Ethics -Egoism and its limits

14. How does Rand's defense of egoism resemble the Phase I defense of the egodevelopment?

-in Phase I of moral development, morality may to require sacrificing one's will insofar as it asserts itself by threatening the child's spontaneous urges. But that is just the beginner's view of morality, not morality itself, and it would over simplify the moral realm to overlook the Phase II child's understanding of how morality and self-interest can fuse at a deeper level of social identification. -To make right action desirable for wretches, you must threaten them with punishment for noncompliance (stage 1 motives) or at least promise them crowns in heaven (stage 2 motives Our critique of psychological egoism involved exonerating self-interest from the nastier implications of selfishness. But what if selfishness itself could be exonerated of its association with nastiness? If so, is it possible that selfishness is a virtue, or perhaps even a duty? Rand's book The Virtue of Selfishness seems to stand traditional morality on its head. Where traditional morality was conceived as a regime of duties to others, Rand argues that morality should begin with one's duty to oneself. Rand wants a normative argument (egoism as a moral ideal and duty) rather than the merely factual argument that we are all hard-wired egoists. But her argument falls prey to the same confusion of self-interest and selfishness found in psychological egoism. But we must come to that conclusion by way of a few other considerations. Rand realizes that moral schemes try to bring together a host of variables into the most adequate view of social duties, society's well-being, and individual well-being. Let's call all such views ideologies or moral worldviews. She attacks the traditional moral subordination of individual liberty to social duty, the "package deal" which says that to do our duty to others, we must abandon self-interest. Rand sees in the traditional condemnation of selfishness a social conspiracy against human nature, an ideological smoke screen to make people pawns of the social order by disguising the nobility of selfishness as immorality. Rand takes a pragmatic view(down to earth)of traditional morality, holding that to understand morality we must look at what it does as much as what it says. This approach could be called sociological insofar as it asks: What is the social function of morality? In that light, her view coincides with the common sociological view that the social function of morality is to systematically subdue natural self-interestedness, which she calls selfishness, in favor of the benefits of a well-ordered society. The process of educating the young to "fit in" with others is likewise called "socialization." One can grant Nietzsche and Rand that some threads of Western philosophy and religion have been anti-nature, anti-life, and anti-individual. Such threads may portray morality and individual self-interest as antagonists - as if one must choose between them. Moreover, to a child early in Phase I of moral development, morality may to require sacrificing one's will insofar as it asserts itself by threatening the child's spontaneous urges. But that is just the beginner's view of morality, not morality itself, and it would over simplify the moral realm to overlook the Phase II child's understanding of how morality and self-interest can fuse at a deeper level of social identification.

22. What contradiction arises when egoism is universalized into a moral duty?

-self-interest can be conceived as what's "good for me" in a social vacuum. But the pursuit of self-interest without regard for others cannot be universalized into a moral duty or a collective good. Kant was at least partly right when he observed that morality and duties are a social system of relationships, and therefore make no sense in a social vacuum. As our four meta-ethical perspectives show, the perspective of individual goods is simply different from the perspective of morality (social duties) and the collective good, and therefore cannot have any special privilege. Ethical egoism simply collapses virtue ethics' orientation toward what's-good-for-me and deontology's orientation toward what-is-owed-to-others into an ego-centric morality. In that regard,Kant's ideal of universalizability is entirely justified. A morality that enjoins people merely to look out for themselves simply effaces the very idea of duty to others, not to mention throwing the collective good into chaos. It is worth playing out Kant's universalizing exercise to see how ethical egoism fails both on deontological (duty) grounds and on consequentialist (goodness maximizing) grounds.

3. How did modern individualism challenge the traditional view of duty?

-whereas traditional morality emphasized duties to others, self-centerness -modern individualism is more receptive to self-interest and independence. Of course, the sweet-spot structure of selfhood and egohood suggest that there is a sweet spot, although it does not automatically produce a description of it. Moreover, the balanced approach goes against the grain of traditional moralism's antipathy to self-centeredness and perhaps against modern culture's sometimes simplistic promotion of "individualism," whose excesses are often a reaction against traditional moralizing.

