Psychological egoism is the theory that all humanactions are aimed at avoiding some personal loss or gaining somepersonal benefit. If the theory is true, then altruism—thedirect desire to benefit others for their own sake—does not exist.Psychological egoism is a descriptive theory about how peopledo behave rather than an ethical theory about how theyought to behave. Still, the truth of psychological egoismwould have important ethical implications. Because we can’t bemorally obligated to do the impossible, the truth of psychologicalegoism would mean that we cannot be obligated to behavealtruistically. Accepting this would require us to substantiallyrevise our ideas about morality.
There are a number of arguments for psychological egoism. Oneargument begins with the claim that every action is based on thestrongest desire of the person performing it. For this to supportthe theory, however, the egoist must make the case that all of ourstrongest desires are for personal gain. A second argument claimsthat people always expect their actions to make them betteroff.
Ethical egoism is the theory that actions are morallyright just because they best promote one’s self-interest. Althoughpsychological egoism is one source of support for ethical egoism,one can consistently accept ethical egoism—the view that we oughtto behave self-interestedly—while rejecting psychologicalegoism—the view that we always do behave in this way. Ethicalegoism faces a serious difficulty at the outset: the theory impliesthat it is morally right to kill, rape, and steal any time theseactions would be in our self-interest. These actions seem to beparadigmatic cases of immorality. This doesn’t prove that ethicalegoism is false because our conventional ideas about morality couldbe mistaken. It does suggest, however, that we should acceptethical egoism only if there are strong arguments in its favor.
Egoists have advanced several arguments to support theirposition. Some claim that everyone would be better off if we wereall to behave egoistically. According to egoism, however, the factthat something makes everyone better off is morally irrelevant, sothis argument cannot support ethical egoism. Many egoists invokelibertarianism, according to which all of our moral duties derivefrom the sources of consent and reparation, to support egoism. Theegoist cannot consistently accept such a view, however, becauseethical egoism is committed to the idea that consent and reparationdo not generate obligations—only self-interest can do so. The bestargument for ethical egoism claims that if we’re morally requiredto do something, then we have good reason to do it. Furthermore, wehave good reason to do something only if it makes us better off.This latter claim is questionable, however, because there seem tobe cases in which we have good reason to do something (say, help astranger) even if doing so does not benefit us.
Egoism also faces three serious problems. As mentioned before,it violates many widely shared moral beliefs. In addition, itcannot allow for the existence of moral rights that protect us frominterference from others. After all, if violating my supposedrights would benefit you, egoism says that you morally ought to doso. Finally, egoism seems to arbitrarily elevate the interests of asingle person over everyone else, and it is not clear how to defendsuch a bias. Given that the main arguments for egoism fail and thatthe theory suffers serious problems, we seem to be justified inrejecting it.
After reading the above text answer thefollowing.
\"What is the relationship between psychological egoismand ethical egoism? Define each theory and explain how they aresimilar and how they differ. Does accepting one theory commit youto accepting the other? Does rejecting one commit you to rejectingthe other? Why or why not?\" Write at-least 200 words.
