2. Egoism

 

Egoism and Friends

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCHu1E0ca4E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DowJfUmlzeI

What is Egoism?

There are two types of Egoism: Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism. Psychological Egoism is the view that all actions are done solely/ultimately for the sake of self-interest. Ethical Egoism is the view that you should always act so as to bring about the best consequences for yourself.

The difference between ethical Egoism and Psychological Egoism is that Psychological Egoism is descriptive. Psychological Egoism amounts to a scientific theory. Thus it is a description of reality. But is it true? Not, it's not. Let's just rip off this Band-Aid right now. The egoism claim that selfishness is natural in animals, particularly humans, is falsifiable, or rather, this claim is falsified with evidence.

While it's almost like the basic assumption about human nature is false, at least abought nature.

"When we see animals like elephant seals fighting with each other—as we do in lots of nature documentaries—we're really seeing only a tiny sliver of time. Much more of the time, they're accommodating each other and c

As concerns humans

"Most human beings don't share food that directly—at least not anymore—but we do cooperate in plenty of ways, from writing Wikipedia articles to forming lines for the bathroom. Indeed, some research suggests our first instinct is to cooperate, not compete."

Assumptions of Psychological Egoism

1.    Acting for the sake of self-interest means voluntarily doing what you most want to do.

2.    Acting for the sake of self-interest means acting so as to bring about a pleasant state of consciousness for oneself.

Generally, if you can think of one example that proves this wrong, then you must reject the theory.

Example

A cashier mistakenly gives you change for a twenty-dollar bill when you give her a ten-dollar bill. Suppose you are a typical college student, which means you are broke. You could just walk out of the store, and no one would ever find out what you did, but you return to the cashier. You inform her of her mistake because it's the right thing to do.

Consider this – Say someone is having trouble opening a cabinet or something; there are cases of small children assisting people with no expectation of a reward. Bees, when attacked by an overwhelming force, will sacrifice themselves for the sake of the offspring.

Can you think of any examples where you didn’t do exactly what you wanted to do?

Acting for the sake of self-interest means acting so as to bring about a pleasant state of consciousness for oneself.

Imagine this-

Given the option:

'Would you rather live with the knowledge that your family will be taken care of when you die? The catch being that they won't be, but you think they will be?'

Or

'Would you rather live with the knowledge that your family won't be taken care of when you die even though they will be?'

When you make this decision, your knowledge of making this decision will be erased.

Which one would you pick?

Psychological Egoism is wrong?

It appears that we have come up with enough reasons why psychological Egoism is invalid as a scientific theory.

Psychological Egoism is unfalsifiable (this means that it is super wrong)

Psychological Egoism is akin to intelligent design. It isn't falsifiable. Those who argue for it could see it anywhere they wish. Let's say that someone says, "you only act in ways that benefit you."

You respond, "No, I don't! I help the poor. On the weekends, I sometimes help build those homeless housing."

They respond, "And I bet you feel excellent when you do that!"

You say, "Yes."

And they say, "Told you, you benefit from helping people."

You can find any situation where you benefit in some way; because of this, psychological Egoism is functionally meaningless. If every act is egoist, then not act really is!

Psychological Egoism and Intelligent Design

Think of arguments for intelligent design. One might argue, "How can a leaf function in such a way as to produce food from light and water, or whatever? Look at the design of the leave and its various parts. This can't have been random; it must have been designed."

A plant biologist might say, "The features and functions of leaves arise randomly through evolution."

To which the intelligent design arguer might respond, "But that randomness was structured by some higher power."

To which the plant biologist might respond, "We don't have evidence of any intelligent force participating in the evolutionary process."

Finally, the intelligent design arguer might commit the appeal to ignorance fallacy, saying, "But you don't have evidence that there wasn't any intelligent force participating in the evolutionary process? So there was!"

We can see how this argument doesn't work. If you can see Egoism in every act and simply ignore counter-evidence, then your theory is useless.

Ethical Egoism

An act is right if and only if it produces a state of affairs where the consequences for the agent are no worse than the consequences of alternative states of affairs producible by any other action the agent could have performed.

1.    What is a good consequence?

2.    Whatever the agent deems valuable.

3.    The ethical egoist must consider the best state of affairs, the best consequence of each action they are considering is, and what will produce 'good' in the long term.

4.    Maximize the long-term good?

Let’s evaluate this moral theory.

Group assignment

Get into groups

Each group will be assigned to two evaluative terms.

Consistency

Ethical Egoism does yield consistent moral verdicts.

Example – It is in Marica's best interest to stuff the ballot box and wins the student council presidential election by cheating.

However, it is in Jan's best interest to stop Marcia because Jan wants a fair election.

Jan doesn't have to respect Marica's desire; she only needs to pursue her best interest.

Determinacy

Although we don't always know what is best for us because we don't always have enough information, one must distinguish between Egoism's criterion of rightness and its decision procedure.

Criterion of rightness – for Egoism, this is simply choosing the best consequence for yourself when you can reasonably do so.

Decision procedure – for the egoist is based on your evaluation of what you expect the consequences to be after a reasonable amount of sorting through the various consequences and facts available to you.

Applicability

Ethical Egoism certainly has an adequate decision-making procedure.

The way in which one would apply ethical Egoism reliably would be to save intense calculations for those decisions that matter to me, and for trivial matters, one would live by a rule of thumb.

Internal Support

Does the ethical theory cohere with our considered moral beliefs?

This is where ethical Egoism gets a little problematic.

It may be in my interest to commit murder or adultery.

Hobbes refutes this, saying that

someone who does wrong to others will be found out and punished.

