Ethical Egoism – Education

James Rachels

Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoism is the idea that people have moral obligations only to themselves and that they ought to pursue their own ends exclusively. An ethical egoist would say that one has no duty to help others in need unless doing so happens to coincide with one's own needs. Because ethical egoism prescribes actions, it is distinct from psychological egoism (discussed in the previous selection by Joel Feinberg), which is a descriptive claim about the nature of people's motivations.

Rachels provides several arguments both for and against ethical egoism. The first argument for ethical egoism is that we actually harm other people by looking out for their interests. For example, we may misinterpret their interests and bungle attempts at help, or we may intrude on other people's lives in ways that they dislike, or we may degrade others by offering them handouts. But this justification of egoism is premised upon the value of the general welfare precisely the thing that ethical egoism denies is important. Rather than claiming that only one's own interests matter, this argument states that paying attention to one's own interests is the most effective means to furthering the interests of everyone. It is thus an empirical claim about the best way to benefit people generally, not a normative claim about whose interests ought to count. A second argument for ethical egoism is that altruistic ethics (i.e., those that require one to help others even without benefit to oneself) requires one to sacrifice oneself for the benefit of others, and that were one to follow altruistic ethics one would have nothing to give one's projects, goals, and relationships. But those things are precisely what make life valuable; thus, altruistic ethics denies the importance of the very things that are valuable. Rachels dismisses this argument quickly because it is a false dichotomy; having obligations to others does not entail that one give up all of one's projects.

The final (and most powerful) argument for ethical egoism is that egoism is what underlies our common-sense morality. For example, the reason there are proscriptions against lying and stealing and obligations to help the needy is that we all benefit from those rules. There are two problems with this argument. First, it only provides general rules; thus, even though it might generally behoove us to tell the truth (in order to gain people's trust), it does not proscribe lying when it is in fact advantageous to do so. Second, just because acting for the good of others is to one's advantage, it does not follow that that is the only reason doing so is good.

Ultimately Rachels finds ethical egoism implausible; he concludes this on the basis of an argument concerning morally relevant differences. There is a general moral principle that requires us to treat likes alike, which Rachels articulates as follows:

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.

For example, the reason why racism is wrong is that racists seek to treat people differently despite there being no morally difference between races. In fact, racist stereotypes (e.g., that black people are lazy or that Jewish people are greedy) are often used to provide morally relevant reasons to treat people differently on the basis of race. Ethical egoism runs afoul of this principle, for it demands that one assign oneself greater moral importance than every other person, despite there being no factual difference that justifies assigning oneself greater importance. Thus, Rachels concludes that ethical egoism is mistaken.

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Ethical Egoism - Education