7. How can an altruist(unselfish)find satisfaction in a self-sacrificing action?

After a point, however, it begins to look as if this kind of psychologizing is not a science at all, but merely theory for which favorable interpretations of the evidence can always be invented with a bit of ingenuity(quality of being clever). Given the openness of all actions to hypothetical attributions of self-interest, even in the most altruistic-appearing actions, one can be forgiven for concluding that psychological egoism is not necessarily disproved by altruistic-seeming acts, but only because a clever psychological egoist can always invent a conceivable self-interested motive, however little evidence can be found.

4. What is psychological egoism?

Against the balanced view, the more extreme modern defenders of individualism have taken two forms. Some have claimed that egoism is actually the ideal of personal development (ethical egoism); other have claimed that egoism is the hard-wire reality of human nature(psychological egoism). According to these views, the mean-between-the-extremes view of egoism is fundamentally mistaken because there is no excess of egoism. Egoism is either desirable or psychologically given. In their views, the question is not whether to be egotistical or not; the only question is how well you do it, which often reduces to how successful one is a getting what one wants.

20. What does it mean that evolution is "opportunistic"?

As we have noted, this naturalistic view of economics is doubly false to the facts: natural evolution has no particular end in mind (being opportunistic), and free market economics can only take place within the normative constraints already established socially. But it is false ethically as well: one cannot assume that a society with more stuff is by definition a better society. It is possible that a society can produce the most stuff while its population is discontented with an unjust distribution of that stuff, discontented with a boring workplace, discontented with economic stresses on family life, discontented with being repeatedly uprooted to find new work, and discontented with a ruling class which believes that many of their fellow citizens are unfortunate mistakes of history:

2. How does Aristotle's doctrine of the Golden Mean explain how self and ego can be either virtues or vices?

Healthy selfhood and egohood are a matter of balance. If selfhood is the conscious or unconscious concept of oneself as a person relating to others, egohood is the capacity to make decisions and act on them. Egohood is one's sense of self as an agent, an actor on the world state. Selfhood reflects how one conceives oneself vis-à-vis others, whereas egohood is the power to act on it. Too little selfconsciousness means one doesn't know oneself - the dangers of which are obvious - and too little egohood means one is a pawn in the hands of society (and its various groups). On the other hand, too much self-interest aborts the development of moral virtue. The world becomes nothing more than a theater of punishments and rewards in which oneself and the world are antagonists( a person who is hostile to something). The egoist seeks to increase his share of society's goods and avoid punishment, if not for violations of laws, then for being an ego-centric taker who fails to honor what is owed to others (assuming for now that something is owed to others). Ironically, given selfhood and egohood partake of the Golden Mean, self and ego are virtues if they do not degenerate to extremes of weakness and self-obsession.

13. How might individualism's ideal of self-reliance weaken the traditional concept of duty to society?

It is often noted that modern culture emphasizes individualism to a degree unheard of in traditional societies. Where traditional morality emphasized duties to others over self-preference, the modern individualistic ethos foregrounds individual rights and self-advancement, sometimes marginalizing service to others as if it were extra credit rather than the fundamental thrust of morality. In line with this new individualistic perspective, personal ideals of autonomy (self-rule) and self-reliance have assumed for many a prestige and emphasis that sometimes discredits the duty-based and otheroriented thrust of traditional morality

9. What did Lester Ward say is the focus of evolutionary progress?

Lester Ward, the first president of the American Sociological Association spent much of his career debunking the science of Social Darwinism. As he repeatedly noted, what drives the history of civilizations is not the evolution of new types of radically individual personalities, but new types of institutions. The rise of capitalism is an evolution of human institutions involving political systems, economic systems, and cultural systems. What is possible is that societies competed with each other. For industrial capitalism to have arisen, it was necessary • that feudal laws of property gave way to new laws that allowed land to be sold from the old estates of the nobility • that urban centers allowed merchants to influence local regulations to facilitate trade and finance • that banking and insurance systems arise to fund large scale commercial ventures and protect investment against catastrophic misfortune • that family ties rooted in specific locations relax in favor of commercial mobility • that science develop the knowledge that allows the mechanization of production

. Why did Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, and Nietzsche believe that traditional morality was destined to fail?

