is
Irrefutable and Correct
INDEX
Desire and Psychological Egoism
PROOF FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL EGOISM
The Case Against
Psychological Egoism
“Lord, the end of another messed-up day. I let you down at every turn. I’ve lived for myself all through” (page 4, Friday Penance, John C Edwards SJ, Catholic Truth Society, London, 1985).
If you didn’t have motives, reasons for acting, you would never do anything.
Philosophers say there are three possibilities for why we do what we do. No more and no less. They are saying there are three different motives. Altruism, Egoism and Egotism.
Altruism is being interested in the welfare of others and not in yourself. Others matter but you don’t.
Egoism means you do what you do, and make others happy, out of self-interest. If you are nice to people because it fulfils your desire to be nice that is egoism. Egoism, when properly understood, does not say that you always do what has the most pleasure in it or that you necessarily do only what will result in very enjoyable consequences for you. It is more centred on fulfilling the desire to act than any other results or other pleasures that the act may bring. The only pleasure it is worried about is the satisfaction that is found in being able to do what you want – regardless of how good or poor the side-effects of this pleasure are. We do not always want to do whatever has the maximal pleasure in it. We would be too afraid that others would be able to control us if they could use pleasure as a bait to get us to do what they want. We value the pleasure of being free beings above any other pleasure however great.
Egotism means you do what you do out of self-interest without any concern for other people or that you just help people because you want to feel good about yourself afterwards.
Some psychologists believe in psychological egoism. This theory says that everything we do is caused by self-interest only. It says we can’t help this – it is just the way we are made.
The definition of egoism that we will use here is, egoism is fulfilling your immediate self-interest by responding to your desire to act. In other words, even if you carry a beggar to his hometown on your back knowing there is nothing in it for you, the only thing there is in it for you is that you fulfilled your wish to do this. You may not have liked it very much but you liked it enough to do it. The definition has to be correct for most refutations of psychological egoism and most proponents of psychological egoism are based on the false supposition that egoism is saying that we only go after what has the most future pleasure in it for us. If the supposition were true every naïve teenager and egoist would be on drugs. But it is not necessarily true.
An act can be self-interested without being about future pleasure. When you see a child, who is a stranger to you, in the middle of a busy road that is in danger of being killed within minutes and you run out to the child to save the child making it very likely that you will be the one that will end up dead you are not thinking of how much pleasure you will get by saving the child. You are not thinking of how bad you will feel if you stand there and let the child die. You desire to save the child and that is where the delight is: in doing the act or in fulfilling the desire. You crave the goodness inherent in the act. You are satisfying a need in yourself. To satisfy a need for alcohol is seen as selfish and to satisfy a need to save the child is seen as unselfish. It makes no sense for its just satisfying a need. A need is just a need. You are not thinking of the need when you save the child but its there and you are responding to it.
Let us clarify what egoism is. It is the pleasure we go after in the present, not future, fulfilling of the desire to do such and such an action and nothing else. Psychological egoists are right to say we go after what gives us the most pleasure but only in this sense.
People who give up an evening watching a film they really wanted to see to dole out soup in a homeless shelter are not altruists. They had the desire to reject better feelings to experience less good feelings. They are still doing what they desire. Desire demands self-fulfilment. Desire is necessarily self-centred which is why we must consider egoism to be proven. To say we have desires is the same as saying we are egoistic. Religion and many ethical systems try to make people see this truth as repulsive.
If a mother decides to get pregnant even though the pregnancy according to the best medical advice would be months of suffering and pain is she altruistic?
She is making a choice, if you believe in that word, and a choice is the desire you want to fulfil. So a desire causes her to choose what desire to fulfil. It is the same with everybody.
As much suffering as the decision will make she makes it to satisfy desires. This is nothing other than the Buddhist truth that we cannot do anything without some desire that seeks to be fulfilled. The consequences of the decision will be terrible and made worthwhile by the baby. But she refuses to let the pain and suffering put her off. She desires not to let it put her off. She is fulfilling desires all the time so she is not being altruistic at all.
To make it simpler, if she says, “I want to suffer to have this baby,” focus on the words, “I want.” “I want”, means, “I wish to be fulfilled in doing this thing.” This is egoism. Psychological egoism is true.
It is obvious that psychological egotism isn’t true. What about psychological altruism? Altruism implies that other people matter and you don’t and we know people don’t think like that. And besides if you don’t matter why should anybody else? If we were altruistic we would all be evil but we are not. Psychological egoism is the only one of them that can be true.
If we are capable of genuine selflessness then why do we prefer other people to suffer than ourselves? Would you give up everything to let some stranger’s horrific suffering be transferred to you instead?
If you desire something that means you want the pleasure of the desire to be fulfilled. You can desire to leave a party early to help a depressed friend though it will diminish your pleasure. But though you are turning your back on fun, it does not follow that you are renouncing pleasure. It just means you are taking the pleasure of doing what you want and not the pleasure of hedonism. Even hedonistic pleasure ceases to be pleasure if you feel addicted to it. To do what you desire is the greatest and most important pleasure of all in the long run. It is failing to realise this that makes people believe in the possibility of altruism.
Caring about doing good does not make you an altruist. You can caringly give a friend a gun though they say they will go and shoot somebody with it when you are sure they will get away with the shooting. Caring about doing right does make you an altruist. You need to care about doing right to be an altruist but that doesn't mean altruism and doing right are necessarily the same thing. People don't really care about right and wrong. All they care about is what they want to do. People are so easily conditioned. At the root of this, is their desire to be like everybody around them and to fit in and get all the benefits that fitting in offers. Society conditions you to jump into a river and save a drowning child. Responding to conditioning is not altruism.
Egoism is a form of selfishness. To care about rules not good is selfish. To care about good not rules is also selfish for good is associated by us with promoting happiness and wellbeing and because we know that just because something is good doesn't make it moral. You need the rules for determining morality. We hate rules - we only like them when they suit us in which case we only like the fun we find in them not them. Both caring about rules and caring about good is selfish so we can't compromise either. We are selfish in all that we do.
Desire proves we are egoistic creatures with a potential to go beyond egoism to egotism.
When you do good for another, do it out of the desire to fulfil yourself and you will be happy because if you want something else you might not get it! This is as much selfishness as being kind to them for what you can get off them say money or whatever. Why? Because you don't want the money in itself, you only want the fulfilment you think you will get from the money. You go after the same fulfilment if you do it to fulfil yourself or to get future fulfilment. There is no difference in that way. Do it to fulfil yourself and that is selfishness. Do it to get money etc and that is still selfishness. But the first is the strongest and best selfishness for it is more effective. The more selfish you are then the better! If you do not do it to fulfil yourself then you are being a pushover and urging the person to abuse you. That is actually a warped form of selfishness too. Everything we do is selfish. Altruism is nonsense.
Catholic philosophers know Psychological Egoism is true and say so but always go back on it and distract us with other ideas to keep us from dwelling on it. They teach that when you do bad it is principally the good in the bad act that you want and you are only using the bad as a means to the good. And the purpose of it all is happiness. When you die for somebody it is because you are happy to at least under the circumstances. So if you were not happy to die for the person you wouldn’t. It is about you not them at all though the results look as if it is about them. You don’t will the death but some good. You cannot will somebody else’s good and not your own. That would deny the desire for happiness. You cannot be altruistic because you chiefly do the act because you are happy to.
