Egoism

Abstract

The research discusses some of the important issues of egoism, which include psychological egoism and ethical egoism. The research identifies the significant issues with egoism with respect to psychological and ethical egoism and defends a position regarding the issues. Furthermore, the research also discusses the theoretical perspectives of egoism and the two issues.

Table of Contents

Abstractii

Table of Contentsiii

Egoism1

Introduction1

Thesis Statement1

Aims and Objectives1

Discussion2

Psychological Egoism2

Ethical Egoism3

Conclusion5

References6

Egoism

Introduction

As a philosophical thesis, egoism takes either a psychological or a normative form. Psychological egoism is the view that people are by nature egoistic, that is, they are by nature motivated to pursue only their self-interest. For example, Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) believed that people are always motivated to pursue pleasure and avoid pain. On the assumption that such motivation is self-interested, his view would be a specific form of psychological egoism. Normative egoism, on the other hand, implies that this is how people ought to be, whether or not it is how they are. The normative thesis can be formulated as ethical egoism-the view that people ought morally to pursue only their self-interest; or it can be formulated as rational egoism-the view that people ought to pursue only their self-interest if they are to be rational. In ethical theory these three kinds of egoism bear importantly on each other.

Thesis Statement

Psychological and ethical egoism are some of the significant issues of discussion of egoism.

Aims and Objectives

The aim of this paper is to discuss some of the significant issues of egoism.

Discussion

Psychological Egoism

Psychological egoism is not, strictly speaking, about ethics, since it purports merely to describe the egoistic nature of human motivation rather than to assess the moral worth of such motivation or the behavior that issues from it. Psychological egoism is, nevertheless, important in ethics, for if it is true, then any ethical view about how people ought to act that is inconsistent with ethical egoism would imply that people ought morally to do what is psychologically impossible. If, as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) thought, one cannot have a moral duty to do the impossible, psychological egoism would imply that people never have a moral duty to pursue something that is not in their self-interest (Snare, 2002).

Prima facie psychological egoism is an implausible view, since in fact people appear to pursue ends which are not in their self-interest. The psychological egoist allows, of course, that people often pursue ends which are not immediately or obviously in their interest when these ends are really means to some more distant or more subtle self-interested goal. Still, it appears that people make sacrifices for the benefit of others or to achieve some important impersonal goal (like solving a problem in pure science), where the end is sought for its own sake. Therefore, much of the debate has centered on whether these appearances are illusory (Surhone, 2010).

The critics of psychological egoism have argued that the reasons given in favor of it have been based on conceptual confusion and mistakes in reasoning (Surhone, 2010). It is, for example, a genetic fallacy to defend psychological egoism on the ...