Modern philosophy and psychology reflect the influence of the modern scientific view of nature. That view was largely an outgrowth of the mechanistic model of causation that dominated physics from the 16th to the 20th century. Beginning with Thomas Hobbes in the 17th century, some philosophers have sought to understand human motives in purely naturalistic and mechanistic terms. Since nature has gifted human nature with often overpowering instincts for survival and self-defense, Hobbes concluded that human society is a collection of semi-intelligent, self-defensive actors serving their own interests first, and cooperating with others only insofar as it is useful or pleasing to do so. In the 18th century David Hume took a somewhat more hopeful view of human motives, though still conceiving human motivation as a kind of natural force of desires whose roots are predetermined by nature. In the 19th century, Arthur Schopenhauer, Max Stirner, and Friedrich Nietzsche all saw at the core of human nature an underlying drive to prevail and flourish, a drive that society is only partly able to channel into acceptable boundaries. It is this self-interested core of human motivation, they concluded, which explains why society's efforts to encourage cooperation, if not neighborly love, has traditionally met with only modest and occasional success.

0. How might the deniers of altruism be unable to see the evidence for it?

Of course, the psychological egoist can dig in his heels and simply deny that anyone truly cares more for others than he cares about himself. But in that case he convicts himself by his categorical claim, for which he cannot have observable proof. No one can claim to have canvassed everyone's motives, or to see into the hearts of others as if with X-ray vision. So what is his evidence for the impossibility of altruism? Since we do have access to our own inner feelings and our ability to imagine the feelings of others, the psychological egoist can only be admitting his inability to imagine someone caring for another more than for himself. The psychological egoist must have looked deeply into his heart, only to discover that preferring the welfare of others more than his own is too impossible to imagine. Conversely, to disprove psychological egoism, the egoist need only discover altruistic motives in his own inner life, e.g., sacrificial motives that have been acted upon. Perhaps psychological egoists do not have such altruistic motives; but many persons believe they and others have altruistic motives, in which case they can know directly that psychological egoism is false. Of course, introspection is notoriously less than fully reliable; human nature's ability to deny reality sometimes seems without limit. But in the case of great sacrifices with no rewards in sight, altruism is more credible than a host of speculations about ulterior motives. Thus, psychological egoism does not appear to have evidence on its side, but only a very cynical theory of human nature and defenses by those who find no altruistic motives in themselves.

1. Why is ego a morally ambiguous (good but possibly bad) feature of personality?

On the one hand, one must develop an ego in order to become intentionally self-controlled. On the other hand, ego-centrism is the greatest threat to moral commitments, as implied by the negative connotations of "egoistical," not to mention self-centered and selfish. Like fire, which is useful when controlled but dangerous when out of control, having an ego is both a moral necessity and a moral liability. Indeed, on this point Aristotle's theory of virtue earns its keep: ego health is a mean between too much ego (being selfish) and too little ego (lacking self-possession).

. How is Rand's view of traditional morality too narrow?

