Password Please enter your Password. Forgot password? Don't have an account? Sign in via your Institution. You could not be signed in, please check and try again. Sign in with your library card Please enter your library card number. Related Content Related Overviews altruism friendship Joseph Butler — moral philosopher and theologian prisoner's Dilemma. Show Summary Details Overview egoism. Subjects: Philosophy. All rights reserved. Sign in to annotate. It would be easier to give an answer contrary to the truth if you actually believed that things had happened in a different way, but that in no way undermines the fact that they happened in the way that they did.
Thus, ethical egoism may remain true without being pragmatically desirable. To be self-effacing is only to be pragmatically undesirable, and thus even if ethical egoism is pragmatically desirable it may yet be true. Parfit, Derek. Reasons and Persons. Bibliography: Parfit, Derek. It is said that the tax dollars and legal protections of a nation our owed to its citizens but not to non-citizens. Actually, the typical conservative does not think that there are no natural duties to others.
A traditional doctrine associated with conservative politics is that we have a natural duty not to harm others, but we have no natural duty to help others. Liberals agree that we have a natural duty not to harm others.
But they insist that we also have a duty to help, when conditions allow. They tend to see the distinction between acting to harm and failing to help as morally arbitrary.
Exercise: Think about how the distinction between natural duties to others and duties of association applies to political positions on the following other issues:. In any sort of individual competition, it is right for everyone to do their best in order to win.
In life, there are limited resources available with which people can pursue their interests. Therefore, life is one big individual competition for resources. Therefore, it is right for each person to act only in his or her own self interest Ethical Egoism. There are multiple problems with this argument, including both questionable premises and questionable inferences.
As an exercise, try to identify them. Each of us is intimately familiar with our own individual wants and needs and we know how to pursue them. In contrast, we know far less about the wants and needs of others and how to pursue them. Therefore, we are much better at pursuing our own interests than the interests of others.
To put if more forcefully: Pursuing the interests of others is an inefficient way of satisfying wants and needs and is prone to error. Thus, we will all be better off if we refrain from pursuing the interests of others. In other words, we will all be better off if we act Egoistically. Therefore, each of us should adopt the policy of Egoism and pursue our own interests exclusively. There are two problems with this argument.
First, it is false that we will all be better off if we act Egoistically. Some of us will be better off, and some of us will be worse off. This is obvious once it is realized that some will be advantaged by victimizing others. Why should we accept a policy that requires victimization just because people will be better off on the average?
Moreover, it is arguable that the amended premise is also false it can be argued that Egoism would lead to anarchy, large scale starvation, slavery, etc. The second problem with the argument is that it depends on a principle that runs counter to Egoism.
If we adopt a policy because it would make us all better off , then we are adopting it in order to promote the general welfare, and not because it furthers our own interests. The conclusion of the argument says that we should act Egoistically, but the premises of the argument suggest that we should think in terms of the betterment of all. The argument supports Egoism in the sense that it purports to give us a reason to act Egoistically.
But the reason it gives us is decidedly un-Egoistic. If Egoism is understood as the theory that what makes an action right is that it promotes the interests of the actor, then the argument is not compatible with Egoism.
Altruism — sacrificing our own interests to promote the interests of others — involves forcing our own conception of what is good on another person. We have no right to force our own conception of what is good on another person. Altruism is morally wrong.
You should be able to pick apart this argument pretty easily, especially if you have read the chapter. The main thing to note is that premises 1 and 3 are sweeping generalizations that seem to have many exceptions.
If we harm others, others will be inclined to harm us. If we lie to others, others will not believe us. If we fail to keep our promises, then others will not keep their promises to us. Therefore, we have self-interested reasons to avoid harming others, to tell the truth, and to keep our promises. In general, if we treat others badly by not taking their interests into consideration , then they will do likewise.
So, in general, we have a self-interested reason to avoid treating others badly. Therefore, Egoism implies that we should not treat others badly. According to the argument, Egoism provides a justification for following commonsense morality.
What are some objections to the argument? We can justify treating people differently only if we can show that there is some factual difference between them that is relevant to justifying the difference in treatment. Acting Egoistically — pursuing my own interests without considering the interests of others — involves treating myself differently than other people.
There is no factual difference between myself and other people that is relevant to justifying Egoistic behavior.
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