One common assumption is that the interests, needs, and happiness of other people should factor in our moral evaluation of things. If we accept this assumption, we think that our moral evaluation of an action involves balancing our self-interest against that of others. What is morally right or wrong depends not only on how some action impacts us, but also how it affects others.
Ethical egoism is the theory that this common assumption is false; each person ought to pursue his/her interests over and above the interests of others. In other words, ethical egoism states that (i) there are objective moral facts and (ii) an action is morally good if and only if it promotes my personal happiness and it is morally wrong if and only if that action…show more content… Ethical egoism is a claim about what is morally good or bad, whereas psychological egoism is a claim about human psychology. Psychological egoism is a controversial claim as it implies that human beings are not capable of genuine altruism. That is, they are not capable of doing something that solely to promote the happiness (to further interests) of another. Psychological egoism is controversial because there appear to be a lot of cases where people actions are done not to promote our own happiness at all, but to promote the happiness of…show more content… If we give to the poor, we do this because we think that giving makes us feel good. If we say hello to a neighbor, that is because we want to feel good about being friendly. P2 says that because this goal of feeling good always motivates our actions, we only ever aim to do things that promote our own self-interest. We may make mistakes in trying to feel good, but our whole lives are directed to creating a state of affairs that will get us what we want. 3. Objections to Psychological Egoism
Against Argument #1 Objection to P1 of Argument #1: I do it because I have to, not because I want to. P1 is false. There are some actions that we do not because we want to do them but because we feel we ought to do them. For example, suppose I borrow your notebook for class and see your notes are much better than mine. I might not want to return your notebook (I want to keep it), but I return it anyway because I feel as though I ought to return it.1
Objection to P2 of Argument #1: I want to do x, but x does not benefit me. P2 is false. Take a soldier who risks his life for his country. He might say “I want to risk my life for my country” but it is not clear how it benefits him in any