Rand realizes that moral schemes try to bring together a host of variables into the most adequate view of social duties, society's well-being, and individual well-being. Let's call all such views ideologies or moral worldviews. She attacks the traditional moral subordination of individual liberty to social duty, the "package deal" which says that to do our duty to others, we must abandon self-interest. Rand sees in the traditional condemnation of selfishness a social conspiracy against human nature, an ideological smoke screen to make people pawns of the social order by disguising the nobility of selfishness as immorality. Rand takes a pragmatic view of traditional morality, holding that to understand morality we must look at what it does as much as what it says. This approach could be called sociological insofar as it asks: What is the social function of morality? In that light, her view coincides with the common sociological view that the social function of morality is to systematically subdue natural selfRand realizes that moral schemes try to bring together a host of variables into the most adequate view of social duties, society's well-being, and individual well-being. Let's call all such views ideologies or moral worldviews. She attacks the traditional moral subordination of individual liberty to social duty, the "package deal" which says that to do our duty to others, we must abandon self-interest. Rand sees in the traditional condemnation of selfishness a social conspiracy against human nature, an ideological smoke screen to make people pawns of the social order by disguising the nobility of selfishness as immorality. Rand takes a pragmatic view of traditional morality, holding that to understand morality we must look at what it does as much as what it says. This approach could be called sociological insofar as it asks: What is the social function of morality? In that light, her view coincides with the common sociological view that the social function of morality is to systematically subdue natural self

9. Why aren't the psychological egoist's interpretations of altruistic actions conclusive?

So the psychological egoist fails to prove that all acts are self-centered just because all acts offer some satisfaction to the actor. Nor does it show that people are incapable of preferring the welfare others to their own. In short, psychological egoism is trivial on a weak interpretation ("all acts have some selfinterest") or false on a strong interpretation ("no one prefers the welfare of others to their own"). These considerations suggest that psychological egoism as it is typically offered is not a fruitful approach to the psychology or ethics of motives.

DEFICIENCY MEAN EXCESS SELF

THE SELF THE EGO DEFICIENCY Passive, indecisive, lack of commitment, lack of persistence, lack of ambition Confused identity; lack of purpose/goals; lack of vision; lack of selfawareness; lack of selfunderstanding MEAN Decisive,deliberate, resolute(admirable), prudent(showing no care for future), sociable, relaxed Confident, centered, purposeful, selfunderstanding EXCESS Overly ambitious, pushy, greedy, controlling, manipulative Narcissistic, selfpreoccupied, overanxious, excessive perfectionism -The problems ("vices" of deficiency) on the left show what happens when a child does not achieve a healthy degree of self-confidence and self-possession, -while the vices of "excess" show what happens when a person becomes too self-centered and self-preferential and indifferent to the interests of others.

how do psychological egoists confuse the meanings of self-interest and selfishness?

That urge led her into the muddle of psychological egoism's confusion of self-interest with selfishness. We noted that self-interest is a morally neutral term whereas selfishness is the excessive form of selfinterest and ego-centrism (at the expense of others) that warrants moral censure. Rand seeks to exonerate capitalism by exonerating selfishness as a virtue. She hopes exonerate selfishness by eliminating its distinction from self-interest, thereby allowing for selfishness the virtues of a healthy ego. Thus Rand claims that her dictionary defines selfish without any bad moral connotations, i.e., as merely "concern with one's own interests," rendering it a necessity of human nature. But of course, that definition has little bearing on what most people mean by selfish. According to Webster, for instance, "selfish" means either "concerned excessively or exclusively with oneself: seeking or concentrating on one's own advantage, pleasure, or well-being without regard for others" or "arising from concern with one's own welfare or advantage in disregard of others." It is this normal usage that gives selfishness its bad moral connotations. Indeed, it is disregard for others that the process of socialization is supposed to curb. Thus, Rand would transfer the naturalness - even the inevitableness - of having some form of selfinterest into an argument for selfishness, i.e., the pursuit of self-interest without regard for others. Not surprisingly, there is no reason to drop the distinction between self-interest and selfishness except to elevate selfishness to a morally acceptable, if not ideal status, thereby giving selfish people a moral get out-of-jail card. In the end, her conclusions reflect an effort to enlist half-truths into a form of ethical egoism.

. What sort of evidence goes against psychological egoism?

