welcome back so yesterday we talked a bit about this article but today we're going to actually read it but however before that we're gonna look into ethical egoism so this is Chapter five of your textbook we're gonna be covering ethical egoism and then from there we're gonna look at the objections to ethical egoism presented in this paper so it begins with an N ran quote that says to the achievement of his own happiness is man's highest moral purpose and so that's kind of this main idea of ethical egoism that like your to pursue your own good your own happiness that is what ethical egoism is it's a prioritizing yourself rather than considering yourself equal amongst everyone else so in the book it says the fact that we don't suggest that we regard our luxuries is more important than the lives of the starving so that's an important aspect to note there and then on page 67 it says on the review known as ethical egoism each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively this is the morality of selfishness so that is in a nutshell what ethical egoism is so then there's psychological egoism before we discuss ethical Egan's egoism we should discuss a theory it is often confused with psychological egoism ethical egoism claims that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively psychological egoism by contrast asserts that each person does in fact pursue his or her own interests exclusively so ethical egoism that's gonna be a normative claim what we ought to do versus psychological egoism it's not making any claims about what is right or wrong what we should do or should not do instead what it's just gonna claim is this is the psychological hardwiring that we have and this is what in fact we do in fact do so we're the main arguments for ethical egoism that you'll see on page 68 is is altruism possible and so I'll read the end of that part on 69 or it says these are remarkable deeds which should be taken and face but should they be taken at face value according to psychological egoism we may see ourselves as noble and self-sacrificing but really were not in reality we care only for ourselves could this theory be true why have people believed in the face of so many contrary evidence so two arguments are often given for psychological egoism uh so then the one argument is that we do what we always want to do you know there's no real way I guess you could say that you did not want to do an act if in fact you did do that act at least some part of you wanted to do that act um so then he talks about Raoul Wallenberg who chose to go to Hungary then he wanted to go there more than he wanted to remain in Sweden and why should he be praised for altruism this was during World War two when he was only doing what he wanted to do his action spring from his own wishes from his own sense of what he wanted thus he was moved by his own self-interest and because the same may be said that an alleged act of kindness we can include that psychological reason must be true this argument however is flawed there are many things that we do not because we want to but because we feel that we ought to for example I may write my grandmother a letter because I promised my mother I would even though I did not want to do it in any case the fact that he chose to go does not imply that he most wanted to do so so the argument is like well he gave his life you know going to Hungary to you know help people against the Nazi regime so because he went in means that he really wanted to go and it could be hey maybe he didn't want to go but he felt an obligation to go on home the Ahriman has a second flaw suppose that we can see that we always act on our strongest desires even if this were so it would not follow that Wallenberg acted out of self-interest you know maybe his strongest desire was to help others the mere fact that you act on your own desires does not mean that you're looking out for yourself it all depends on what you desire so then the second argument which has a little bit more attraction to the argument that we always do what makes us feel good so acting unselfishly makes people feel good about themselves and that's why they do it that's the main claim with this argument and so then there's this quote about Abraham Lincoln who he saw like this pig and her babies like on the side of the road and they are like stuck and so he went and helped them out and like saved their lives and he's like oh like the guy that he was writing with is like oh like mr. president that's so selfless of you he's like no like I did it because I would feel bad about myself if I didn't help them so he's saying that he was acting out of his own self-interest and so that's one of the main arguments that people give for why rational egoism or psychological egoism is true and why altruism is not possible again altruism being the idea of selfless acts and so like it's essentially this idea right that well let's say you give money to charity you're doing it because on some level you receive happiness or you feel good about yourself for being the type of person that gives your money to charity and so because you feel good you're not actually doing a selfless act you're getting some sort of benefit from it and so there is no such thing as a truly selfless act that's gonna be the main argument so if I see a child drowning my desire to help that child will usually be greater than my desire to avoid a guilty conscience cases like these are counter examples to psychological egoism and I think also and I don't think the book uh well yeah here we go right here our desire to help this is a very type of 73 or is there to help others often comes first the good feelings we get may merely be a byproduct and so the main argument that most people will give here is that it's what is motivating you to act is it oh I want to give the charity because I know I will feel good then yeah that's probably a selfish act but if you're like no I see that people are really hurting and I want to give my money to charity to you know save lives and then in so doing so you then feel good even though that feeling good was a byproduct and not what caused you to act then that would still be selfless because it wasn't the selfishness that no due to action so conclusion about psychological egoism that second paragraph this morality has nothing to fear from