“If evil be done, it is done as leading to good, or as bound up with good, or as itself being good for the doer under the circumstances; no man ever does evil for sheer evil’s sake. Yet evil may be the object of the will, not by itself, nor primarily, but in a secondary way as bound up with the good that is willed in the first place.” (page 3).
“All the human acts of all men are done for the one (subjective) last end just indicated. This end is called happiness” (page 4)
Quotes from
Moral Philosophy, Stonyhurst Philosophical Series,
Father Joseph Rickaby, SJ,
Longmans, Green and Co,
If I am honest, I do everything I do because I feel like it. If I help others it is because I wish to. It is about my wish and not them. Those who disagree are confusing the benefit for others with the wish to commit the act of benefiting others. The two are separate.
Let’s prove it.
Gratitude is appreciation. It is taking delight in somebody doing something good for you. It takes delight in them and in the act they performed. Love in the final analysis is really gratitude. This is a reason why we cannot believe people who claim to love evil people and hate their evil deeds. But that aside, gratitude is joy that you got something. If you do something for another - if you give away your last penny - for love then it follows you are really doing it for yourself.
If I value money my act is to value. The money is incidental. How do I know? Because if I value people my act is to value. In both I value, my action is to value. It is exactly the same act but it is only what is valued that is different. If I throw a snowball my act is to throw. The exact same act will throw a football. The act is the same – it is only what is thrown that is different. So it makes no sense to say that to value money is selfish and that it is unselfish to value people. The act is exactly the same, the valuing is exactly the same but it is only the focus of the valuing that is different. It would make as much sense to say that tasting wine was good but tasting milk was bad. Or that tasting wine was unselfish and tasting milk was selfish. Tasting is just tasting just as valuing is just valuing. If tasting something in particular has good results or if valuing something in particular has good results, if they help people better than not doing them would, that is a by-product of the tasting or valuing. People will value what they want or are pre-determined by their psyche to value. It is the valuing that is important – not what is valued. Therefore if I am selfish for valuing money I am just as selfish for valuing people.
There is no sacrifice, for what I do I want to do under the circumstances. When I say I don’t want to do it, I mean that I am getting little pleasure out of it but nevertheless I still want to do it enough to be able to do it. My will is just about me meaning that if I do wrong it is a mistake and not a sin or crime. The will is about gratifying desire not about evil and good which are the consequences of the intent but not the intent itself. When I kill a person, I don't do it to take away their life but to fulfil my wish to end their life. Life is easier when we remember that what we do, we do for ourselves even if we are not keen on it and it gives us a sense of comfort. The doctrine of free will takes that away from us. People never do wrong because they deny their responsibility – they do it because they fail to see how useless and unattractive wrong is. The doctrine of free will suggests otherwise which is why the doctrine is a slander against us that we will not stand for.
Leaving aside the question of free will, when we choose we respond to the feeling, “I want to do this”. Even when we choose to die for others it is to indulge this feeling of wanting. It makes bad consequences seem unreal so that even suffering and death isn’t enough to stop us. We switch off parts of our minds and the urge for self-preservation to do it. Knowing that how can anybody say we are altruistic? If we are not in this thing, how can we be in anything else?
Altruism is contradictory. Does a wife want her husband to take her on holiday just for her though he hates the idea? She wants him to get something out of it. She wants him to think of her as an extension of himself – part of himself so that in serving her and loving her it is the same thing as loving and serving himself. When she is happy, he is happy.
Duty is the idea that you must do certain actions and be compelled if necessary. It is based on the concept of justice and fairness. Altruists say we have a duty to be altruistic. They want to force certain actions on us. If altruism is so great then it should be freely engaged in. The duty concept denies this freedom so it denies altruism. Duty makes more sense in an egoistic context where you can force a person on pain of jail to refrain from stealing. Altruism embraces suffering. If suffering is that great then the concept of duty is no use for duty threatens suffering on those who shirk their duties.
I go into a burning house to save a child and I die. Altruism says that if I did this for the child without thinking of myself it is great. If I do it because I want to die a hero then its selfish, its not altruism. If I do it for the child while believing that altruism is an unnatural perversion or deceit what then? Then I must be selfish as well for I am doing what I think is wrong. The altruist only assumes that going into the house is proof of altruistic behaviour. It is not evidence for altruistic behaviour. Also, when we panic we are not thinking properly. Impulse takes over. It is the same as temporary insanity. And nobody says you are being altruistic when you are insane! No evidence for altruistic behaviour can be found by observing the allegedly altruistic behaviour of others.
If a priest gives his life for a layman to live he is an altruistic saint. But is he really when he refused to live to bring people to God?
If a father of three burns to death while trying to save his own father who had only a few years left he is supposedly an altruist. But he wasn’t thinking of his own children. He was no altruist.
Altruism is intrinsically laced through and through with vicious sickening hypocrisy. It has more in common with egotism than egoism. To praise the “altruists” we have met is to selfishly ignore the people hurt by what they did. In altruistic philosophy, praising altruism is more important than people. Altruists claim to love the sinner but hate his or her sin meaning that they pretend the person is not in some sense the sin. If the person is not the sin, the person is not his or her goodness either so we can love a person's goodness not the person.
Only the individual person can decide if altruism is possible. Only the individual person can examine her or his motives to determine if altruism counts among them. You cannot believe in altruism unless you verify it for yourself by examining yourself. The human heart is very deceitful. We can think we are doing something altruistically and then discover we had a motive that was egoistic or evil that we couldn’t see.
The examples show that altruism has to be believed in as moral to be altruism. Altruism is only possible if you believe that it is right. So it is right to destroy yourself for others. Altruism fans might say that the good is not in the destroying of yourself but in the helping of others. But they are deceiving. If altruism which means hurting yourself for others is good, and good done for a bad motive is evil as they say, then clearly destroying yourself to help others is good.
If I know it’s the last moment of my existence and I want to drink a glass of whiskey, the last drop in the house, and give the glass to a stranger and make myself unhappy altruists think that is wonderful. So altruism must see self-destruction as good for I destroyed a part of myself when I carried out that action. Though my own existence and consciousness is the one thing I cannot doubt, I am asked to put a being who existence I am less sure of before myself. I mean I am asked to put what is less certain before what is certain though commonsense says what is more certain comes first. The altruists will reply that you didn’t give away the whiskey to destroy yourself but to give to another. The answer is that you did it for both reasons. Giving the whiskey away wasn’t as important as taking it yourself. And if everybody is altruistic life cannot function so it is destructive. You cannot run a business to make money for yourself if you give away all your goods and services for nothing. Yet altruists see the person who gives all away for others as the ideal, the true good person.
St Martin de Porres chose to be a Dominican lay-brother rather than be ordained for he didn’t feel worthy of the priesthood. Altruists applaud this. Indeed a true altruist would have to turn down benefits and privileges to let others have them instead. So a man thinking he is not as good as other people and who approves of worse than him going for ordination is to be applauded? His lack of self-love is applauded. If he thought he wasn’t worthy and shouldn’t be ordained then how could he sincerely have thought that other men were right to go forth for ordination? Others would say that Martin turned down the priesthood and the power to bring others to salvation so he wasn’t an altruist. Do you see how nobody agrees on what counts as altruistic behaviour? It’s all guessing.
Altruism proposes that we must hate the sin but not the sinner. We must judge the sin not the sinner. Why? The answer usually give is that it is altruistic to show great kindness to those who hate you and who are conspiring against you or those who don't deserve it. But in abusive relationships what happens is this. When the man verbally abuses the woman and tells her that she is ugly, fat and how dissatisfied he is with her or hits her he will say something along the lines of, “I don’t want to hurt you but I do but you know I love you.” In other words, “I am a good person who does bad things,” which is the same as, “Love me even if you hate the bad things I do.” We know how bad it is for the woman to believe him.
