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Ethical Egoism and Beyond

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

James P. Sterba
James P. Sterba*
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
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Extract

Consider the case of Gary Gyges, an otherwise normal human being who, for reasons of personal gain, has embezzled $300,000 while working at People's National Bank and is in the process of escaping to the South Sea Islands where he will have the good fortune to live a pleasant life protected by the local authorities and untroubled by any qualms of conscience. If we assume that in the society from which Gyges is fleeing moral standards are generally observed, Gyges's behavior would be obviously immoral. Is it possible, however, that Gyges, a rational person, may have had perfectly consistent reasons for acting immorally? Is it also possible that Gyges may not have had any moral reasons at all to refrain from his act of embezzlement?

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 9 , Issue 1 , March 1979 , pp. 91 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1979

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References

1 See Philippa Foot, “Morality as a System of Hypothetical Imperatives,” Philosophical Review (1972), pp. 305–16; William David Solomon, “Moral Reasons,” American Philosophical Quarterly (1975), pp. 331–39.

2 See Jesse Kalin, “Baier's Refutation of Ethical Egoism,” Philosophical Studies (1971), pp. 74–78.

3 Kalin, Jesse “In Defense of Egoism,” in Morality and Rational Self-interest, ed. Gauthier, David (Englewood Cliffs, 1970), pp. 73–74.Google Scholar

4 In speaking of different uses of “ought” I do not want to deny that there might also be some minimal univocal sense of “ought” shared by these different uses.

5 Going into business for himself would only be “indirectly” under Herman's voluntary control if it depends on his doing something else first, for example, his taking steps to acquire sufficient financial backing.

6 Kurt Baier, “Ethical Egoism and Interpersonal Compatibility,” Philosophical Studies (1973), p. 364.

7 For further argument on this point, see Singer, Marcus Generalization in Ethics. (New York, 1961)Google Scholar, chap. 2; Alan Gewirth, “The Non-Trivializability of Universalizability,” Australasian Journal of Philosophy (1969), pp. 123–31.

8 It is this difference which has mistakenly led some philosophers to think that Universal Ethical Egoism is inconsistent.

9 When this same criticism is made of Universal Ethical Egoism, there is always the implicit assumption that the Universal Ethical Egoist is also employing an interpretation of “ought” with direct action-guiding implications. But, as we have seen, the defender of Universal Ethical Egoism can consistently reject this interpretation.

10 See Alan Gewirth, “The ‘Is-Ought’ Problem Resolved,” Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association (1974), pp. 34–61; “Action and Rights: A Reply,”Ethics (1976), pp. 288–93.

11 Nagel, Thomas The Possibility of Altruism (Oxford, 1970)Google Scholar, especially chaps. 9 to 14.

12 Nagel disagrees. He thinks that the epistemological version of solipsism is ultimately dependent on the metaphysical version. See the footnote on p. 104 of his book.

13 Note that if Individual Ethical Egoism is similarly interpreted to allow the interests of others to count then the Justification for the position would no longer be inconsistent.

14 Research for this paper was supported in part by a grant from the Ludwig Vogelstein Foundation.