Comments on: Psychological Egoism

By: Daniel

Daniel — Tue, 12 Oct 2010 02:22:15 +0000

@Tiffany
You make a good point, but the way I see it psychological egoism only applies if a person is acting rationally. If a person is acting irrationally, then they may be an exception to this rule that all actions are at their core self-beneficial. One could certainly argue that a parent who is willing to die for their child is acting irrationally, i.e. purely out of the evolutionary instinct to protect one’s offspring.

By: Tiffany McDaniel

Tiffany McDaniel — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 13:31:00 +0000

I have read the examples of the person helping the turtle across the road and such, I see the meaning behind it. The big hole that I see as a parent is the unselfish rush to protect your child, some may say you bwould feel bad if something happend to the child so it is there for a selfish act. Well what about the parent who would give their life to save or protect their child? If they are dead they would not beneifit from saving the child. This theory is arguing for the sake of arguing,

By: Shadowbird

Shadowbird — Thu, 20 Aug 2009 13:32:28 +0000

It sems to me we only help animals because we personify them. Since we have no idea (emotionally) how an animal’s mind works, we treat it as if it works like our own, even if we know it doesn’t. That’s why we help and care about animals we find attractive and/or child-like (puppies, turtles, small birds), and at the same time we (most of us) wouldn’t give a second glance if a vulture, a rat or a crocodile was in trouble. It’s the same reason why almost everyone would stop to help a child or a beautiful young woman laying unconscous on the ground, while most of the people would pass an old, smelly drunk in the same situation without a second glance. It doesn’t neccessarily mean psychological selfishness, it’s probably more to do with the “selfish gene” — it’s in our DNA to make sure that children, women and the best of our men survive, so once we start to perceive animals and other living things as people, we’ve basically tricked ourselves into caring for someone other than our own species.

By: Matt

Matt — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:07:59 +0000

Although you nor I are the center of the universe, every day MUST be lived for yourself. This may be considered selfishness as well, but putting labels aside, If you try to live your life to benefit another life, or to benefit the world as a whole, and forget entirely about yourself, you are bound to live unfulfilled. If you do these things for yourself, you are bound to fill an empty void. Whatever you were meant to live for is what you should live for as long as you are sure to live with yourself in mind

By: Andy

Andy — Tue, 04 Nov 2008 14:04:45 +0000

@Nick

One could argue that you can not pray about others (there for caring about them) just to satisfy your self-interest and also be selfish, right? Because then you care about the self-interest of them also,

Right?

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 15:21:37 +0000

@Lacey. Praying for friends is still selfish. People in general like to have positivity around them, which usually means its beneficial to want to have those around you happy. So your desire to make them happy is ultimately still a desire to make yourself happy. Additionally, you want yourself to want other people to be happy, because you have a desire to be what you perceive to be a “good person”. There’s two possible motives right there.

By: Lacey

Lacey — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 22:10:06 +0000

I would just like to say that I know of one action which I find 100 percent unselfish. Prayer. When you pray for the people you love and care about to feel better or be happy, there is nothing in it for you. I pray nightly for my friends which I haven’t seen in years. Their happiness, which I am praying for, does not affect me at all. I am praying solely for their benefit, and I mean that with my whole heart. So, psychological egoism is fale and very flawed.

By: DSP

DSP — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 13:11:19 +0000

Not a bad paper, but if you dont mind me pointing out a mistake or two, i.. er, will.

In the paragraph that starts “a second argument for…” you seem to confuse (or conflate) “self-interest” and “selfishness”, though i suspect this is more from undiciplined use of language since you point out this difference above.

Any objection to psychological egoism that mentions pleasure felt for any other sake than self-interest is a stawman, it argues against something psychological egoism isnt saying.

Also, the last bit, about the “incredible breadth of human…” is unsupported.

Anyway, thats all, if it helped at all. I do mean this to be a positive criticism, not bashing your paper. Best sticking with stuff like logical fallacy, closed theory, pseudoscientific, and truism when countering psych egoism. Makes it easier and you dont have to get bogged down in their terminology. I

By: mansfield

mansfield — Mon, 12 Mar 2007 04:03:22 +0000

i was having a hard time understanding this theory in ethics class. i am glad that i came across your paper, it simplified it for me (thanks), but I do hope that we as humans can prove this theory wrong and that we do things out of the good of our hearts, not just because we can benefit from our good deeds.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 19:53:52 +0000

The latter is fine.

By: rdobben

rdobben — Wed, 03 Jan 2007 16:04:43 +0000

i would like to cite some of your paper. APA style. Is there a title, or just plainly Psychological Egoism??

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 24 Feb 2006 06:13:55 +0000

I used to be a psychological egoist, but I tend to disagree with it now. Basically your argument simplified is:

S does what he wants
S His wants are in his own best interest.
S Everything S does, he wants.

Notice the similarity between the first premise and the hypothesis. This argument is circular logic.

It’s a well written paper though.

By: Lawrence Odoemena

Lawrence Odoemena — Fri, 14 Jan 2005 20:10:20 +0000

That was a nice write up! But I still believe in some altruistic actions. There are times we do thing, not for the sake of ourselves, we even get pain from such acts, yet we go ahead to do it for the sake of others.

By: bobbie

bobbie — Thu, 15 Apr 2004 03:25:53 +0000

is that a foonote at the end of the paper? if not, what is it?

By: tonie

tonie — Thu, 25 Mar 2004 03:13:02 +0000

I enjoy reading your paper it gave me something to think about. I agree that we sometime act out of our own self interest.maybe its an innate motivation we have

By: Matt

Matt — Sat, 12 Apr 2003 01:24:36 +0000

That’s how long it took to generate the page. I’m using it for some debugging right now. The problem with psychological egoism isn’t so much that it says that people act selfishly, which few would deny, it says that every action all the time is purely selfish, which is a shallow view of human motivations.

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:42:05 +0000

Hey – what’s that little “0.136″ below the “Say it!” button?

By: Christine

Christine — Fri, 11 Apr 2003 22:41:35 +0000

Is this just a fancy way of saying “It’s all about me. Me, me, me, ME.”? The world revolves around me, and I know it!

Ok, that’s a bit extreme. In reality, I think this is quite true. People do what they want to do, doing what will benefit them.