non-falsifiable.

James Rachels

Rachels points out that it is precisely what we mean by unselfishness that we take joy out of doing something to help others.

Why should we think that merely because someone derives satisfaction from helping others this makes him selfish? Isn't the unselfish man precisely the one who does derive satisfaction from helping others, while the selfish man does not?

Believes it is a poor argument that gaining joy from altruism is selfish, it is arguably a byproduct.

Does Ethical egoism lead inevitably to evil

YES

No imperative to treat others any particular way (most normative ethical theories consider that)

inevitable that evil will occur because nothing prevents it

No garuntee of a common good being upheld in a Union of Egoists (no obligation to keep agreements)

Ayn Rand demonstrates that it leads to bigotry

describes altruists as ‘parasites’ feed off of the good will of others

This imagery leads to people withholding aid

No moral code preventing actions

could commit arson for entertainment

Glauconite myth of Gyges even the most virtuous will do evil if they can avoid evil

NO

-egoism will inevitably lead to us following rules as it is not the same as selfishness

the self will inevitably lead to cooperation, trade fairly

Eg Hobbes and Adam Smith society depends on us acting in our own interest

Leads to greater good

No advantage to breaking the law if I am likely to be caught though I can in principle practically I will not

harm is not inevitable

MAY LEAD TO EVIL

creates no rules or obligations to treat anyone in a particular way (is allowed not inevitable)

Baier points out that egoism requires us to act rationally and there is nothing rational about going out of your way to harm

moral evil that occurs due to egoism is incidental not intentional

Often what is in the interest of one is in the interest of others

Nothing to prevent their interests from coinciding

Stirner Union of egoist encourages us to group when its in the common Interest