Psychological Egoism

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Psychological Egoism
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Two Types of Egoism

• Two types of egoism
• Psychological egoism
• Asserts that as a matter of fact we do always act
  selfishly
• Purely descriptive
• Ethical egoism
• Maintains that we should always act selfishly
• Our concern here is with psychological egoism

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Overview

• Part One. Analyzing the psychological egoists
  claim
• Part Two. Reconceptualizing psychological egoism

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Part One. Analyzing the psychological egoists
claim

• The psychological egoist claims that people
  always act selfishly or in their own
  self-interest.
• One of the earlier advocates of this view was
  Thomas Hobbes, who saw life as nasty, brutish,
  and short.

Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679)
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Psychological EgoismA Common and Widespread
Belief

• Folk psychology
• There is a widespread belief that people are just
  out for themselves
• Social Darwinism everyone is just trying to
  survive.
• Social sciences
• Economics rational agent theory
• Foreign policy
• Belief that other nations will always act solely
  in terms of self-interest

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Psychological Egoism

• What exactly does the psychological egoist
  maintain? Two possible interpretations
• 1 We act selfishly, or
• 2 We act in our self-interest
• In addition, we need to clarify
• Genuine or apparent self-interest? If we act out
  of self-interest, is it genuine self-interest or
  only apparent self-interest?
• Maximizing or non-maximizing? Are we saying that
  we always seek to maximize self-interest, or
  simply that self-interest is always part of the
  picture
• Exclusive or non-exclusive? Are we saying that
  we act only out of selfishness, or that
  selfishness is always one of our motives?
• Causally determined? Are we saying that human
  beings are causally determined to act this way or
  that we choose to do so?

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DistinguishingSelfishness Self-Interest

• There is a fundamental ambiguity at the heart of
  psychological egoism.
• 1 We act selfishly, or
• 2 We act in our self-interest
• We can distinguish these in the following way
• 1 A claim about our motives
• 2 A claim about the objective consequences of
  our actions

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What does it mean to be selfish?

• If we are selfish, do we only do things that are
  in our genuine self-interest?
• What about the chain smoker? Is this person
  acting out of genuine self-interest?
• In fact, the smoker may be acting selfishly
  (doing what he wants without regard to others)
  but not self-interestedly (doing what will
  ultimately benefit him).

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What does it mean to be selfish?

• If we are selfish, do we only do things are we
  believe are in our self-interest?
• What about those who believe that sometimes they
  act altruistically?
• Does anyone truly believe Mother Theresa was
  completely selfish?
• Think of the actions of parents. Dont parents
  sometimes act for the sake of their children,
  even when it is against their narrow
  self-interest to do so?

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Two Main Versions of Psychological Egoism

• There are two ways in which the psychological
  egoist's claim may be interpreted
• 1 We act selfishly
• If the psychological egoist is saying that we act
  selfishly, then how do we explain apparently
  altruistic people like Mother Theresa? Two
  possible answers
• People are unconsciously selfish. But what do we
  mean by unconscious intentions? This devolves
  into a second claim.
• People are unconsciously self-interested.
  Without realizing it, our actions are
  self-interested. This leads to interpretation 2
• 2 We act in our self-interest
• If the psychological egoist is saying that we act
  in our self-interest, then how do we explain the
  fact that people sometimes do self-destructive
  things?
• We could draw a distinction between genuine and
  apparent self-interest, but
• It is obviously false that people in fact always
  act in their own genuine self-interest (the
  smoker)
• If people are said to act in their apparent
  self-interest, this then becomes a claim about
  intentions (apparent to whom?), and this is then
  subject to all the objections about the claim
  that we act selfishly.

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Psychological Egoism as an Unfalsifiable
Hypothesis

• Is psychological egoism an unfalsifiable
  hypothesis?
• Karl Popper first formulated this notion to
  distinguish science from non-science
• Apparently very powerful
• Actually not empirical no counter-instances

Karl Popper (1902-1994)
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Motives and Consequences

• Psychological egoists, as we have seen in the
  preceding analysis, often confuse motives and
  consequences
• The fact that we may get something back as a
  result of a particular action does not entail
  that we did the action in order to get something
  back.
• We may experience great rewards in love, but that
  doesnt mean we do it solely or even primarily in
  order to obtain those rewards.

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Further Ambiguities

• Ambiguity 1 Do we act exclusively out of
  selfishness?
• Exclusive vs. Non-exclusive psychological egoism.
• If we act selfishly all the time, how could we
  prove this?
• If we act selfishly only part of the time, this
  is true but uninteresting
• What counts as counter-evidence?
• Ambiguity 2 Do we act to maximize self-interest
  or simply to increase it?
• Maximizing vs. Non-maximizing psychological
  egoism.
• Maximizing psychological egoism seems interesting
  but false
• Non-maximizing psychological egoism may be true
  but uninteresting.
• Ambiguity 3 Are we causally determined to act
  this way or do we choose to do so?
• If this is a causal claim, it is presumably about
  consequences. Yet this causal claim (that in
  fact people always act solely in ways that
  promote their self-interest) seems empirically
  false.
• If this is not a causal claim, then it implies
  that people freely choose to act this way. But
  how do we explain the counter-evidence of
  peoples claims about their own intentions and
  motivations?
• Ambiguity 4 Is there really such a sharp
  division between self-interest and the interests
  of others, especially the interests of those we
  love?
• Psychological egoism is founded on an
  Enlightenment view of the autonomy self.
• In reality, this strict separation is misleading,
  as we will now see.

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Part Two. Re-conceptualizing Psychological
Egoism

• Psychological egoism rests on ambiguities and
  false dichotomies, as we have seen.
• We need to re-conceptualize this area to
  understand what is true and what is false in
  psychological egoism.

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Re-conceptualizing Psychological Egoism, 1

• The standard view of human motivation embedded in
  discussions of psychological egoism sees egoism
  and altruism as opposite poles of a single scale

Human Motivation
Egoism
Altruism
The premise is that an increase in egoism
automatically results in a decrease in altruism,
and vice versa.
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Re-conceptualizing Psychological Egoism, 2

• Instead of seeing this one a single scale, we can
  see egoism and altruism as two independent axes

Conceptualizing the issue in this way allows some
actions to be done both for the sake of others
and for ones own sake, and avoids falling into a
false dichotomy between altruism and egoism.
However, an additional distinction remains to be
draw.
1
4
High Egoism
3
2
Low Altruism
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Re-conceptualizing Psychological Egoism, 3

• In addition to having two independent axes, we
  must distinguish between the intentions of
  actions and their consequences. Thus we get two
  graphs

Intentions
Consequences
Strongly intended to help others
High beneficial To others
4
1
4
1
Not intended to benefit self
Highly harmful to self
Strongly intended to benefit self
Highly beneficial to self
3
3
2
2
Highly harmful to others
Strongly intended to harm others
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Re-conceptualizing Psychological Egoism, 4

• This double grid suggests that any given action
  can be ranked according to both
• Intentions
• Consequences
• And that, for each of these two issues, each act
  can be ranked along two independent axes,
  concern/consequences for self and
  concern/consequences for other.

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Conclusion

• Given the preceding grid for understand human
  behavior, we can see that psychological egoism
  gains its apparent plausibility by trading on
  ambiguities (selfishness vs. self-interest) and
  false dichotomies (self-interest vs. altruism).
• As we have seen, we can accept psychological
  egoism as a partial truth and see recognize that
  there is more to human behavior than selfishness.