psychological egoism given that we can be moved by regard for our neighbors it is not pointless to talk about whether we should help them moral theorizing need not be a naive endeavor based on an unrealistic view of human nature so this was at first basically showing why psychological egoism is not necessary that we can act out of altruism or out of selflessness and so the idea there behind like why you've to disapprove psychological egoism is because if psychological egoism it's true then ethical egoism or you know utilitarianism like none of these make sense because we won't have the capacity to do otherwise then act out of own self-interest so now that we see that we do in fact have the capacity to act not exclusively out of our own self-interest now we could see what we should do and so three arguments for ethical egoism it's this radical idea that the principle of self-interest accounts for all of one's obligations however ethical egoism does not tell you to avoid helping others sometimes your self-interest will coincide with the well-being of others so they'll help yourself by helping them for example if you can convince your teacher to cancel the assignment this will benefit you and your classmates ethical egoism does not forbid such actions in fact it may recommend them the theory insists only that the benefits to others is not what makes the act right rather the act is right because it benefits you ethical egoism says that a person ought to do what really is in his or her own best interest over the long run and endorphins dorset selfishness not foolishness so then there's argument that altruism is self-defeating which you can read there everyone is aware of his or her own wants and needs moreover each of us is uniquely placed pursue those wants and needs effectively at the same time we understand other people only imperfectly or not well placed to advance their interests for these reasons if we try to be our brother's keeper will often bungle the job and do more harm than good at the same time the policy of hangout for others is an infant's of intrusion unto other people's privacy it's essentially a policy of minding other people's business making other people the object of one's charity is degrading to them it robs them of their dignity and self-respect and it says of them in effect that they are not competent to care for themselves moreover such a policy is self fulfilling when they are helped cease to be self-reliant and become passively dependent on others this is why the recipients of charity are often resentful rather than appreciative so these are arguments why altruism is self-defeating and in fact we should take this position selfishness and you can see from these policies why someone like Ayn Rand or libertarian would strongly favor such a view each person just looking after himself I think on some level there is some truth to this you know regardless of where you stand I think it is definitely true that we know our own interests better than the interests of other people um you know there's certain exceptions sometimes you can tell your best friend is angry even though they might not realize they're angry you know something like that but for the most part we have a better job of helping herself then we can help others so to some extent it does seem like there is some validity to this mm-hmm in each case the policy of looking out for others is said to be self-defeating if we want to do what's best for others we should not adopt so-called altruistic policies on the contrary if each person looks after his or own own interests everyone will be better off of course no one favors bungling butting in or depriving people of their self-respect but is that really what's going on when we feed hungry children is a starving child and Somalia really harmed when we intrude into her business by giving her food mm-hmm on 75 however the reason we should adopt these policies as is sadly on egoistic it is said that adopting these policies will promote the betterment of society but according to ethical egoism we shouldn't care about that spelled out fully the argument says we ought to do whatever will best promote everyone's interests the best way to promote everyone's interest is for each of us to pursue our own interests exclusively therefore each of us should pursue our own interests exclusively if we accept this reasoning then we are not ethical ego even though we might behave like us our ultimate principle is one of beneficence we are trying to help everyone and not just ourselves rather than being ego as we turn out to be altruists with a peculiar view of what promotes the general welfare so this is an important point to note a lot of times this will be called egoism but it's not ethical egoism saying that we ought only care for ourselves instead of saying we should care for everybody everyone is equal but if everyone just focused on caring for themselves we will achieve that end better so ethical egoism is this idea of what is the end goal it's just my own promotion and this sort of like egoism that you might call it is rather a means to an end where that end is everyone's promotion but the best means to theirs if everyone cared for themselves all right so then it gives the inner and argument then it talks about ethical egoism is compatible with common sense morality then two arguments against ethical egoism the argument that ethical egoism endorses wickedness and that it's unacceptably arbitrary the arbitrary one is a very important one to note where so you know like what makes my own good better than your own good there is no objective standard for that just my own subjective notion because I happen to be the persons having this body that my own goat is better and so because of that it's really an arbitrary notion of what is good what is good is just what is mine and so that seems arbitrary it's just I only believe that because I am myself right whereas obviously I don't think you should think that the only good in the world is my own good so that's argument for arbitrariness and then on 82 just in with that top paragraph ethical egoism also violates the principle of equal treatment and divides the world into two groups of people oneself and everyone else and urges us to favor the interests of those in the first group over the interests of those in the second group but