The psychological rejoinder: The egoist suggests that all actions are done for the benefit of the actor because self-interest is always primary. The Aristotelian would say that this over-simplifies the nature of virtuous motives by demanding that motives be either other-interested or self-interested, but not both. From that false dilemma, psychological egoists conclude that if an actor enjoys some benefit from his action, the action must be ego-centric(thinking of oneself). But recall (a) Aristotle's thesis that virtuous motives do not aim directly at pleasure, but at the welfare of another and (b) Aristotle's thesis that interest in a virtuous friend's welfare is a mutual benefit. If so, then having to choose between caring for another's benefit or for one's own benefit is a false dilemma because these coincide in virtuous friendship. Another's welfare becomes satisfying to oneself. With this possibility in mind, psychological egoism proves to be partly right in some details but wholly wrong in spirit. It could be true that the self-sacrificing soldier feels a surge of satisfaction that his comrades will be saved, and true that the mother would be burdened with guilt if she did not attempt to save her child. But the crux of the question is whether these are the decisive motives or simply consequences of the truly decisive motives. Is the target one's satisfaction or is that a secondary effect of the real target, another's welfare? The mother's freedom from guilt would not be the decisive motive if the primary interest in her self-sacrificial action is the welfare of others. In those cases, her lack of guilt is not the cause of her action, but its secondary effect of having saved her children. Here the means-ends logic of intentional action is crucial. For the true altruist, the welfare of others is not a means to her enjoyment; her self-sacrifice is the means to the benefit of others. True, there is some enjoyment in serving others; altruists do take pleasure in virtuous action. But that is only possible because they enjoy improving the welfare of others. The semantic rejoinder: The confusion arise because egoists confuse self-interest(sharing toys bc you have a self interest to playing together, which is a benefit to oneself) with selfish interest. Selfish acts (not sharing toys) are at the expense of another. That is not the same as saying that altruists find satisfaction in helping others. Because it is correct to say that altruism gives the altruist gratification, one could say that there is some self-interest in the altruistic mother's self-sacrifice. But then the notion of self-interest ceases to have any disapproval connotations. Indeed, a wholly unself-interested act is inconceivable. A successful action that yields no gratification is nonsense: a person would not attempt an action without some interest in its outcome. Every act has at least a modest measure of satisfaction in its successful fulfillment. The question is whether the motive of an altruistic action is interest in another's welfare or exclusive attachment to one's own. If psychological egoism means only that every act has some interest for the actor, it reduces to a trivial truth with no moral implications. Thus, one line of psychological egoistic argument depends on a confusion over what "selfinterested" means. It cannot reasonably mean that, because every action has some self-interest (self-investment in the outcome), every action is selfish. The fact that there is gratification in an altruistic act misses the crux of the possibility of altruism: the altruistic mother cares about her children more than she cares about herself. That she finds gratification in a self-sacrificing action does not count against altruism. For psychological egoism to be saying something interesting, it cannot mean that all acts have some self-interest - which is trivially true. Rather, to be interesting and important, psychological egoism must claim that no one cares about others more than s/he cares about herself/himself, i.e., that everyone is always self-preferential. But what would it take to prove that? Surely, universal self-preference is not shown by attributing self-preferential motives to apparently "selfless" actions, i.e., attributing selfcentered motives too deep to observe directly. The evidential rejoinder: Of course, the psychological egoist can dig in his heels and simply deny that anyone truly cares more for others than he cares about himself. But in that case he convicts himself by his categorical claim, for which he cannot have observable proof. No one can claim to have canvassed everyone's motives, or to see into the hearts of others as if with X-ray vision. So what is his evidence for the impossibility of altruism? Since we do have access to our own inner feelings and our ability to imagine the feelings of others, the psychological egoist can only be admitting his inability to imagine someone caring for another more than for himself. The psychological egoist must have looked deeply into his heart, only to discover that preferring the welfare of others more than his own is too impossible to imagine. Conversely, to disprove psychological egoism, the egoist need only discover altruistic motives in his own inner life, e.g., sacrificial motives that have been acted upon. Perhaps psychological egoists do not have such altruistic motives; but many persons believe they and others have altruistic motives, in which case they can know directly that psychological egoism is false. Of course, introspection is notoriously less than fully reliable; human nature's ability to deny reality sometimes seems without limit. But in the case of great sacrifices with no rewards in sight, altruism is more credible than a host of speculations about ulterior motives. Thus, psychological egoism does not appear to have evidence on its side, but only a very cynical theory of human nature and defenses by those who find no altruistic motives in themselves.