We cannot hate the sin without hating the sinner for the sin reveals the sinner. It tells us what kind of person the sinner is. There is no way we can pretend the sin is separate from the sinner. There is no sin without a person becoming a sinner. If the sin can be separated from the sinner and thought of differently then so can the good done by a person be separated from the person. If you say to a sinner, “I have nothing against you. You are a wonderful faultless person. It is just this sin of yours I have the problem with, not you” they would understandably laugh at you.
Altruism is based on lies and self-deceit. It is impossible for that reason. If you really lovingly sacrifice for somebody you won't be pretending that if you say judge them or ostracise them, that it is their sin you are judging or ostracising and not them!
All intentions are ultimately to do with what you want to do. You may intend to buy a car or give to the poor but ultimately you intend to do what you want. It is what you want that you care about. What you want may take different forms such as wanting the car or to see the poor better off but it is wanting all the same. If you see blue and you see pink after it, it means that you have the one sight. You don't have one kind of sight for blue and another for pink. Seeing is just seeing and wanting is just wanting.
You are called an egotist if you sacrifice the love of family and friends for something less beneficial such as money. If you willingly sacrifice money for the family and friends you are called an altruist. This is ignoring intentions and going by results. The intention in both is exactly the same – to do what you want to do. The results have nothing to do with it. If desiring to sacrifice for money makes you selfish so does desiring to sacrifice for the family and friends. To say that desiring money to give it away is altruism and to desire it to have it yourself is not is really saying altruism and egoism are not judged by motives but by results. It is like saying that tasting sugar is altruism and tasting salt is egoism. Altruists don’t commend the suicide victim who kills himself because he believes everybody would be better off if he died. It is impossible to escape the conclusion that altruists are really do-gooders.
Here is an example of human hypocrisy. A man is captured by dangerous psychopathic terrorists. Three men risk their lives trying to save him. The three men will be praised for doing this and encouraging each other to do it even if they are the ones that wind up dead. They are praised for putting one life before three lives. They are called altruists. This altruism is certainly selfish. It proves how altruism is just self-will in a new guise. If you intend to be selfish, it might be irrational to be selfish that way. So are we to pretend it is altruism just because it is irrational selfishness? If the men risked their lives to get money they would be called selfish even though they are risking as well. So the fact that they are risking for another man proves nothing.
If God appeared to you and asked you to suffer excruciatingly forever just to save two strangers from this torment, would you do it? You certainly would not though it is easy to kid yourself that you would when you know there is no chance that God will appear with such an offer. Yet you know one person suffering this torment is better than two suffering it and you won’t do what altruism says is the right thing. It follows then that the good you do is done more because it suits you than for any real concern for good. In other words, you are an egoist.
Altruism knows that when you look after your children it is because you see and feel they are a part of you that you do so. You wouldn’t care as much about the children if they were somebody else’s. Nature causes you to feel that way. It causes you to value them as if they were extensions of yourself. Altruism then undeniably has to deny that having children and caring for them is as good as looking after strangers. We know that caring for children is best so we know egoism is true and desirable.
Altruism requires free will. If a force causes us to act without concern for ourselves then it is not us that is acting and we are not altruists. We are just carried along by a power while we imagine and feel we are free.
Altruism also requires a strong belief in free will. The stronger your belief in free will the stronger will be your altruism. I mean that the more belief you have in free will the more altruistic your helping the poor is than a person who does exactly the same as you but who has less faith in free will. The more evidence you have for free will the better. But there is unfortunately no evidence for free will at all. Animals feel as free as us but they don't have the power of free will.
Psychological egoism is more believable than psychological altruism. It is more evident that people may be egoists than that they may be altruists.
I do everything I do because I desire to even under the circumstances. And when I say I don’t, I only mean I am responding to my desire to do it though I also have a desire not to do it. If this does not prove psychological egoism to be true, it certainly proves that it is probably true.
Altruism is freely giving yourself to others. If you die for others and are under the influence of drugs, the drugs made you sacrifice yourself. That is not recognised as altruism but as egoism or more accurately as egotism. The distinction between selflessness and non-selflessness is totally arbitrary in this case. The vast majority of actions classified as altruistic are really acts of egoism or egotism.
Psychological egoism as a theory has a right to be accepted if it is coherent and it is. It should be respected as a legitimate theory and it should be admitted by those who cannot accept it that it could be true.
The only thing I know 100% is that I exist now. I cannot be as sure that I existed a second ago. Perhaps it was a dream or an illusion. I am less sure that other people are not dreams or visions than I am that I existed a second ago. The people I see in my dreams seem as real as the people I meet every day. I create my belief in other people. To serve them is to serve my belief not them though they may benefit. If I create an imaginary friend and believe in that friend I am called self-centred. If I come to believe that giving all my money away to the poor will plunge me into an ecstasy of delight that is worth it I am self-centred. I am not doing it for the ecstasy but for the belief I will get the ecstasy. Therefore all my actions for others are self-centred.
To serve my belief is to serve myself for my belief makes me what I am. Belief is about me. Psychological egoism is true. Case closed.
Altruism says you should help others without thinking of yourself. Egoism is the idea that you help others because doing so is its own reward for you. Egotism says you should help others to get a reward such as money or to feel good after.
If you ask somebody to be altruistic to you, you would be considered selfish for you wish to gain at their expense. And the altruist is being selfish in urging you to be selfish or encouraging you by doing what you ask. Altruism is a lie. Altruism is evil and therefore selfish.
1 If you say that everybody is an egoist all the time, you are saying something that is impossible to test. You can’t see anybody else’s motives. What is to stop you from saying that psychological altruism is true? What is to stop you saying that psychological egoism is true either? Both theories are unverifiable. Somebody could be a recluse for altruistic reasons. It could be because they think they have nothing good to offer anybody. Or they think they could be a recluse because they don't want to offer good to anybody.
2 If
I help somebody and feel good after it does not follow that I did the act to
get that feeling. If I make a nice dinner
for somebody to see them happy it does not follow that I was motivated to
please myself by seeing this person happy.
Just because the motive is my motive does not mean it is a
self-interested motive. Here is a parallel to
show the point: Just because a thought I have is my thought it does not
mean it is a thought about me.
3 If psychological egoism is true, then we do everything we do to make ourselves happy. But if we pursue happiness we won’t get it. If we simply just get on with life and do good for others and forget about it, it is then that happiness comes. Happiness is a by-product.
4 People are interested in other people. They are not just interested in themselves. People love, are grateful to, are friendly to, and show compassion to, others.
5 People
have very different interests. Different
things make them happy so egoism is not true. If psychological egoism were
true, the man who saves lives would have the same self-interest motive as a man
who does not save them but prefers to sleep in bed.
6 People do not do everything they to do please themselves and satisfy their own interests for people can want something badly and still be unsatisfied when they get it.
7 People don’t always do what they perceive to be in their best interest. People smoke too much for example. People will engage in dangerous sports such as motor racing. And people make mistakes about what is in their best interest. If I were offered a pill to make me wrongly think I had provided for my family forever so that I could feel happy for life would I take it? No so psychological egoism is false.