each of us can ask the following questions what is the difference between me and everyone else justifies placing myself in this special category my more intelligent are my accomplishments greater do I enjoy life more are my needs and abilities different from the needs and abilities of others and short what makes me so special failing an answer it turns out that ethical egoism is an arbitrary doctrine in the same way that nationalism and racism are arbitrary each doctrine violates the principle of equal treatment so that's the inning against like the arbitrary standard but we've looked at a couple arguments for and a couple arguments against rational egoism now we're gonna take a look at something a little bit different and this is gonna be the loser erratic and senior's argument against egoism and again this is going to be from an evolutionary debunking argument so they begin with right here saying the evolutionary accounts of the origins of human morality may lead us to doubt the truth of our moral judgment centric tries to vindicate ethics from this kind of external attack however he ended the methods methods sorry and despair over another problem an apparent conflict between rational egoism and universal benevolence which he called the dualism of practical reason drawing on Sidgwick we show that one way of defending objectivity and ethics against sharing streets recent evolutionary critique also puts us in a position to support a bold claim the dualism a practical reason can be resolved in favor of impartiality so what they're gonna do is they're gonna try to rebut the street article that we read and in doing so they think the the approach they take against her rebuttal is also going to resolve Sid wyx dualism of practical reason so Sid would call the dualism a practical reason the profound this problem of ethics and so I already kind of briefly mentioned what the what it was earlier but we will look at it again specifically yesterday I mentioned it but let me down who may find it yes let's look right here the method finishes on a famous note of despair and searching for rational axioms that would give us guidance about what we ought to do Sedgwick arrives at two that are at least potentially in conflict the action axiom of rational egoism says that each of us ought to aim at her or his own good on the whole and the accident axiom of benevolence or utilitarianism tells us to aim at the good of all sometimes when I aim at my own good I also maximize the good of all but often I'll have to choose between my own lesser good and the greatest achievable good of others Sedgwick calls us the dualism of practical reason he says it's a profound his problem in ethics so he's saying look it's very natural and intuitive for me to want to help myself it's also very natural and intuitive for me to want to help others and sometimes these two work in harmony and in which case it's very easy to see what we ought to do because helping myself in helping others would be one the same but sometimes there's a greater achievable good for everybody but it's a lesser good for myself or maybe it might even harm myself and so I have one reason act one way and one reason to act another and he says like I don't know how to resolve this problem and so that's the dualism a practical reason that we're drawn our practical reason or intuition or whatever you want to call it common sense maybe goes towards two different ways and there does not seem at least for siddik a clear reason why we should look at one and not the other so let me look at where he talks about Parfitt yeah Derek Parfit discusses the dualism a practical reason on what matters according to what perfect call is a wide value-based objective view when one of our two possible actions would make things go in some way that would be impartial II better but the other act would make things go better either for ourselves or for those to whom we have close ties we often have sufficient reasons to act in either of these ways so that's basically the dualism a practical reason but perf it is kind of putting it into more modern understanding perfect things that in extreme cases for example when I can save a stranger's life at a trivial cost to myself it'd be irrational actually the basis of what is better for myself but nevertheless he agrees that you know for these more in between cases it seems to be more difficult and contrast the Sedgwick part of it does not see the problem as an indication of the collapse practical reason but it does regard it as showing the limits of practical reason in many cases reason is not a perfect guide but it does not lead us in a single because it does not lead us in a single direction so what Parfitt says is like look that just shows that common sense can only take us so far and we need to have other reasons other than common sense whereas you know Sidgwick who is probably more under the account that we only have common sense to go off of we are do you argue that sidwich defensive objectivity and ethics survive streets Restatement of the argument but we will then add that this same understanding of evolution suggests that practical reason freed from some specific distortions that derive from our evolutionary origins ceases be divided between partial and impartial modes of reasoning thus we make use of citrox own argument to defend a claim that goes beyond anything SID weak himself suggested but which we believe we would have welcomed the dualism of practical reason can be resolved in favor of impartiality so that's a bold claim there right so since we can the argument from the origins of our moral faculty so he's looking at moral faculty and like how evolution evolved for our moral faculty um you know we kind of already covered that last time let's just read this part moreover syndrich points out that no theory of the origins of our moral judgments can show with the found fundamental ethical conceptions of right or what ought to be done or good or what is reasonable to desire see current valid and that therefore all propositions of the form X is right or X is good are untrustworthy because these propositions are about something fundamentally distinct from the subject-matter of the sciences so the gin objection and streets Darwinian dilemma the most widely discussed and philosophically sophisticated contemporary argument