24. What is the reconciliation problem?

The rationality problem: If phase I aims to cultivate an ego capable of managing both self-interests and duties to others, phase I must cultivate a healthy level of self-consciousness and ego strength. But what are the optimum levels and orientations of self-interest for individual well-being? At what subsequent balance point between involvement in self and in others does the greatest good for the individual lie? Once one is sufficiently self-possessed to achieve intentional self-management, the ability to recognize the optimum balance of self and others in one's life would constitute the rationality of one's efforts at further self-development. The most rational life plan would aim at the ultimate happiness, wherever that balance point would lie. But phase I does not yet tell us what the ultimate happiness is. • The justice problem: Phase I tells us the starting point both for moral development and for individual welfare. But it is only a beginning, and it says little about the rules and duties that are the concern of deontology beyond the basic constraints put on children. Phase II of moral development plots a deeper involvement of individuals in the process of socialization as they become able to understand the reasoning and values underlying the social order. Socialization involves recognizing the underlying social principles, including the ideals at which social systems aim, however imperfectly. According to Plato and Aristotle, justice is the cardinal virtue of societies, which is to say that justice is the implicit or explicit aim of all social orders and their ultimate criterion of legitimacy. Such an ideal would prescribes a society's deep structure of duties. But justice has taken many forms throughout history. Does the process of moral development (especially Kohlberg's theory) shed any light on what the ideal social order would look like and how people might naturally develop toward such an order? : the problem of reconciling individual interests and the social good. In battle, we may suddenly decide that it is in our best interest to quit the field, although it is in society's best interest for us to stay. That divergence of individuals' and society's interests opens the question of how far the individual's interests and those of society might coincide under ideal circumstances. The question for the phase I ego, therefore, is this: what would be the ideal involvement in society from the individual's point of view? Does deep loyalty to society's interests reduce one to a cog in a social machine, a puppet in the hands of unscrupulous politicians? If one could identify the ideal of the just society, one could better judge to what extent individual and social interests can be reconciled.

6. Why do psychological egoists deny the apparent altruism of heroic sacrifices?

These philosophers are modern expressions of psychological egoism's thesis that all human motivations are at bottom self-centered. Its aim is not to pass judgment on egoism, but merely to declare its omnipresence(the presence of God all over) and inevitability as a fact. On the face of it, this view would strike many as too extreme to be credible. After all, do not heroic acts of self-sacrifice demonstrate that at least some acts are not self-centered? Superficially, it would appear so. But egoists claim that even such acts have self-interested ulterior motives, perhaps buried so deep as to escape the actor's self-understanding. The soldier who marches to near-certain death does so to avoid being shot as a deserter. The soldier who throws himself on the grenade does so because he believes he will get a greater reward in heaven. The mother who risks her life to save her child does so to avoid the guilt of not risking her life to save them. The ulterior(intentionally hidden) motives are the real drivers, so they say, whether the actor recognizes them or believes some loftier(imposing height) motive is at work. No matter how heroic an action, psychological egoists say, a sufficiently deep investigation would discover a self-serving ulterior motive.

. In what sense is every action trivially self-interested?

because ppl usually do what is best for themselves

18. What do Social Darwinians see as the pinnacle of evolutionary progress?

hat (just as Aristotle claimed) every species has a natural goal and • that the goal of human nature is to compete, survive, procreate, and flourish.

Ethical Egoism

the belief that individuals should live their lives so as to maximize their own pleasure and minimize their own pain.

Psychological Egoism

the theory that people always act in their own self interest, whether they know it or not - that all human motivations are at bottom self-centered.