Thus, it is not in their best interest to murder or commit adultery.

Other problems with Internal Support

Hobbes was just wrong!

First – Think about all the mafia bosses or dictators who lived to ripe old ages unpunished.

Second – The source of morality can't simply be my interest because this leaves the theoretical door open for the murder and torture of innocents.

Rule Ethical Egoism

Ethical Egoism tries to be deontological.

Rule Ethical egoism – an act is right if and only if it conforms to a set of rules whose adherence by the agent produces consequences for that agent which are no worse than the consequences producible by any other adhered-to set of rules.

This still leaves the door open to harming innocents if one could get away with it.

External Support

Non-moral beliefs that prop up or cohere with the theory.

Imagine a person who conforms to the demands of justice – this individual is always honest, fairly judgmental, and not well-liked.

Imagine a person who only acts in their self-interest – they look nice, they dress well, they are happier, and people around them are also happy.

Consider this, imagine if we stopped paying taxes, got rid of the police, and let everyone pursue their own interests.

How would society look?

Explanatory Power

The theory is quite easy to explain

Seek your self-interest!

Publicity

Is this theory teachable? Should this be a mainstream ethical theory?

Imagine if this were a mainstream ethical theory – government laws and regulations on pollution might just be suggestions.

Let's say that you no longer have to do an emissions test on your vehicle.

The environment becomes more polluted and less livable.

Ring of Gyges and two forms of normative Egoism

As far as ethical Egoism, which I know I have been trashing, has some use. As a wholesale ethical theory, I think it's problematic, but that depends on what kind of normative Egoism you are going for egoist-individualist Anarchism or Ayn Rand selfishness.

Ring of Gyges

When we consider the Ring of Gyges. The shepherd who found the ring that made him invisible seduced the queen, killed the king, and became king. While I'd argue that the shepherd wasn't naturally inclined to do what he did and his desire stemmed more so from a cultural-environmental need for power, it is not entirely out of the realm of possibility that we as humans are somewhat naturally inclined to do awful things to get what we want, power. Nietzsche might call what Gyges did the Overman, or Superman, acting beyond morality to achieve power. For Nietzsche, this is the will to power. Nietzsche believed that everything functioned in that way. Something is always seeking to overpower something else.

While this probably isn't true for all of nature. It seems as though part of society function this way, or at least we think they do.

And if we think the shepherd was wrong, was he because he was acting from an egoistic paradigm?

While I have been arguing that Egoism is irredeemable, I think there are some aspects of Egoism it may be worthwhile to consider.

Individualist Anarchism

Max Stirner, the unknowing father of egoist or individualist anarchism, stated that 'people only have property because they have the strength to hold it!' thus if I want your property, all I need to do is get the strength to take it. You only have a property in so far as you have the strength to hold on to that property. You have no right to anything. Anarchists of the mid to late 19th century and up to today took this argument not to steal things or hurt people, but to argue that 'the only reason that a state, and the wealthy who run said state, have property and control over our lives is that they have power. There is no intrinsic right that they have that makes it theirs!'

What is Anarchism?

Before we continue, let me clarify that Anarchism is a political theory that both questions the need for rigid hierarchies and seeks to either eliminate exploitative hierarchy systems or at least make them more equitable.

Anarchy and Contracts

We tend to think of Anarchy as having no government, but in reality, it has an equitable system of cooperation. Other anarchists took Stirner's theory of property and added a contract theory. We can work together for our mutual benefit, and the contract ensures that we will not harm each other, and the contract can be renegotiated. Without a concept of natural rights, contracts would be the main way to ensure peaceful cooperation in the mind of many.

For the egoist, anarchist pursuing my interests, freedom, safety, and the ability to improve one's self and the lives of those, they love to go hand and hand with communism.

Egoism of Altruism

While psychological Egoism is problematic, ethical Egoism doesn't have to be. You could conceivably seek the safety and protection of others as your interest. Functionally there isn't really a difference between this and altruism (acting for the well-being of others, sometimes at your own expense); it technically isn't altruism either. It's both and neither. Consider the revolutionary who sacrifices themselves for a cause, spending less time with family or doing things they personally enjoy, like looking at birds or eating skittles. The revolutionary can say they are pursuing their interests and therefore they are acting egoistically, but it is obvious that they are being very altruistic.

Are they acting more altruistic than egoists? I don't know.

Ayn Rand selfishness

Another strain of Egoism to consider is the Ayn Rand variety, selfishness. She said that we should act selfishly and that altruism was awful, 'the individual should never be sacrificed to others!' Ayn Rand was born in Soviet Russia. In the planned economic models of Soviet Russia, food and resources were redistributed in ways that were so efficient that the vast majority of Russians were fed. They did have famines where many died when they were trying to get the planned economy model working, but they eventually got it working. Ayn Rand was not a fan of the redistribution of wealth; she believed that one had a right to the fruit of their own work. Unlike Stirner, Rand had a strong sense of property rights, which is funny because she believed that America was correct in its treatment of Native Americans, you know, stealing their land by force. But she hypocritically believed that you have a right to the things you worked for unless you were a Native American.

When we think of Egoism, we might be tempted to paint it with the Ayn Rand brush; selfishness, greed, unfettered capitalism. This image would ignore the many anarchists who fought to improve the lives of many.

Contractarianism

We can see how a contract might work in an environment where everyone is seeking to better society for themselves and everyone else, but what about a contract in a world where everyone is encouraged to be greedy? Contracts rely on trust, but what if I can't trust you because you are solely interested in pursuing your self-interest, especially when your self-interest conflict with mine?