for the kind of view that citric rejected streets claimed that a Darwinian dilemma or an evolutionary debunking argument faces those who hold a realist theory of value evolutionary forces have played a tremendous role in shaping the content of human evaluative attitudes she then argues that those who defend objective moral truth face a choice between two uncongenial possibilities the first possibility is that evolutionary forces have no tendency to lead to the selection of beings who hold objectively true evaluative attitudes in this case Objectivists will have to admit that most of our evaluative judgments are unjustified the second possibility is that evolutionary forces did favor the selection of those who are able to grasp objective moral truths but this sheets are used as contrary to scientific understanding of how evolution works begin namely because evolution is survival tracking non truth tracking and she gives this really poignant example that says you know if it does happen that we come across right believes because of survival tracking and not true tracking you know these independent believes that's like the prospects of sailing the Bermuda while allowing our boat scores to be determined by the winds and tides I gets complete luck essentially and it's highly unlikely and so the taking they make a claim that it is unacceptable unsigned to the grounds alright so let's look and kind of already covered most of this yesterday so I don't want to like re harp on the fact in fact yesterday's and today's kind of going in and let's look here Kabat overlooks hid wick wrote the ability of the principle of utilitarianism to accept almost any degree of variation in actual rules without giving up the idea of absolute moral duties the sedgwick appears to accept that our particular set of moral rules does not hold for all ways of living but if nice that the truth of darwin's claim could be undermine our belief that there are some things that we ought to do and very indifferent circumstances killing one's brother or daughter could be the right thing to do what would remain constant over is an old in principle like do what is best for the well-being of all hence ethics as a whole is not threatened by the theory of evolution and then going to page 16 if our moral beliefs are evolutionarily advantageous than the advantages that confer on us as surviving and reproducing having nothing to do with their truth so why would evolution have led us through the capacity to recognize moral truth tree correctly points out that a specific capacity for recognizing moral truths would not increase our reproductive success but a capacity to reason would tend to increase our reproductive success so this is what I was talking about yesterday and maybe then having a past capacity to reason involves more than the ability to make valid inferences from premises to conclusions may include the ability to recognize and reject capricious or arbitrary grounds for drawing distinctions and to understand self-evident moral truths what Sedgwick referred to as rational intuition so this is the way that they are going to argue in favor of evolution actually leading us to truth tracking reason because reason is truth track or survival tracking but it's also truth tracking and so that's our in into survival tracking through evolution so either there is no relationship between the evolution of the basic capacity and the independent moral truths in which case it's a remarkable coincidence the basic capacity hat is a byproduct a capacity to grasp objective moral truths which was kind of linked words arguing or there's some relationship between the evolved basic capacity and the capacity to grasp independent moral truths and then they talk about how she says she then adds but at this point the realist has to give some account of how this more basic sort of ability to grasp independent evaluative truths arose indeed that's true but given that philosophers like Sedgwick have long said that it's our capacity to reason that enables us to grasp moral truths and even that we can explain why a capacity to reason would have been evolutionarily advantageous it's on the street does not directly confront the idea that the capacity to grasp all truths is simply an application of our capacity to reason which enables us to grasp all or a truce in general including both the truths of mathematics and moral truths for the ability to grasp moral truths as an aspect of our ability to reason and respond to reasons it is easy to give an account of how it arose so that is again showing like I just said and they're laying it out why evolution would lead us to be able to grasp independent moral truths so then the particular objection how Universal benevolence survives the evolutionary critique and so this is talking about how an evolutionary debunking argument like which Street is arguing is going to show why self-interest is wrong right and that's going to be because survival of the fittest it makes sense that we're gonna care for ourselves but it doesn't seem that there's any advantage to caring for others at least evolutionarily speaking and so what they're gonna do is say look it escapes to evolutionary debunking argument so it undermines ethical evolution undermines ethical egoism but it doesn't undermine universal benevolence or utilitarianism and so what a lot of people will reject here and this is partially what Cain gets Kahane gets into that we already read but part of it is like look there's already science out there showing how you know chimps shun people who are selfish and the reason that they reject people who are selfish is because like they're not trustworthy it's not you know hopeful what-have-you and so the main argument or premise behind this account right is that sorry I just got a text now I lost my place but the main argument behind this account is that altruism if you're selfish you're gonna be shunned and then you're gonna die alone you're going to have a chance to reproduce whatever whatever because we want to find people that we can trust and build community with and in fact it's really hard to live on your own that's why you see most animals even hunt in herds or packs or live together as groups and so it's basic group identity that allow us to be altruistic as well hmm and so in fact like altruism or you know