8 People often have a mixture of motives for what they do. Some of the motives may be altruistic, some egoistic and some may even be egotistic. Psychological egoism denies this so it is false. If a person is altruistic and is rewarded for it, that reinforces and encourages the altruistic behaviour in future. So even though the person is not motivated by looking for the reward, the reward increases the tendency to be altruistic. Self-interest and caring about the welfare of others are not necessarily incompatible. For example, a doctor can be nice to his patients though he just cares about himself. He is nice because he knows that the patients will find another doctor if he is not.
9 Self-interest and caring about the self-interests of others are compatible. You can do both at the one time. You can care about others and yourself at the one time.
10 You only feel good about having done good deeds because you value such deeds. You don’t value them just because you feel good after them. Egoism is untrue for it says you only do what makes you feel good.
11 A child and a man are in the sea after a shipwreck. The man lets go of a log to let the child hold on to it instead. A man agrees to be tortured to death by kidnappers so that a woman they are holding may go free. These are examples of totally unselfish behaviour.
12 The other idea that animals act altruistically so we can do it too is related to this one.
13 Some people want fame though fame is tormenting and means you have no privacy. Some people risk their lives and wellbeing needlessly to take revenge.
14 If psychological egoism is true then the moral theory of ethical egoism is true. Though it is true that ethical egoism does not require belief in psychological egoism it is true that psychological egoism demands belief in ethical egoism. If we can’t be other than self-interested then it follows that we ought to be self-interested for we cannot do anything different. But even if altruism is possible, the ethical egoist says that egoism is right, it is what ought to be done. Ethical egoism is bad. It says that Hitler didn’t do wrong by hurting the Jews but by degrading himself to do such things. Had he been a man with good self-esteem and self-respect he wouldn’t have carried out such actions. He didn’t have a strong and noble ego. He didn’t see that to love himself properly he had to love other people.
15 The egoists who say that egoism is simply doing what you want to do only imagine they are espousing egoism. That is not egoism. You can want to do things for reasons that have nothing to do with your interests. If you do things because of your interests that is egoism. If you do things for reasons, that could be altruism. For example, “I want to get John’s medicine for him because I want him to get well though it won’t do me any good”, that is altruism.
If you say that everybody is an egoist all the time, you are saying something that is impossible to test. You can’t see anybody else’s motives. What is to stop you from saying that psychological altruism is true? What is to stop you saying that psychological egoism is true either? Both theories are unverifiable. Somebody could be a recluse for altruistic reasons. It could be because they think they have nothing good to offer anybody. Or they think they could be a recluse because they don't want to offer good to anybody.
If you can't say things like that because you can't see the motives then you can't say it because of how they act either. You ignore how it looks from their behaviour.
They say you can’t say everybody is always altruistic no matter how it looks from their behaviour. They say you can’t say everybody is always egoistic no matter how it looks from their behaviour. They say you can’t say everybody is always egotistic no matter how it looks from their behaviour.
If you can say none of these then how can you say that people are either egoistic or altruistic? How can you say they are sometimes egotistic? How can you say anything? It seems we have to assume and make do with assuming. If we have to assume, it is better to assume psychological egoism is true. An egoist should be more predictable than an altruist or an egotist. The egoist should be more controllable. We all know that people do better if we offer them sincere praise - that is if we appeal to their egos. That is an example.
The psychological egoist should examine her or his own psyche and see if there is any altruism, egoism or egotism there. Examine your own motives for you cannot examine anybody else’s.
The argument says that psychological egoism is irrefutable. I disagree. You can examine yourself to see if it is true or not.
But if it is irrefutable then which of the following should we assume?
(By mostly we mean all people as they are the most of the time.)
Should we assume that people are mostly egoistic?
Should we assume that people are always egoistic?
Should we assume that people are mostly altruistic?
Should we assume that people are always altruistic?
Should we assume that people are mostly egotistic?
Should we assume that people are always egotistic?
Should we assume that people are mostly a mixture of the three? Or not mostly a mixture?
People are not mostly altruistic for they are not among the poor serving them. They are not very generous or as generous as they could be. People prefer going clubbing to going to the soup kitchens to feed the poor. When a man jumps into the river to save a stranger child and endanger his own life to save the child we cannot consider him an altruist for he is a slave to his emotions and is panicking. A man who becomes a fireman would not do it if he felt he would one day be burned to death saving children from a burning house. He takes the risk but by taking risks we risk the welfare of our children who may have to live without us if the risk proves to be one risk too many. So we cannot really say he is an altruist.
Believers in altruism use extreme situations like above to try and show that altruism is possible. This is because it is so easy to do good to others and convince yourself that you do it for them not you when you do it for praise, to feel good, because you want something to do, because you feel guilty, because you want good luck, because you want a reward from God or because you feel if you do this people will do good for you so you have to set an example. But people are not themselves in extreme situations. Also
Big altruistic acts might only prove that we are altruistic in big things. But we could have nothing but egoistic motivation for all the other things we do. A man who won't steal a hundred pounds might steal a pound.
People are not mostly egotistic for life cannot function if everybody steals and lies and cheats.
People then must at least be mostly egoistic.
We must remember that the Bible teaches that we are all sinners and because God is happy with nothing we do we need to be saved by one who earns our salvation for us: Jesus Christ. Why all the hostility towards psychological egoism, a harmless doctrine, when it is all right for Lutherans and Calvinists and true Bible believers to teach that natural man does nothing but sin or be egotistic?
Reply to 2
If
I help somebody and feel good after it does not follow that I did the act to
get that feeling. If I make a nice dinner
for somebody to see them happy it does not follow that I was motivated to
please myself by seeing this person happy.
Just because the motive is my motive does not mean it is a
self-interested motive. Here is a
parallel to show the point: Just because a thought I have is my thought
it does not mean it is a thought about me.
It is true that I can do a good work without thinking of how good it will make me feel after. But this has nothing to do with psychological egoism when psychological egoism is correctly understood. Also, it is only true in theory. Otherwise it cannot happen. For example, when I do a good work I feel some good about doing it. It is one of the reasons I do it if not the only reason. I would not do a good work if I didn't feel good at all about it. So my concern for my feelings is there even if it is at the back of my mind. It is still there. No act is entirely unselfish.
Psychological egoism when correctly understood does not say you should help your sick mother because of how you will feel about it afterwards. That would be egotism. It would be bad.
What it does say is that the act is its own reward – you fulfil yourself in the doing of the act. Whatever comes after the act is irrelevant. It the feeling you want the act to happen that causes you to do the act – some people call this choice is where the egoism is. You can’t act unless you want the act to happen. You must at least want the act for itself. The good results of the act need not be the attraction at all.
It would seem true that the motive being my motive does not mean it is a self-interested motive but only if you forget what motive is. The motive being what attracts me does mean it is a self-interested motive. This in a nutshell is the only real refutation of psychological egoism there could be. Refute it and we establish that psychological egoism is fact.
Just because the motive is my motive does not mean it is a self-interested motive is wrong. Self-preservation is the strongest need of all. The suicide only dies because he or she wants to kill the pain not themselves. They die to preserve themselves from the pain. The self-preservation need permeates all our decisions. No decision or thought is tolerated that may take away our life and we can lose life by losing freedom as well as by dying. Life is not life unless one can do what one feels one likes to do - within reason.
Here is a parallel to show the point: Just because a thought I have is my thought it does not mean it is a thought about me. Interesting! But a thought is not a feeling or a motive. The parallel doesn't work. We agree that just because something is mine that doesn't mean I have it for me. But if you substitute the word something with "motive - why I want to please myself by doing something" you see that motive is an exception. A good parallel would be, "Just because I do something to help another and seem to be after no reward that does not mean I didn't do it for my entire fulfilment." That is true. And its truthfulness shows that their parallel is simply wrong. Their parallel when translated properly really is saying the absurd, "Just because my self-centred act is mine doesn't mean it is for me."
