Chapter 7 - Psychological Egoism

Learning Objectives

M5.1: Be able to identify the concept of and some challenges for psychological egoism

• Psychological egoism: The theory that the ultimate motivation for humans' actions is self-interest, either in the long-term or short-term (or both).

  • Note that humans don’t always seek self-interest. We can be motivated by pleasing other people or helping a coworker out of a problem, but these are all connected to a deeper desire to benefit ourselves - we do other actions because we believe that they will benefit us in some way.

• Altruism: Direct desire to benefit others for their own sake, without any ulterior motive.

  • If psychological egoism is true, altruism is a myth.

• Psychological egoism is a psychological view - not an ethical theory; it aims to describe the limits of human motivation, rather than prescribe ethical standards for people to live up to.

• In order to deconstruct/challenge psychological egoism, a person must provide examples where a person intends or does something when he/she doesn’t want to benefit themselves.

  • You can’t point to examples of smoking (short-term benefit, long-term harm), or root canals (short-term pain, long-term benefit) to deconstruct psych egoism.

  • The full claim of an egoist is all human actions are ultimately aimed at avoiding some personal loss or gaining some personal benefit (or both), either in the short run or in the long term (or both).

• Arguments for psychological egoism:

  1. Arguments from our Strongest Desires (implausible):

     1. Whenever you do something, you are motivated by your strongest desires.

        • Egoists claim our actions are motivated by our ultimately strongest desires (e.g., wanting to stay alive vs. wanting to keep possessions).

        • Strictly conscientious action: Action motivated by the thought or the desire to do one’s duty for its own sake, rather than from any ulterior motive.

        • However, if they acknowledge counter-examples where actions don’t align with our strongest desires (e.g., engaging in boring or dangerous activities), they must concede premise 2.

     2. Whenever you are motivated by your strongest desire, you are pursuing your self-interest.

        • Being motivated by our strongest desires ≠ actions that benefit our self-interest (e.g., religious/altruistic acts).

        • Premise 2 begs the question - if you don’t believe acting on our strongest desires always benefits our self-interest, this premise doesn’t work.

     3. Therefore, whenever you do something, you are pursuing your self-interest.

        • The argument is implausible here.

        • In addition, just because an action satisfies a person’s desire doesn’t mean our ultimate aim is self-interest.

  2. Argument from Expected Benefit

     1. Whenever you do something, you expect to be better off as a result.

        • Implausible - Many examples of actions that we do and don’t expect to be better off (e.g., telling the truth, knowing that we’ll likely experience social outcry/disappointment as a result).

     2. If you expect to be better off as a result of your actions, then you are aiming to promote your self-interest.

        • Implausible - this premise begs the question; if you don’t expect your actions to benefit yourself, you’re not aiming to promote your self-interest.

        • Candidate to support the premise: Whenever you expect your action to result in X, then your aim is to get X.

          • Also implausible - if a student expects to get a bad grade on a test, he/she certainly doesn’t aim for a bad grade. Expecting something ≠ aiming for something

     3. Therefore, whenever you do something, you are aiming to promote your self-interest.

        Implausible - see premises 1 & 2.

  3. Appeal to the Guilty Conscience (implausible)

     This suggests that individuals are often driven by a desire to alleviate feelings of guilt, leading them to act in ways that seem altruistic yet are ultimately self-serving.
     Implausible - individuals concerned about whether their actions harm others are inherently acting from altruistic, unselfish perspectives.

  4. Expanding the Realm of Self-Interest (implausible)

     To the egoist, altruistic actions (e.g., a mother sacrificing her last food for her child), are ultimately done for a person to look out for himself/herself (e.g., the mother is trying to avoid a personal loss).
     Implausible - while a parent helping their child’s needs typically helps their own well-being, this doesn’t show the parent is motivated by self-interest. Similarly, with the Argument from Expected Benefit, what we expect is not what we aim for. A parent may aim to survive with his/herself and their child, but by giving away the food, the parent expects their death.

• Another problem with egoism is its apparent un-moveability - if someone claims to have easy answers to every single problem and cannot accept evidence to the contrary, that idea often moves into the territory of conspiracy theories.

  • Egoism cannot easily allow dialogue - an egoist has to prove that there are no examples of true altruistic actions, or else, the theory is false.

M5.4: Be able to identify the implications of psychological egoism for the field of ethics

• Implications of Egoism Argument:

  1. If psychological egoism is true, then we can’t be altruistic.

     This is just true - whether you agree with egoism or not.

  2. If we can’t be altruistic, then it can’t be our duty to be altruistic.

     True - our inability to be altruistic removes our moral responsibility; we cannot be expected to be good if we do not have that capacity.

  3. Therefore, if psychological egoism is true, then it can’t be our duty to be altruistic.
     True - follows from premises 1 & 2

  4. Psychological egoism is true.

  5. Therefore, it can’t be our duty to be altruistic.