treating everybody equally so seems to be evolutionarily debunked but they think you know it's a much clearer argument against rational egoism and so that's one of the main objections a lot of people have what those are erratic and singer here but you know it still seems like maybe there is some intuitive truth that selfishness is more evolutionarily advantageous and there's some sort of more reasoning involved when it comes to utilitarianism how much you think that's true or not and if it's enough to prove this otherwise I don't know but let's move on to here so let's see I'm skipping a while but that's mainly the point I wanted to bring there because we already talked about most of this yesterday on the other hand he rejected RM hares contention that this notion of universalizability is sufficient to get us to a form of utilitarianism man Mackie said involves a substantial moral claim not to be found in the meanings of the moral terms on the bare concepts of what it is to have a reason we agree that the same is true in the principle of universal benevolence at rest on a substantive claim and we can not get to it from any form of egoism merely by seeking interest man's words generality and coherence or Keynes reasoned extension there's nothing incoherent and accepting the principle of self-interest while rejecting the principle of universal benevolence each of these were such an incoherence however the fact that as we've shown there is another way of reaching the principle of universal benevolence which suffice to establish that is not founded on a contaminated starting point like they think egoism is Thurston contends that to avoid general skepticism about ethics one must show that there are intuitions for which no debunking explanation can be given or where the debunking explanations are inferior to non debunking ones in the nads let's say that if an explanation of the intuition calls that it is true or likely that it is validating and my view if an explanation appeals to the way of intuition was formed it is validating only if combined with an account of why the fact that it was so foreign makes it true or significantly likely and that account must both be described in some detail and have some degree of independent plausibility not just any ad-hoc story would do we suggest that this is indeed the case with the principal Universal benevolence they formed the intuition as a result of process of careful reflection that leads us to take as Cedric puts at the point of view of the universe so it's this careful reflection that makes us come to it and we don't get that from rational egoism or ethical egoism finally there is no plausible explanation of this principle as the direct outcome of an evolutionary process nor is there any obvious non truth tracking explanation like our ability to do higher capacity mathematics it can only possibly be explained as the outcome of our capacity to reason I can already give an objection to that but this is what they're arguing admittedly the ability the absence of good rival explanations for our intuitive graphs for the principle of universal benevolence does not prove that it is a substantive normative truth but we consider it makes that a reasonable hypothesis to hold at least until a better explanation is offered thus there are three elements in the process of establishing that an intuition has a highest possible degree of reliability so these are their three elements for the highest possible degree of ryut reliability one careful reflection leading to a conviction of self evidence so you know you have to carefully think about it and reason your way there to independent agreement of other careful thinkers so other people come to the same conclusion as you not just like you influencing them kind of thing and then three the absence of a plausible explanation of the intuition as the outcome of an evolutionary or other non truth tracking process and so because of this they think that part three specifically is where ethnic legalism fails the universe of universal benevolence succeeds so Universal benevolence meets all three ethical egoism only meets two of the three so we should have more truth or more assurance in universal benevolence or utilitarianism over ethical egoism if the third requirement were not met and the intuition could be explained as the outcome of an evolutionary process that would not show the intuition to be false but it casts some doubt on the reliability the agreement of others would not put down too rest for this Agreement cannot be explained by the fact that the others share the same political nature this would raise a possibility that in thinking that the intuition is self-evident we're only deceiving ourselves so this is again how they answer it I feel like I'm beating at that point then worse at this point I do think it is important to note all of these though the last few pages really just do a great job summing everything up together so I do highly encourage you to read that and I think it will help shed some light but yeah that is going to be it so let me read this last point they can reject the commonly held view that is rationally do what is in one's own interest and accept that when one of the two possible acts would make things go and partially better that is what we have decisive normative reasons to do it so there we go so that is both ethical egoism we also looked at practical or psychological egoism right and I guess a practical Evo is I'm not sure what you would call it it's really not egoism but the idea that in order to achieve the betterment of everybody we should look out for ourselves cuz that's the best way to do that then maybe like a means version of egoism rather than an inversion we might call it if we looked at those we looked at some arguments for and against and we looked at this main argument from villas are erratic and senior about how ethical egoism can be debunked through evolution in survival of the fittest that's why we care about ourselves and I guess you could call this a particular form of the arbitrariness um because it explains why it's arbitrary it explains that it's only from evolution and not some objective reasoning right so noise that's going to be in for today again if you have any questions email me let me know put them in the discussion board and I will talk to y'all next