The fact that I have a thought doesn't mean that the thought is about me but it does mean that the thought is FOR me. When we go for something or do anything we need thoughts to do it. Therefore everything I do is for me.
Just because the motive is my motive does not mean it is a self-interested motive. But the believers in altruism say that just because an act is selfless, it does not mean it is unselfish. The woman who murders her lover to get his money to give to her son to save her son's life is considered selfish though she has committed an act of sacrifice. The person who spends thousands on surgery to look beautiful and who neglects their parents is making a big sacrifice and risking their life and we consider this selflessness to be selfish because of the neglected parents. So you can't be sure any selfless act is not selfish. If that is true, then probability alone supports egoism. We should always assume that people are selfish all the time. It does no good to assume any different. The woman who murdered her lover can say she made an error in judgement or has some aberration in her conscience so she was altruistic despite what she did. She can say she did right and that though society may disagree with her that does not mean she was wrong. She can say that differences of opinion are a part of life and just because it was a serious matter doesn't mean she shouldn't have her opinion regardless of what others think. The surgery addict can say that he or she feels they have no hope of being a good person unless the surgery was done. Selfishness is so easily disguised. And if we go along with people who obscure their selfishness and start praising their altruism and selflessness then we have lost the plot. It is best to assume they are selfish and that egoism is true and that religions that try to eradicate egoism such as Christianity and Islam are themselves evil. To fight egoism is to promote the lies of those who claim they have eradicated it from their hearts.
Egoism does not say that I always help people because of how I will feel after. It does say we do what we do because of how we feel as we do it.
Reply to 3
If psychological egoism is true, then we do
everything we do to make ourselves happy.
But if we pursue happiness we won’t get it. If we simply just get on with life and do
good for others and forget about it, it is then that happiness comes. Happiness is a by-product.
The claim is that because we wreck our happiness and weaken it if we pursue it all the time that psychological egoism must be false. But the mistake in this argument is in thinking that forgetting about happiness is not self-interest. It is self-interest.
We know that if we do something and seek nothing back that we find we will derive happiness from it. Happiness involves being at peace and you cannot have happiness if you keep wanting it for then you have no peace. If you forget about it, you get it. Forgetting about happiness then to be happy is not selflessness at all. It may be objected that just because you forget about happiness does not mean you are forgetting to be happy. You might be just forgetting. But you would not be forgetting unless you believed you would be okay or if you felt it or both.
Forgetting about happiness then to be unhappy would imply that it is reasonable for somebody to ask you to carry them on your back from Edinburgh to London. So would forgetting about happiness to be neither happy or unhappy. You wouldn't want that. So you wouldn't be doing the forgetting unless you believed or felt you were going to be okay. Death does not seem real to the person risking his life who jumps into the water to save you from drowning and that is why he is able to take the risk. He enjoys the forgetting and this enjoyment takes over. It is not the best kind of enjoyment but it is still enjoyment.
The person who has a stomach pain will find that if he sits around wishing for the happiness of relief he will only make it worse for himself for he will be conscious of the pain. He will find that if he does something to distract himself from the pain he will be better off. This is self-interest. And so is distracting yourself from the painful and unhappiness- making fact that you cannot make yourself feel happy all the time. You will achieve that happiness by doing good works not by thinking about the happiness. Even good works that do not benefit others such as writing a novel when you have no hope of getting published or acclaimed make you happy. This is self-interest and it makes you happy!
Happiness is, according to altruistic and religious "wisdom", a side-effect of living a life that wants to see others happy. Sometimes it seems as if that is the case. But you will often do good and feel no better. It cannot be proven that the happiness really was a side-effect of the action.
The egoist has to forget about how happy anything will make him feel in order to be happy. He or she might not be happy but she or he will have no hope of being happy if she or he focuses too much on happiness. This is because feelings are hard to predict and control. You can be content today and moody tomorrow for no real reason. You can work all your life for a million pounds thinking it will make you happy and feel nothing when you get it. The egoist with any wisdom at all will have to forget about being happy in order to be happy. The miser who wants a billion pounds knows he has to stop thinking about the billion pounds if he wants it. He has to put it at the back of his mind. Does his forgetting mean that he is not being selfish or that he is not being greedy? The egoist is just following the recipe for happiness. That is still egoism. The egoist is still doing what is best for her or him. The egoist is certainly not forgetting about happiness in order to be unhappy or to feel nothing. The egoist must be doing it to feel happy. It is the egoist’s method for attaining happiness. If the egoist enjoys seeing others happy the egoist will not want to be unhappy or to feel nothing for that is not good for the people he helps. It endangers enthusiasm and they may notice that you don’t really like helping them.
Reply to 4
People are interested in other people. They are not just interested in themselves. People love, are grateful to, are friendly
to, and show compassion to, others.
To love is to value. To value means to take pleasure in them. Altruistic love is a contradiction. You want your wife to enjoy loving you. You don’t want her to love you altruistically. Altruism says love is sacrifice. It says the wife who agonisingly helps you from day to day and gets no pleasure from it is the wife who truly loves not the one who enjoys being your partner.
We know it is in our best interest to be interested in other people. It is egoistic.
Reply to 5
People have very different interests. Different things make them happy so egoism is
not true.
This has no relationship at all to the issue. Does people having different interests, people preferring to nurse rather than to teach children, prove that altruism isn’t true?
Suppose you have two men who want to be happy. Does that mean the two of them have to go about it in the same way? People see things differently.
Reply to 6
People do not do everything they to do
please themselves and satisfy their own interests for people can want something
badly and still be unsatisfied when they get it.
That has nothing to do with the issue of whether or not egoism is true. Egoism does not necessarily mean that you will go after what you think has the most pleasure in it or what consequences will provide the best service for your interest. Egoism is about fulfilling the desire to act.
Reply to 7
People don’t always do what they perceive to be in their best interest. People smoke too much for example. People will engage in dangerous sports such as motor racing. And people make mistakes about what is in their best interest. If I were offered a pill to make me wrongly think I had provided for my family forever so that I could feel happy for life would I take it? No so psychological egoism is false.
Smoking is addictive. Anything that is addictive makes you imagine that it is going to make you happy.
People engage in dangerous sports for a thrill. It is not the kind of thing you will get into unless you will get a great buzz during it and after it. This makes the perception of danger less strong. They feel confident that they will evade any danger so that the danger will not be an issue. Dangerous sports are egotism in the sense that they are engaged in for glory and the thrill. Engaging in dangerous sports is selfish because it risks breaking the hearts of those who love you. If that is an example of altruism, it is not a good one! If its not altruism, it is egoism and so even dying for saving the life of a child isn’t necessarily altruistic to any degree.
People making mistakes only means that they went after what they thought was their best interest. It does not mean that they are not interested in what they see to be their best interest. Egoism is about satisfying the desire to act and this takes over and can make the egoist do and pursue actions that seem to be terribly bad for her or him.
If I can’t be happy unless my family is looked after financially then is taking the permanent happiness pill an option? Just imagine you are offered the pill in such circumstances that you know you will never get into trouble by taking it and you will spend your money on yourself and enjoy it no longer being aware that your family will need it. What then?
You would take the pill if you are egotistic. But what if you are altruistic? No you wouldn’t take the pill. If you are egoistic would you take the pill? No. You like having reasons for what you do. You are made to do all you do for reasons. These reasons are your reasons and you are being egoistic by following your reasons. Objectors will state that just because they are your reasons and proceed from the self doesn’t make them selfish in any sense or egoistic. In the same way what proceeds from the sun is not the sun but something different. That is true. But it does make them selfish when it is the desire for gratification that is behind the reasons. We cannot be reasonable unless we see delight in being so.
Consider the motivation for your egoistic refusal. I refuse the pill because the thought of my loved ones being deprived makes me unhappy. I refuse it because I don’t want it. I refuse it because I value them. This valuing is egoistic because if they were totally hateful I wouldn’t. I am not valuing them because they are my relations but because they are good relations. I value them because it gives me pleasure and happiness to be associated with them. The reason I want them to be financially secure and help them is because they help me make myself happy. I need them to make me happy. Even the biggest egoist or egotist in the world agrees that you need people to be happy and money and wealth and sex and fun mean nothing by themselves. You don’t want money because it is money. You want it because of how you feel about it. It is what it does to your ego that you want. I reject the pill because I am an egoist and because it makes me happier to treat who I value well.
If I take the pill I take it for a reason and because of my interests.
If I don’t take it I also take it for a reason and because of my interests.
Objectors will say that the reason I take it is out of self-interest and the reason I don’t take it is out of altruism.
Let us examine this.
If I satisfy my desire to take it I am selfish. If I satisfy my desire not to take it then I am altruistic.
That is making the inexcusable mistake of thinking that the results of an action determine if it was selfish or altruistic.
An act doesn’t become selfish just because it satisfies my interests. An act doesn’t become altruistic just because others were bettered by it.
The same motive, to satisfy my desire to act, caused both actions. Only the results were different. And the results have no relevance to judging the action to be altruistic or selfish.
Then they will answer that the desire was different in each case. The desire that I responded to if I took the pill was selfish. The one I responded to if I didn’t was unselfish or altruistic. One desire was for something for myself and the other desire was for something for others.
As Friedrich Neitzsche observed in Beyond Good and Evil the desires mean something to us, not what is desired. All the money in the world wouldn’t please you if you didn’t have the desire for it.
But back to the altruists answer. In either case I satisfied a desire. The desire to have tea instead of coffee or coffee instead of tea is just a desire. A desire to see others happy and a desire to be happy yourself is a desire for self-fulfilment. A desire is a demand by your heart to be satisfied. Keep the focus on the word satisfied. The consistent altruist will have to pretend there is no satisfaction at all in acting altruistically.
What is classed as altruism is totally arbitrary. For that reason alone, altruism is not a viable or believable philosophy.
If I drink myself to death but have plenty of charm the altruist will say I am a great person for the only person I hurt was myself. It is as if others matter more than me and it is better to hurt myself than anybody else. The altruist will praise me for injuring myself instead of injuring another. People are not as upset about me hurting myself as they are about me hurting others. How could the altruist’s praise be worth talking about when the altruist thinks of me in myself as worthless and just there to please others? Is the altruist not being egotistic never mind egoistic?
Imagine there was a paedophile who kidnapped a child and molested her. He then killed her. He killed her not for his sake but for his family because he knew they couldn’t cope if he went to jail. And the shame would kill his mother. He saw his crime of murder as a necessary evil. Altruists class him as an egotist even when they consider his motive for killing her. If he is an egotist so is everybody else.
A man beats up the little girl next door. Her parents come to him and say they are not going to press charges for it would be hard on his elderly mother if they did. Altruists say they are terrific altruists for doing so. But are they not putting others before the protection of their child? It is the son who has hurt the mother if charges are pressed.
The heart can deceive you. You can be convinced you have done something for an altruistic or caring reason or other-centred reason and be wrong. A person who does not believe in an afterlife but who serves others will be less likely to be prone to such deception than a person who does the same but believes that it is no big deal to mess up this life for there is a better one beyond the grave. Yet Mother Teresa is regarded as the zenith of altruism.
Altruism calls on people to be instruments not people to everybody else. For example, if I must be altruistic then I am not allowed to look for anything for myself – I am not allowed to expect thanks or look for it. Therefore I am an instrument that consents to being used by other people.
Altruism is impossible because it does the very thing it accuses egotism of doing. Therefore altruists don’t exist – what we have got is egoists or egotists. Altruism is a form of masochistic egotism made to look good and noble.
If I do something I hate doing but do it for another person I am an altruist according to the altruists.
If I do something I hate doing for myself that MAY benefit me four decades away in the future such as a pension fund that is egoism. That is no different from doing it for a person who doesn’t exist yet. I don’t know if I will be able to enjoy the pension or even if I will be alive. And that is egoism according to the altruists.
If helping others makes me altruistic then why doesn’t helping my future self not make me altruistic as well? All the elements are the same.
Clearly altruists are really egoists.
Reply to 8
People often have a mixture of motives for
what they do. Some of the motives may be
altruistic, some egoistic and some may even be egotistic. Psychological egoism denies this so it is
false. If a person is altruistic and is
rewarded for it, that reinforces and encourages the altruistic behaviour in
future. So even though the person is not
motivated by looking for the reward, the reward increases the tendency to be
altruistic. Self-interest and caring about the welfare of others are not necessarily
incompatible. For example, a doctor can
be nice to his patients though he just cares about himself. He is nice because he knows that the patients
will find another doctor if he is not.
Motive or intention is defined as the reason you want to do something or cause something to happen. Motive or intention is equal to the desire that causes you to act. If desires cause all that we do, then it follows that we only have the motives we like. We have them not because they are good or bad but because we like them. We are not altruists then but egoists.
It is known as
fact that I cannot act without a motive (page 115, Dictionary of Philosophy, Simon Blackburn,
Another mistake critics of psychological egoism make, is thinking that because we desire things outside of ourselves, cars, money and friends etc that it cannot be true. We want these things because of the emotional response and satisfaction they give. We don’t want them in themselves. Nobody ever wanted a car just because a car was a car. They want the car because it makes life easier, because they like driving and because it is cool to have a car. The critics don't believe in their own argument. How do we know? Because they say a person who does good for praise is an egoist despite looking outside himself for this praise. The dishonesty of altruists is distressing.
Are you either altruistic or egoistic?
If the answer is yes then the mixture of motives idea isn’t true. Also, we can only have one motive at a time. We cannot think of more than one thing at a time. We might have an altruistic motive for doing something first, then we might have an egotistic one and then finally we will have an egoistic one. That is three motives but we don’t have them at the one time. All motives are different manifestations of one motive, the motive to satisfy myself by doing what I want. The ascetic who inflicts pain on himself wants to satisfy his desire to inflict the pain so he is still pleasing himself. He is pleasing himself as much as a rich man who sits down to a feast of lamb and ale. It is just the manner of the pleasing that is different.
Suppose I feed my dying father.
I feed him for his sake. Altruism.
And I feed him because I like feeding him. Egoism.
And I feed him because I don’t want people to talk about me if I don’t. Egotism.
I can feed him for any one of these motives. I don’t need a mixture. If I refuse to turn off the other motives and feed him for the sake of altruism alone then is my altruism really altruism? Is it really love to give a child a smarty instead of a bar of chocolate when you can? Is it really altruism?
If we have a mixture, then how do you know which motive is the strongest one? Is it the altruistic, egoistic or egotistic one? If it is the egoistic one then practically speaking and for psychologists, it doesn’t matter if we believe that we are primarily psychological egoists or fully psychological egoists. It is alarmingly easy to deceive oneself.
