Here's an argument for the truth of ethical egoism:
Premise 1: Moral realism is true in some form. There are objective moral values and there must be some things that are objectively right and wrong to do.
Premise 2: Psychological egoism is true. We are ultimately only capable of acting within our own self-interest because even, what on the surface appears to be, selfless acts ultimately benefit the self in some way.
Premise 3: Ought implies can. It makes no sense to say that we ought to do or avoid doing something that we can't.
Conclusion: Ethical Egoism is true.
On the surface, the conclusion may appear to be a non-sequitur. But the idea is that because some moral values are objectively true (moral realism is true) then this implies that we ought to do or avoid doing at least some things. And because we only ought to do or avoid doing what we can do and because we can only do things that are in our self-interest (according to these premises) ... then all of this, taken together, implies the truth of ethical egoism.
Thoughts?
My personal response is that the argument may fail because perhaps Premise 2 is false. I accept premise 1 and 3 but I'm unsure about 2. Part of me thinks that we are genetically programmed to care about our genes but this includes our genes in our offspring so genuine self-sacrifice is possible. Plus, it may be possible to genuinely selflessly care for those who don't share out genes because such selfless actions are a 'misfiring' (evolutionary misfiring, not morally misfiring) byproduct of our caring about our genes.
But part of me thinks that the very mechanism for caring about our own genes within others can still be explained within the framework of ultimately only caring about ourselves. So I am in two minds about premise two which is why I don't adopt ethical egoism. I'd only adopt it if I was sure that premise 2 was true ... but I'm not. But it may be true.
Again, I have no problem with premise 1 and 3. What do you think?
Premise 1: Moral realism is true in some form. There are objective moral values and there must be some things that are objectively right and wrong to do.
Premise 2: Psychological egoism is true. We are ultimately only capable of acting within our own self-interest because even, what on the surface appears to be, selfless acts ultimately benefit the self in some way.
Premise 3: Ought implies can. It makes no sense to say that we ought to do or avoid doing something that we can't.
Conclusion: Ethical Egoism is true.
On the surface, the conclusion may appear to be a non-sequitur. But the idea is that because some moral values are objectively true (moral realism is true) then this implies that we ought to do or avoid doing at least some things. And because we only ought to do or avoid doing what we can do and because we can only do things that are in our self-interest (according to these premises) ... then all of this, taken together, implies the truth of ethical egoism.
Thoughts?
My personal response is that the argument may fail because perhaps Premise 2 is false. I accept premise 1 and 3 but I'm unsure about 2. Part of me thinks that we are genetically programmed to care about our genes but this includes our genes in our offspring so genuine self-sacrifice is possible. Plus, it may be possible to genuinely selflessly care for those who don't share out genes because such selfless actions are a 'misfiring' (evolutionary misfiring, not morally misfiring) byproduct of our caring about our genes.
But part of me thinks that the very mechanism for caring about our own genes within others can still be explained within the framework of ultimately only caring about ourselves. So I am in two minds about premise two which is why I don't adopt ethical egoism. I'd only adopt it if I was sure that premise 2 was true ... but I'm not. But it may be true.
Again, I have no problem with premise 1 and 3. What do you think?
