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Should we just let ourselves be selfish?

posted 8 years ago by LostKiera
9 replies | jump to latest

I find myself musing a lot on ethical egoism of late. Here's some of my thoughts. And when I say "my thoughts", this is not how I actually treat people but what logic seems to suggest should be the way I should treat people:

Our only access to the world is our own consciousness. While we can empathise and sympathise with how other's feel, we can never experience those feelings for ourselves. With this in mind only feelings that we find pleasurable should be sought and those that are not pleasurable should be avoided.

Obviously this does not mean we should behave without thought to others. Treating others badly will often mean they do the same to you so one must sometimes put one's happiness to one side for long-term benefit and aid other's instead. Where there is no long-term benefit to helping someone though there is no need to do so.

There are two factors that conflict with this cynicism though: guilt and benevolence both instilled in all of us to a greater and lesser degree:

Guilt (and I also include shame with this) of course dulls any pleasure we might get from putting ourselves before others. It is therefore prudent to do a cost-benefit analysis and avoid actions likely to cause you guilt that would cause more pain than the pleasures that action might bring. Ultimately though, it is worth eliminating guilt from your life as much as possible. This may mean doing things that make us feel guilty to gradually erode the feeling.

Benevolence is trickier, a natural disposition to help others. Ultimately this is another form of furthering one's own pleasure - you make other's happy to make yourself happy. In cases where making other's happy does not hurt your own wellbeing, this is harmless. Even in some cases where it hurts it a small bit, the good feelings of benevolence may trump the harm you cause yourself. However, it will ultimately clash with a deliberate egoist lifestyle. If we realise we only help others to help ourselves the joy of helping others will likely diminish. Benevolence will probably become less and less of a factor as we continue down this road.

Self-sacrifice where one's life will be lost or at least endangered can rarely be recommended. If we die - our capacity for pleasure dies with us. The exception would be if the guilt/shame of not doing it would make life unbearable, but it would still be preferable to eliminate the guilt/shame if possible.

There are four objections that could be posited here, each of which I think can be surmounted.

The first is really an objection to any normative ethics - that you cannot get an ought from an is. While we can say an egoist life will give you the most personal pleasure, that does not mean one ought to aim for it. But I think that can be dismissed. All other things being equal, everyone prefers pleasure to pain and so will prefer a pleasurable life.

The second is that there may be some divine punishment thrown upon us if we live in this manner which will outweigh anything we get out of the egoistic life. This of course cannot be dismissed but then nor can it be assumed. An afterlife is beyond our present phenomenal experience and so we have no way of knowing if such a thing exists - and even if it does, it may be one that further rewards the egoist rather than punishes him/her. Faith of course can be a source of happiness for some. Where there is a conflict between your faith and your egoism then it is rather like the guilt/shame situation and requires a cost-benefit analysis before each action. If possible it might be better to jettison the faith or replace it with a new faith more compatible with egoism.

The third objection is that if others see you as a cynical they will not like or help you, hurting your wellbeing. This is probably true and will require some faking of genuine concern as it were.

The fourth objection is that if everyone was an egoist, this would make everyone less well off than if everyone was say a deontologist. This is true, but a) in actuality very few will actually become egoists and b) this would ultimately be an egoist consideration anyway, and so if you adopted another ethical stance on the basis of this you would still ultimately be an egoist.

So what do people think? Personally I hope to God the above isn't sound but I find it hard to see any flaws.

[–] ipanmu 8 years ago

Thank you for the post sincerely written.

I am not a native English speaker so I might not be that quick in getting what you say.
But the conclusion or answer to your question is a NO. We should not indulge ourselves in being
selfishness. And I can assure you it's based upon sound reasoning and argumentation. I can't present it today because I already wrote a lot in English today but I will share with you some other day some of my thoughts in details.

[–] LostKiera 8 years ago

Look forward to hearing your thoughts 

[–] checkerouterofthings 8 years ago

While we can empathise and sympathise with how other's feel, we can never experience those feelings for ourselves.

Sure we can. It stands to reason that emotions are somewhat universal, via evolution. Some may feel them a little more or less strongly, but in in essence, we're feeling roughly the same things, therefore empathy should not be too difficult a state to reach.

As far as selfishness, how would you define it? Doing something for yourself? Is eating a selfish act? What about getting a higher education or buying a car so you can get to work? I understand how the word is commonly used, but philosophically I'm not sure it's a worthwhile concept.

[–] rocinante-421-313928 8 years ago

Our only access to the world is our own consciousness.

Here you have the hidden premise of some sort of epistemic gap between us and the world. Your whole proposition is resting on the need for certainty and some sort of separation between you and the world, which is cartesian in essence.

While we can empathise and sympathise with how other's feel, we can never experience those feelings for ourselves. With this in mind only feelings that we find pleasurable should be sought and those that are not pleasurable should be avoided.

As a consequence of the need for certainty and the epistemic gap introduced by the previous premise, now you're excluding any telos and assuming the only purpose of existence is self-indulgence, which also means you won't resort to God to escape the sollipsistic dark room you trapped yourself into, like Descartes did.

So, the flaw is that your whole proposition is a petitio principii where you're assuming as a premise that the only certainty you can have is of your own consciousness, and the only purpose of its existence is self-indulgence, which unavoidably leads to the conclusion.

If you were deceptive, your proposition would sound more like a rhetorical argument someone would retroactively formulate to justify the behavior. Self-help for egoists with a guilty-conscience.

[–] LostKiera 8 years ago

Some may feel them a little more or less strongly, but in in essence, we're feeling roughly the same things, therefore empathy should not be too difficult a state to reach
Empathy is far away from feeling your own feelings as it were. Being sad yourself is far stronger than empathising with someone else who is sad. We have a unique access to our own emotions.

As far as selfishness, how would you define it? Doing something for yourself? Is eating a selfish act? What about getting a higher education or buying a car so you can get to work? I understand how the word is commonly used, but philosophically I'm not sure it's a worthwhile concept.
Putting your own well-being above anyone else including where appropriate hurting others for your own betterment.

[–] checkerouterofthings 8 years ago

It comes down to risk/cost-reward analysis. If you're driving down the highway and see a 4 year old running around in the street, and you figure you can grab him and get him to safety with little risk to yourself and a cost of only a minute or two of your time, you're morally obligated to act. On the other hand if you see a homeless guy on the street, you're not morally obligated to hand over all your money, as this has a much higher cost.

[–] LostKiera 8 years ago

That's a sort of common sense morality. But who holds the obligation over us? If I let the child get hit by a car rather than take even a little risk or inconvenience and there's no-one around to give me a hard time for doing so, what does it matter to me?

I accept this is repugnant and I feel repulsed even writing about it but that it is repugnant in the common view is in itself not a reason not to behave that way.

[–] checkerouterofthings 8 years ago

But who holds the obligation over us?

Depends who you ask.