Suppose it is egoistic (it is actually egotistic) to look after the sick for money or some benefit. Suppose a woman attends a counsellor for she is guilty that she only tended her dying father to please her family and not as much for his sake. Is it any help to remind her that she didn’t do it all for her own sake but partly for him? Of course not. We might as well believe then that psychological egoism is true.
We cannot seriously think that we don’t matter while other people do. So it follows that altruism is impossible. The altruist claims to be getting nothing from his serving others but he is. He is fulfilling his desire to act. This desire is stronger than any other desire he may have. It can make a man choose to wreck his life by marrying an evil woman.
An old person can reason, “I can’t do much good now so I will be as demanding of others as I can be. It will be spiritually good for them. It will make them more altruistic”. Is this a case of being altruistic while behaving egoistically or even egotistically?
What if God appeared to you and told you that you had to be totally selfish for it would set things in motion so that his purpose which is best for others would be fulfilled? So you have to be selfish for others. And yet you are being altruistic according to some. But which are you? You are not both for you cannot be selfless and totally selfish at the one time. You cannot see only blue and see pink as well at the one time. You are selfish.
It is easy to be egoistic or egotistic and believe you are not being like that. The old person and yourself are being egotistic or egotistic. There is no mixture possible here so there is never any mixture possible. Altruism and egoism or egotism cannot be intermingled or mixed.
We can only be either egoistic or egotistic.
The doctor example reinforces this. He is only nice to the patients not because he really values them as persons but only because he values them as a means of keeping himself in a job. He is not altruistic in any sense.
How could it be altruistic to say to somebody, “Don’t lie to your mother about going to visit your father instead of going to the meeting. You will only feel bad.” Altruists say that it is altruistic but it is not.
I like to feel free above all things. Everything I do is done to gratify that feeling. It’s done for gratification therefore no matter how altruistic I appear to be I am not. I am only gratifying myself. When I do something I dislike because somebody else orders it to be done, I did it to gratify the feeling that can obey it despite my repulsion.
It will be answered that I did it to obey not to gratify. This objection is based on a mistake. The mistake assumes that to obey is not the same as to gratify myself. It is. I want to obey under the circumstances.
It will be answered that just because the act was free doesn’t mean I did it to gratify the feeling of freedom. But freedom is about doing what you want under the circumstances. It is a want. It is not an emotionless power that is independent of every influence. It is a feeling itself.
Let’s look at two statements.
But translate the second statement. Its two points are, 1 “I like to help John” for 2 “I like to get good things from helping him”.
Focus on the “I like”. I like is about pleasing me. “I like to help John,” is as much egoism as, “I like to get good things from helping him”. One is as much I like as the other. No matter what the intention is for my, “I like”, I only have the intention because I like the intention.
Altruists would say that you shouldn’t do anything because you feel it is best for you and you should do everything for everybody else, not yourself. Which is best then? “I like to help John” or “I like to help John to see him happy for I am better off if I help people”. It is the first. The first helps John and takes enjoyment in helping him. The second thinks of the future and could be disappointed for John could die and people might not appreciate you. The first is honouring yourself better than the second. The first is true egoism. Altruism then is incoherent for it mistakes egoism for altruism. If altruism is to be coherent then it should advocate the second! Why? Because the second is more sacrificial and it puts sacrifice first. It cares about sacrifice not people because it tells each and every person to put everybody else first.
Some psychologists who oppose psychological egoism, do so because they accept the following reasoning, “I like to do everything I do, at least under the circumstances. This is fact. But it is the intention, to help others for their sake and not mine or the intention to help them for my sake and not theirs makes the difference between altruism and egoism.”
Refuting this argument is the conclusive proof that psychological egoism is true.
Here is the refutation.
Intention is desire itself. When you spend money to buy a car you intend to buy a car which is the same as to say you desire the car.
My intention, no matter what it is for, is not accurately defined as the reason I do what I do. It is what I desire to happen if I give into my desire to do something. It is then about pleasing myself. I intend to please myself no matter if I intend to give my right arm to save lives.
Some who forget that the desire to do something includes the intention, or strictly speaking IS the intention, would contend, “It is the liking to do it that makes it egoistic not the intention. The intention is totally irrelevant in relation to the altruism/egoism question. It is outside the discussion. It is possible to imagine a being that does what it likes without having any intentions. It is possible to imagine a being doing what it intends but not liking it at all.” Even with their bad logic, at least they still affirm that psychological egoism is true. In what way? If intention has nothing to do with altruism then it follows that there is no altruism. Altruism is basically the intention to sacrifice yourself and embrace suffering for others. You can be egoistic without having intentions. So it would follow that we are all either egoistic or egotistic.
Even if we could be altruistic it does not follow that any of our actions are altruistic. Pretend that altruism is possible. Perhaps there is a bit of altruism in all our actions but the main reason we do anything is for ourselves. In other words, an egoistic action that has no trace of altruism in it is still egoistic and still as egoistic as an egoistic action that is mainly egoistic though there are altruistic elements there. It is easier to assume that people are egoistic in tendency and not altruistic than to assume that they are altruistic.
Reply to 9
Self-interest and caring about the self-interests of others are
compatible. You can do both at the one
time. You can care about others and yourself
at the one time.
The argument says that you can look out for yourself (egoism) and others (altruism) at the one time.
If you are in a football team you will be interested and playing football not only for yourself but for the team. You work as one.
This seems to prove the point made in 9.
Let us take a closer look.
Caring for others means you want to please yourself by seeing them happy. It is about you not them. They benefit from your selfishness. Caring for others is self-interest in this sense. It is not altruism at all.
The argument actually has nothing at all to do with refuting psychological egoism. This failure of the argument to refute psychological egoism proves that psychological egoism is true. How do we know? Because what else could opponents of psychological egoism say in order to try and refute it?
The irrelevance of the argument is proven by the fact that even egotism and caring about the self-interests of others is compatible. The egotist will rob an old lady to feed his child. And yet we know that the caring is bad and totally selfish. It couldn't be further from altruism. The caring is done in such a way that it is bad caring.
Reply to 10
You only feel good about having done good
deeds because you value such deeds. You
don’t value them just because you feel good after them. Egoism is untrue for it
says you only do what makes you feel good.
Yet these are the people who say you can value deeds without feeling good about them. If you have to turn off your child’s life support to prevent her suffering you will not feel good though you value this action.
Reply to 11
A child and a man are in the sea after a shipwreck. The man lets go of a log to let the child hold on to it instead. A man agrees to be tortured to death by kidnappers so that a woman they are holding may go free. These are examples of totally unselfish behaviour.
A man challenging his love rival to a duel though he knows the rival will win can hardly be described as an altruist. So he must be an egoist or an egotist. Since he is doing wrong, he must be an egotist. Egoism does not deny that the mind can make the person think in such a way that the best interests for the person are misperceived. The man thinks he is doing the best thing by challenging the rival to a duel. The risk to his life hasn’t sunk in and he won’t let it sink in.
The man who lets the child use the log and the man who is tortured to save the woman have done the same thing. Their behaviour does not prove that they are altruistic. They may know that death and suffering are real but may not feel it enough and if they don’t feel it enough they will prefer to let the other person live. I said prefer. It is what they desire. They fulfil a desire by doing so. They are not doing it to feel good after. They are doing it because the pleasure they see in doing the act attracts them. They value it. It attracts them – in other word it says to them, “Do me and as you do me you will be fulfilled for as long as you do me.”
