Psychological Ethical

Week 2 Written Assignment: Psychological and Ethical Egoism

Benedictine University

Muhammad U. Malik

Psychological egoism is a theory that states that people act only for the sake of their own self-interest. Basically, Shoemaker believes that a psychological egoist would turn any deed, even an altruistic one into one’s own favor. A good example of this would be of a parent and child relationship. Normally, parents want the best for their children when it comes to their education and upbringing. They put in so much effort and time in raising them and hoping for them to turn out to be well rounded individuals in society. One would assume they have no selfish interests in this case, however the psychological egoist theory states that parents do all of this for their inner self-interest. If their kids turn out to be good individuals, people will praise the parents’ efforts. Therefore, the parents did everything for their own satisfaction.

However, this theory is not all true. There are many people out there who would willingly help others without any selfish interests. Timmons state many examples such as soldiers who would step on hand grenades to save their fellow soldiers or people who sacrifice their life for religious purposes. (Timmons, 2012). These are the errors that Shoemaker points out that makes psychological egoism false. The author further explains if the “desire is to produce some benefit to yourself, then it is self-interested; if the target is something else, then the desire is not self-interested.” (Timmons, 2012).

Furthermore, it is believed by Glaucon’s second challenge to Socrates that best life of all is of an ethical egoist. Timmons (2012) state, “ethical egoism is the view that you should always act so as to bring about the best consequences for yourself.” However, this is not believed to be completely true. An argument against this theory is that a person...