Egoism Ethics
In ethics egoism entails that the
individual self is either the motivating moral
force and is, or should, be
the end of moral action. Egoism divides into both a
positive and normative
ethic. The positive ethic views egoism as a factual
description of human
affairs, that is people are motivated by their own
interests and desires. The
normative ethic is that they should be so motivated.
Positivist egoism:
Psychological Egoism The positivist egoist, whose theory is
called
psychological egoism, offers an explanation of human affairs, in effect
a
description of human nature, which he or she believes to be wholly
self-centred
and self-motivated. In its strong form the theory asserts that
people always act
in their own interests, even though they may disguise their
motivation with
references to helping others or doing their duty. Opponents
exploit
counter-factual evidence to criticize the theory-surely, they claim,
there is a
host of evidence supporting altruistic or duty-bound actions that
cannot be said
to engage the self-interest of the agent? Psychological
egoists may then attempt
to question the ultimate motive of acting
benevolently towards others; they may
retort that seemingly altruistic
behavior necessarily has a self-interested
component, that if the individual
were not to offer aid to a stranger, he or she
may feel guilty or may look
bad in front of a peer group. At this point
psychological egoism's validity
turns on the question of moral motivation. But
since motivation is inherently
private (an agent could be lying to him or
herself or to others about the
original motive), the theory shifts from a
theoretical description of human
nature, one that can be put to observational
testing, to an assumption about
human nature. It moves beyond the possibility of
empirical verification and
the possibility of empirical negation (since motives
are private), and
therefore it becomes a closed theory. A closed theory is a
theory that
rejects competing theories on its own terms and is non-verifiable
and
non-falsifiable. If psychological egoism is reduced to an
assumption
concerning human nature, then it follows that it is just as valid
to hold a
competing theory of human motivation, psychological altruism for
example.
Psychological altruism holds that all human action is
necessarily other centred
and other motivated. A parallel analysis of
psychological altruism results in
opposing conclusions to psychological
egoism, and again arguably the theory is
just as closed as psychological
egoism. If both theories can be validly
maintained, it follows that the
soundness of either or both must be questioned.
A weak version of
psychological egoism accepts the possibility of altruistic or
benevolent
behavior, but maintains that whenever a choice is made it is by
definition
the action that the agent wants to do at that point. A wants to help
the
poor, therefore A is acting egoistically; if A ran into a burning building
to
save a kitten, it must be the case that A wanted to save the kitten.
Defining
all motivations as what the agent wants to do remains problematic:
logically the
theory becomes tautologous and therefore empty of providing a
useful,
descriptive meaning of motivation. It says that we are motivated to
do what we
are motivated to do. Besides which, if helping others is what A
wants to do,
then to what extent can A be continued to be called an egoist?
David Hume in his
Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals (Appendix
II-Of Self Love) offers
six rebuttals of psychological egoism (the 'selfish
hypothesis'). Firstly, it
opposes such obvious moral sentiments that engage
in a concern and motivation
for others such as love, friendship, compassion,
and gratitude. Secondly,
psychological egoism attempts to reduce human
motivation to a single cause,
which is a 'fruitless' task-the "love of
simplicity...has been the source
of much false reasoning in philosophy."
Thirdly, it is evident that animals
act benevolently towards one another, and
if it is admitted that animals can act
altruistically then how can it be
denied in humans? Fourthly, the concepts we
use to describe benevolent
behavior cannot be meaningless; sometimes the agent
obviously does not have a
personal interest in the fortune of another, yet will
wish him well. Any
attempt to create an imaginary interest, as the psychological
egoist
attempts, will prove futile. Fifthly, Hume asserts that we have
prior
motivations to self-interest; we may have, for example, a
predisposition towards
vanity, fame, or vengeance that transcends any benefit
to the agent. Finally,
even if psychological egoism were true, there are a
sufficient number of
dispositions to generate a wide possibility of moral
actions, allowing one
person to be called vicious and another humane, and the
latter is to be
preferred over the former. Normative Egoism: Ethical Egoism
Ethical egoism is
the theory that the promotion of one's own good is in
accordance with morality.
In the strong version it is held that it is
always moral to promote one's own
good and it is never moral not to promote
it. In the weak version, it claims
that whilst it is always moral to promote
one's good, it is not necessarily
never moral not to do so-that is, there may
be conditions in which the avoidance
of personal interest may be a moral
action. In the imaginary construction of a
world inhabited by a single being,
it is possible that the pursuit of morality
is the same as the pursuit of
self-interest. What is good for the agent is the
same as what is in the
agent's interests. Arguably, there could never arise an
occasion when the
agent ought not to pursue self-interest in favor of another
morality. Whilst
it is possible for the creature to lament previous choices as
not conducive
to self-interest (enjoying the pleasures of swimming all day and
not spending
necessary time producing food), the mistake is not a moral mistake
but a
mistake of identifying self-interest. Presumably this lonely creature
will
begin to comprehend the distinctions between short and long run
interests.
