Supplementary Notes on Psychological
Egoism
A.
Exposition: Definitions, Distinctions and Why This Matters for Ethics:
1. Psychological Egoism: the claim that all human actions are motivated (and can only be motivated) ultimately by selfish desires or self-interest.
2. So what precisely are we claiming if we reject psychological egoism?
3. What kind of claim is psychological egoism: normative (i.e., about how we ought to act) or descriptive (i.e., about how we do act)? (527)
4. If psychological egoism were true, would that have relevance for certain ethical claims (about how we ought to act)? How?
5. Although Feinberg does not do so, I want to distinguish two different versions of psychological egoism:
(i) Stronger Claim (About Valuing and Motivation): The only thing that we value (or can value) for its own sake is the satisfaction of our own interests; everything else is valued only as a means to this, which is why all our actions are ultimately motivated by self-interest.
(ii) Weaker Claim (Just about Motivation): We may value lots of things for their own sake, other than our own self-interest (e.g., we may value the welfare of other people for its own sake); but even if we do, our self-interest is always crucial to our motivation; if it were absent, we wouldn't act.
NOTE: This is not just saying that some element of self-interest is present in everything we do, helping to motivate us but not being crucial. It's saying that our actions are always motivated by a crucial component of self-interest, without which we wouldn't act.
6. Hedonistic Psychological Egoism: the version of psychological egoism that relates everything back specifically to an agent's desire for his/her own pleasure. In other words, even apparently altruistic acts are really done in order to feel good in some way, or to avoid feeling bad.
Hedonistic Psychological Egoism is the most challenging version to try to refute, so we will focus mostly on it. We can distinguish two forms of it, applying the distinction in 5 above:
(i) Strong Hedonistic Psychological Egoism says that the only thing anyone values (or can value) for its own sake is his or her own pleasure.
(ii) Weak Hedonistic Psychological Egoism says that we wouldn't act to benefit other people if we didn't expect to get something out of it, at least the pleasure of feeling good about it.
B.
Critical Analysis: Problems for Psychological Egoism
7. Regarding the Stronger Psychological Egoist Claim in General (5i
above):
First, note that it is fallacious to infer, from the mere presence of pleasure in action, that getting the pleasure was the real purpose of the action. (529)
Arguments Against Strong Hedonistic Psychological Egoism (6i above):
The Amnesia Pill. Would Lincoln have been just as happy to take the pill, move on, and let the pigs drown? What does that show about his reason for saving them?
Self-Sacrifice. Is the satisfaction from accomplishing the goal really always sufficient by itself to explain the action? Consider some examples.
8. Regarding the Weaker Psychological Egoist Claim in General (5ii above):
Again, note that it is fallacious to infer, from the mere presence of pleasure in action, that the prospect of getting the pleasure was crucial to the motivation.
Arguments
Against Weak Hedonistic Psychological
Egoism (6ii) above):
Are We Really So Pathetic? Once we give up the stronger claim and admit that we value other things--as Lincoln valued the pigs' well-being--then why should we think that these values must always be too weak in us to motivate action without sugar coating things with the prospect of pleasure?
The Pleasure-Erasing Pill. Would Lincoln then not bother to help the pigs?
The Conscientious Depressive.
9. Remaining Challenge: Are we really as good as we think we are? Even if both the stronger and weaker claims are false as they stand, is the weaker claim perhaps true of some or even many of our actions that we often wrongly think are motivated mainly by altruistic motives? Are our altruistic actions often really contingent (dependent) on the gratitude we expect from others and the self-esteem it gives us? How might we test this?