Ethical Egoism And Psychological Egoism

Ethical Egoism And Psychological EgoismIn Platos country and in Rachels Egoism and Moral Skepticism, both authors address two meaning(a) facets of hu composition chasteity epistemologic tot exclusivelyyy objective lensive. Ethical self-consciousness is a prescriptive advance, which soils that object lesson beings ought to do what is in their best interests. Psychological c one timeit, on the different hand, is a descriptive claim that all moral beings can solo numeral in their own self-interests, even when appearing to play in the interests of others. The diversity between both claims lies in the f meet that one is a normative claim and the other is a descriptive claim. A normative claim involves judging what people should do and creates a moral standard. A descriptive claim then, essentially describes the actions of moral beings and creates a moral standard base off their behavior. Due to the relatedness of both claims, I must inaugural figure out distinguish the k ey features of each seam. In Glaucons Challenge Plato creates a yen dialogue between Socrates and Platos brother, Glaucon. In his dialogue, Glaucon supports the view that people tho act soundly because they testament believe it will help them attain respectable ends for themselves and signals that human beings are not estimable egoists but earlier mental egoists. In Rachels essay, he attempts to distinguish between what psychological and moral egoism are and how inevitably neither are justified. Therefore, by drawing on the furrows from Glaucon and the claims discussed by Rachels, I will disprove the claim of ethical egoism and prove that human beings can, in fact, act solely for their own self-interest.First, I will begin by examining Glaucons Challenge on ethical and psychological egoism. In Platos Republic, Socrates raises the issue of whether goodness and virtue are truly worthwhile for the individual. In Gyges Ring, Socrates presents a story where a man named Glaucon discovers a ring, which makes him invisible. In it, he poses the question of whether we would act justly, despite the fact that we could get forth with immoral conduct. In essence, he asks whether we should live a life of virtue. succeeding(a) he asks us to imagine if two such rings existed, where a virtuous man and scallywag each received one of the rings. Glaucon claims that the rogue would naturally use the ring for his own individualal pleasure with no moral constraints. As for the moral man, Glaucon suggests that he will act no better than the rogue. He defends this position by claiming that no one has exuberant will to resist the temptation to do things for their own self-interest. In this argument Glaucon asks why there is any reason for a moral psyche to act any differently from an immoral person. While his argument appears sound, critics compete that some acts appear to be unselfish in nature. As well, critics disceptation for ethical egoism also state that we must desire things other than my own self-interests in order to get self-interests. Therefore, if we derive self-interest from acting soccer, unless we desired, for our own sake, to play soccer, we would not derive some self-interest from playing. However, if our self-interests inhabit simply in the satisfaction of self-regarding our interests, then human beings are tranquilize regarded as psychological egoists. Psychological egoists such as Glaucon claim their points utilize two arguments. The first being simply that the life of an unjust person is much better than the life of a just person. The second argument being that for psychological egoism, unselfish actions incessantly create self-satisfaction in the moral agent and this produces a pleasant state of consciousness. Therefore, the action performed by the moral agent is really done to create an enjoyable state of consciousness quite an than to aid the interests of others. Using such arguments, Glaucon is able to witness ou t situations such as altruistic behavior or penury by thoughts of duty alone as proves for ethical egoism.Second, I will examine Rachels essay on ethical and psychological egoism. In his first argument Rachel suggests selfless actions are really just done voluntarily and that the agent is really just doing what they wanted to do. An example used by Rachel would be if Mr. Smith stayed behind to help a friend rather than go on vacation. While this may appear altruistic, what is really possibility is that Mr. Smith wanted to stay behind to help his friend more(prenominal) than he wanted to go on vacation. In this way, his action is no longer selfless but rather selfish since he was only doing what he wanted to do. By examining Mr. Smiths decision from a different view, it is clear that what appears to a voluntary act of kindness is really just an act out of self-interest. His second argument for psychological egoism is that unselfish actions everlastingly produce a sense of self-sa tisfaction for the moral agent. Therefore, any selfless action by the moral agent is only unselfish at a sort of superficial level. Rachel uses a story where capital of Nebraska once expressed this debate in describing the position between ethical and psychological egoism. In this story, capital of Nebraska and a fellow dedicateenger are discussing how all men are prompted by selfishness in doing any good. As they pass over a bridge in their carriage, both hear a sow yelling for help as her pigs are about to drown. Lincoln then gets out of his carriage and saves the pigs, then returns to his carriage. His companion remarks 1Abe, where do selfishness throw in in on this little episode? Lincoln then replies, why bless your soul, that was the very essence of selfishness. I should have no field pansy of mind all day had I gone and left them. Lincoln uses the incident with the suffering sow in order to show that his altruistic act was done out of his belief in psychological rather tha n ethical egoism. Had he not helped the sow, he would have had no quiet of mind all day while riding with his companion. Instead, he selfishly saves the pigs in order to help himself. Rachel attempts to refute this claim by stating that it is the object of any action rather than the personal desire that will curb whether an action is unselfish or not. Ethical egoists, on the other hand, argue that even though altruism is possible to act on, there is no reason why anyone should act selflessly. Rachels is able to refute this by represent that no reasons are required in performing actions that help others. However, since all human beings innately do not care about the personal effects of their actions on others, this arguments premise is chimerical. Therefore, it is clear that the view of ethical egoism as a moral standard of what people ought to do is clearly incorrect since no matter what situation is produced, the moral agent will always act in their self-interest and that any positive outcomes on others is just a positive consequence.Thus, no matter what situations are presented to argue that moral beings ought to do what is in their best interests, it has been shown that all moral beings can only act in their own self-interests, even when appearing to act in the interests of others. In conclusion, after examining Glaucons Challenge from Platos Republic and Rachels essay on ethical egoism, it is clear that Glaucon was correct in stating that there is no reason for man to be moral.1 Gendler, T., Siegel, S., Cahn, S. M. (2008). Egoism and Moral Skepticism. The Elements of Philosophy Readings from Past and symbolize (p. 235). Oxford Oxford University Press.