However, it can be countered that in this world duties still
apply; (Kantian)
duties are those actions reason dictates ought to be pursued
regardless of any
gain or loss to the self or others. The deontologist
asserts another moral
sphere, namely impartial duties, which ought to be
pursued. The problem with
complicating the creature's world with duties, is
defining an impartial task in
a purely subjective world. Impartiality, it can
be retorted, can only exist
where there are competing selves, otherwise the
attempt to be impartial in
judging one's actions is a redundant exercise. If
we move away from the
imaginary construct of a single being's world, ethical
egoism comes under fire
from more pertinent arguments. In complying with
ethical egoism, the individual
aims at his or her own greatest good. Ignoring
a definition of the good for the
present, it may justly be argued that
pursuing one's own greatest good can
conflict with another's pursuit, thus
creating a situation of conflict. In a
typical example, a young person may
see his greatest good in murdering his rich
uncle to inherit his millions. It
is the rich uncle's greatest good to continue
enjoying his money, as he sees
fit. Accordingly conflict is an inherent problem
of ethical egoism, and the
model seemingly does not possess a conflict
resolution system. With the
additional premise of living in society, ethical
egoism has much to respond
to. Obviously there are situations when two people's
greatest goods, their
own self-interests, will conflict, and a solution to such
dilemmas is a
necessary element of any theory attempting to provide an ethical
system. The
first resolution proceeds from a state of nature examination. If, in
the
wilderness, two people simultaneously come across the only source
of
drinkable water a dilemma arises if both make a claim to it. With no
recourse to
arbitration they must either accept an equal share of the water,
which would
comply with rational egoism (i.e., it is in the interests of both
to share, for
both may enjoy the water and each other's company, and if the
water is
inexhaustible, neither can gain from monopolising the source), but a
critic can
maintain that it is not necessarily in compliance with ethical
egoism. Arguably,
the critic continues, the two have no possible resolution
and must therefore
fight for the water. This is often the line taken against
egoism, that it
results in insoluble conflict that implies or necessitates a
resort to force.
The proffered resolution is therefore an acceptance of
the might is right
principle, that the stronger will take possession and
thereby gains proprietary
rights. But ethical egoism does not have to
logically result in a Darwinian
struggle between the strong and the weak; the
two could co-operate (as rational
egoism would require) and thereby both
could mutually benefit. Against the
critic's pessimism, the ethical egoist
can retort that each can recognize that
their greatest interests are served
more through co-operation than conflict. A
second resolution to seemingly
intractably moral dilemmas concerns the fears of
critics that ethical egoists
could logically pursue their interests at the cost
of others. This however is
a misreading of ethical egoism and an attempt to
re-insert the might is right
premise and thereby chastise the theory on the
basis of a straw-man argument.
In the case of the rich uncle and the greedy
nephew, it is not the case that
the nephew would act ethically by killing his
uncle. The confusion results
from conflating ethics with personal gain and
criticising personal gain from
another ethical standpoint that condemns murder.
A counter-argument is
that personal gain logically cannot be in one's best
interests if it entails
doing harm to another: doing harm to another is to
accept the principle of
doing harm to others as being ethical (i.e., equating to
one's own best
interests), whereas reflection on the principle shows it to be
illogical on
universalist criteria. If the nephew were to attempt to do harm to
further
his interests, he would find that his uncle, or others, would do harm
in
return, and the argument returns to the conclusion of the first
resolution:
either accept the principle of might is right (which in most
cases would be
evidentially contrary to one's best interests) or accept that
co-operation with
others is a more successful approach to improving one's
interests. A third
resolution entails the insertion of another
standard-rights. This incorporates
the conclusions of the first two
resolutions by stating that there is an ethical
framework that can logically
be extrapolated from ethical egoism. Rights
incorporate boundaries to
behavior that reason or experience has shown to be
contrary to the pursuit of
self-interest. However, the logical extrapolation is
the difficult bit.
Whilst it is facile to argue that the greedy nephew does not
have a right to
claim his uncle's money, because it is not his but his uncle's,
and that it
is wrong to aggress against the person of another because that
person has a
legitimate right to live in peace (thus providing the substance
of
conflict-resolution for ethical egoism), the problem lies in the
intellectual
arguments required to substantiate the claims for the existence
of rights and
that they are somehow intricately connected to the pursuit of
individual's
greatest good.