Identify and describe the theories of:1.Ethical Egoism 2.Psychological Egoism - Essay Example

Ethical egoism is an act-based ethical theory that deems an action right if and only if it maximizes one’s self-interest. Such language as “maximization” should lead the philosopher to conclude that this form of egoism is a consequentialist view. In other words, it is focused primarily on the goods of an act after the fact. Combining the self with consequentialism, we derive a moral viewpoint in which if a person is performing actions that are in his or her best interest this is moral in the full meaning of that term.

Ethical egoism, as a theory of morals, can be dissociated into two varieties: the strong thesis and the weak thesis. The former, the strong thesis of ethical egoism, refers to the thought that, in all cases, it is always right to act in one’s own self-interest and always wrong to act against one’s own self-interest. The latter, the weak thesis of ethical egoism, refers to the thought that although right in all cases to act for one’s own good, it may not always be the case that it is wrong to act against it (Baier, 1991).

That is, there always exists the possibility of a state of affairs in which the moral agent must, to some degree, act despite one’s own welfare.Complementary to the ethical egoist view is that of psychological egoism. The latter is less like an ethical theory than it is a psychological thesis. It says, namely, that all human action is directed at self-interest, despite the appearances of altruistic intentions. In other words, while it may appear that an individual is helping his new neighbors move in “out of the goodness of his heart”, he is actually doing it so that he may “get on their good side” or expect a favor of them later on.

It appears, however, that the thesis of psychological egoism, inasmuch as it is empirically based, commits a hasty generalization fallacy. It is a misleading notion and a childish oversimplification. It cynically adheres to the belief that people can only be motivated by self-interest, when, in actuality, human beings can quite clearly be driven by lower-level emotions that are quite different from self-interest.Thus, while ethical egoism is a normative claim (that we ought to maximize our self-interests), psychological egoism seems factual (that people are motive only by self-interest).

As a result, the latter doctrine is burdened by additional commitments to a knowable “human nature” that is, by its essence, selfish. Ethical egoism, on the other hand, allows for us to act selflessly at some times, but the theory nevertheless views such actions negatively. Psychological egoism essentially redefines an agent’s motivation to be whatever the agent desires to do, which of course makes the theory tautologous and practically meaningless. It takes a reductionist approach to human motivation in attempting to derive it from a single cause, which any credible psychologist will likely testify is a naïve thing to believe (Moseley, 2006).

Ethical egoism is open to a wider range of subjective motivations, based on one’s special interests and preferences. The motivation for acting in one’s own self-interest under ethical egoism may be to act morally, while under a non-moral doctrine like psychological egoism, it is independent of morality and a matter of acting according to “human nature”.The difference between these two philosophical theories is similar to the contrast between what the terms “selfishness” and “self-interest” refer to in reality.

Selfishness, properly conceived, refers to acting in one’s own benefit with regard to the welfare of other individuals. On the other hand, self-interest is acting in one’s own benefit while being conscious of the welfare of others. Ethical egoism relies on this notion of self-interest: every individual needs to cooperate with others as a means of obtaining goods necessary for one’s own life. Selfishness, on the other hand, does not have this effect. Psychological egoism makes it a natural tendency of man to pursue selfishness, regardless of the costs to other human beings.

Pursuing self-interest under the ethical egoism is good but pursuing selfishness creates problems for the agent attempting to maximize his own happiness.Works CitedBaier, K. (1991). Egoism. In P. Singer, A Companion to Ethics (pp. 197-204). Oxford: Basil Blackwell.Moseley, A. (2006, March 15). Egoism. Retrieved March 13, 2009, from Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm