Assertion: psychological egoism | /r/HasProperty | true
Facets:
value: on this view
type: OTHER
value: in one of its forms
type: OTHER
value: there still
type: OTHER
value: obviously
type: DEGREE
Source sentences:
text: If psychological egoism were true, this would restrict moral judgments to those made by egoism.
text: Second, if psychological egoism is false, I might lack a preference for my own welfare.
text: Given the arguments, it is still unclear why we should consider psychological egoism to be obviously untrue.
text: MacKinnon adds that, “Even if it were shown that we often act for the sake of our own interest, this is not enough to prove that psychological egoism is true.
text: If psychological egoism is true, then we can't be altruistic
text: Therefore, if psychological egoism is true, then it can't be our duty to be altruistic
text: 4) Psychological egoism is true
text: Among the arguments for ethical egoism, two have distinguished themselves, at least in textbook treatments of the position.6 First, it is argued that ethical egoism follows from psychological egoism in this way: psychological egoism is true and this implies that we always and cannot help but act egoistically.
text: But for Psychological Egoism to be true, it would have to be the case that all of our actions are motivated entirely by self-interest.
text: If psychological egoism is true, then ethical egoism is pointless
text: If psychological egoism is true, ethical egoism will be superfluous as a guide to human behaviour.
text: It’s worthwhile, however, to note that if psychological egoism were true (and we always did what we believe to be in our own interest), and ethical egoism were true (and so we must do what’s in our best self-interest, or try)
text: Also, if psychological egoism were true, then, since most other ethical theories require some altruism (that is, actions that benefit others, for their own sake), these other theories demand the impossible.
text: is, without seeking empirical confirmation of any sort—that psychological egoism (in one of its forms) must be true.
text: If all desire is understood in the same way, and all motivation takes the form of desire, then we can infer that psychological egoism in its strong form is true (and therefore its weaker versions are also true).
text: But in order for psychological egoism to be true, everyone must go for 2.
text: There is something I thought about... a way to prove that psychological egoism is true.
text: If implementation of our will is a self-interest of ours, and since everything we do is part of our will, then psychological egoism MUST be true.
text: My line of thinking was that if psychological egoism is true and yet there still some actions which seem to defy it (like the known example of a soldier jumping on a granade), then the problem might lie in the use of some unaccurate definition of "selfishness" (which might be different from what we used to think in everyday life).
text: There is no isolated, non‐determined self if psychological egoism is true.
text: Also, if psychological egoism is true, then ethical egoism should, by default, be the "winning" ethical theory as it essentially states (as I understand it) that what is moral is what is done out of self-interest or produces pleasure/satisfaction/happiness for the primary agent.
text: If ethical egoism is true, that appears to imply that psychological egoism is false: there would be no point to arguing that we ought to do what we must do by nature.
text: For example, if Thomas removes his heel from another’s gouty toe because he has an ultimate desire that the person benefit from it, then psychological egoism is false.
text: It would show that psychological egoism is false, since it would demonstrate that some of our ultimate desires are not egoistic.
text: Therefore: Psychological egoism is false .
text: If true, this entails that psychological egoism is false.
text: Thus, he contends that psychological egoism is false: “
text: Thus, on this view, psychological egoism is false if taken as a total account of human action because it implies that a person must always act for a self-interested reason.
text: because psychological egoism is false.
text: And since some of us sometimes seem to be altruistic, psychological egoism seems to be false.
text: Furthermore, since ethical egoists advise making choices that benefit ourselves, that acknowledges that we might fail at doing that, and not even try, which suggests that even ethical egoists recognize that psychological egoism is false.
text: Sober and Wilson ultimately argue that the psychological evidence and philosophical arguments are inconclusive on this debate, yet evolutionary theory provides good evidence that psychological egoism is false.
text: But the person didn't say that evolutionary theory proves that psychological egoism is false.