Reply to 12
The other idea that animals act
altruistically so we can do it too is related to this one.
Animals don’t think of the future or understand that they can suffer and die if they take such and such an action. We can. A dog attacking a bigger dog that attacks his adored mother is not behaving altruistically but ignorantly.
Reply to 13
Some people want fame though fame is
tormenting and means you have no privacy.
Some people risk their lives and wellbeing needlessly to take revenge.
Such behaviour is seen as extreme egoism or egotism. How it can be thought that people suffering to gain and keep fame and risking their lives for revenge is supposed to prove the falsity of psychological egoism is a mystery! If people risk their lives for revenge and are extreme egoists then why can’t they risk their lives in a good way as well and still be egoists, though not extreme ones?
Reply to 14
If psychological egoism is true then the
moral theory of ethical egoism is true.
Though it is true that ethical egoism does not require belief in
psychological egoism it is true that psychological egoism demands belief in
ethical egoism. If we can’t be other
than self-interested then it follows that we ought to be self-interested for we
cannot do anything different. But even
if altruism is possible, the ethical egoist says that egoism is right, it is
what ought to be done. Ethical egoism is bad.
It says that Hitler didn’t do wrong by hurting the Jews but by degrading
himself to do such things. Had he been a
man with good self-esteem and self-respect he wouldn’t have carried out such
actions. He didn’t have a strong and
noble ego. He didn’t have a strong and noble ego. He didn’t see that to love himself properly
he had to love other people.
Even if ethical egoism is indeed bad, that does not give anybody the right to condemn psychological egoism. Just because a truth has bad results doesn’t mean it is not a truth. The logic in the argument is otherwise correct.
There is nothing wrong with saying Hitler should have used his ego or self-esteem to appreciate other people when he couldn’t help it.
If we are naturally egoists, it seems stupid to say we should be ethical egoists for we have no choice but to be egoists. Unless you believe that free will is an illusion, we do have a choice. The choice is between egoism and egotism.
Ethical egoism when correctly understood, tells you that you find your happiness in helping others. Virtue is its own reward. The egoist wants others to be selfish all the time but in the wisest way for that benefits all.
Ethical egoism does not say that there is necessarily a conflict between my happiness and that of others. If you are truly well-balanced you will make others happier which in turn makes you feel safer and makes you happier. If altruism were true, it would tell you to welcome suffering to help others. That can only make you fear goodness and others. It takes away your sense of safety.
Does the egoist assume that her or his interests come before everybody else’s? Is that not her or him claiming to matter more than other people even if he or she treats others in an excellent way all the time? This would be the case if the egoist only helped the sick in order to feel good afterwards. But if the egoist finds joy and fulfilment in simply doing the act regardless of what may come after be it happiness or disappointment the egoist in practice is treating others as equals. He might not be able to think it but who cares? The person who refuses to take what is best in life to let others have it is still putting his or her own interests first in her or his own way. It depends on what he or she wants out of life.
The advice problem. Egoist John wants you to give him a loan. You are an egoist too and don’t want to give the loan. He can’t advise you to not give the loan for it is best for him if you do. He does therefore psychological egoism is untrue.
The solution to the problem is that John will feel he demeans himself if he gets the loan against your will. He wants to honour himself by doing the right thing. It is egoistic to honour yourself.
The egoists who say that
egoism is simply doing what you want to do only imagine they are espousing
egoism. That is not egoism. You can want to do things for reasons that
have nothing to do with your interests.
If you do things because of your interests that is egoism. If you do things for reasons, that could be
altruism. For example, “I want to get
John’s medicine for him because I want him to get well though it won’t do me
any good”, that is altruism.
If John is a good person John will want me to get something out of what I do for him. He will want me to feel good about it. He will not want me to be doing anything for him for the sake of being selfless. So it only looks like I am honouring John when I behave altruistically towards him. My altruism is really a refusal to honour him. The girlfriend doesn’t want a boyfriend who doesn’t care about the good feelings and the benefits he gets out of being with her and loving her.
Reasons are only reasons because you fulfil yourself by having them. The writer who has no interest in authoring children’s books and who hands in a romantic novel to the publisher will never have the desire to write children’s books as a reason for having become a writer. Your desires cause your reasons. If you want to be rational you listen to reason and you think. If you want to be deluded you will be deluded.
You might say that that you want to be a pilot for its exciting. Desire makes it seem exciting to you. The desire gives you the reason.
Desire is behind it all. The existence of reasons has nothing whatsoever to do with supporting the idea that we can be other than egoistic or egotistic. And that is because acceptance of the reasons by us is based on how attractive and pleasing we find that acceptance.
If psychological egoism is true, then altruists are all hypocrites and liars.
Imagine there was a paedophile who kidnapped a child and molested her. He killed her not for his sake but for his family because he knew they couldn’t cope if he went to jail. And the shame would kill his mother. Altruists consider him to be an egotist when they consider his motive for killing her.
If psychological egoism is true, then we must live as atheists even if there is a God. Each one is her or his own god. We should admit we are our own gods instead of pretending that the god is a being outside ourselves! God made each one of us to put himself or herself first.
If psychological egoism is true, then the God you worship is your own creation. By worshipping him you are being an egoist and worshipping yourself!
Even if there is a God then there is no reason for human suffering. He has the power to stop it but yet he lets it happen. When we just satisfy our desire to act and when this is just about the pleasure we have in doing the act he should have given us better desires. If somebody doesn’t help the poor then its God’s fault. To worship God would be egotistical and evil and vile.
If psychological egoism is true, then religion has no right to indoctrinate people and is therefore to blame for all the wars and bloodshed it has caused but denies responsibility for. An unnecessary evil, such as religion, that condemns religious war between its members and other faiths is still to blame for if it disbanded the members wouldn’t have religion to fight about. There is enough to start wars without religion. Religion would be an unnecessary evil for it is based on the idea that selflessness is the duty for us all.
If psychological egoism is true then it is true whether we know it or not. It would be stupid to fear it or to fear confessing that it is true for we have all been living out psychological egoism all along!
Christianity is the greatest
block to truth in the world. It is the
main force thwarting the realisation that psychological egoism is true. However, the Reformed Churches that derive
from the theology of John Calvin hold that human nature is only interested in
good not for good itself but for what it can get out of it. It says God likes nothing we do because we
use good for our selfish ends instead of doing good because it is good and
because it is the will of God. This
doctrine is called total depravity, it does not say we outwardly will behave as
badly as we can but it says that our good works are dross for they are laden
with hypocrisy and deceit. This doctrine
was taught by
If you are an altruist then you should not care if a person is altruistic or egoistic as long as he or she does all the good he or she can do. The altruists make a big deal of it which shows how selfish they actually are. It is selfish to fuss over nothing. It is arrogant. It isn't egoistic but egotistic. If you are an egoist you will want to see all that good done. But you will not want a person to be altruistic for altruism diminishes happiness.
Conclusion
Psychological egoism is incapable of any refutation. Not only that, but the nature of desire proves that it is true and that altruism and egotism are to be rejected.
BOOKS CONSULTED
PSYCHOLOGY, George A Miller,
Penguin,
AWARENESS, Anthony de Mello,
Fount,
ETHICS, AC Ewing, English
Universities Press Ltd,
AN INTRODUCTION TO PHILOSOPHICAL
ANALYSIS, John Hospers, Routledge,
RUNAWAY WORLD, Michael Green, IVP,
THE SATANIC BIBLE, Anton Szandor LaVey, Avon Books,