Arguments Against Psychological Egoism

Psychological Egoism is a proposed doctrine that individuals in society are only concerned with their own benefit hence possess a motive with the ultimate goal of self-preservation and self-interest. Although we may do things that benefit others, the doctrine argues that humans are entirely selfish and we are primarily concerned with our pleasure therefore any actions that aid others are performed by us for the fruit of praise (Feinberg 6). This doctrine is false as the arguments in support for it are built on the foundations of tautology. Feinberg critics this theory by using counter arguments to the theory in order to provide insight on why psychological egoism is weak. This essay will outline and expand on arguments placed forth by Feinberg

According to the Ring of Gyges, we only act justly because we suffer the consequences of our actions but if we possessed a ring that made us invisible, we too would perform the most unjust acts due to a lack of consequences (Plato 32). This establishes the idea that we ought to do something, if we can do it and get away with it (32). Although many would value their benefit over the others, there are exceptions in society such as people who do perform self-less acts (parents) but psychological egoism states that our actions are completely and 100% of the time based on our desire of self-benefit. This poses a problem for our understanding of morality as it advocates that our thought process that lead to our actions is thoroughly ingrained within us. If this is true, morality and ethics cannot guide us to pursue acts of kindness that benefit others or teach us the correct thing to do in a given situation since we would perform unjust acts at every given chance therefore the mechanism of ethics would fail entirely in our lives. This challenge then leads to the second challenge that psychological egoism poses for our understanding of morality- if we truly are hardwired then all that we know about ethics and morality is fraud. This would imply that the people who do perform self-less acts are heavily self-deceiving or lying that they are motivated by other motives rather than just self-interest (Feinberg 6). Since we would all do what Gyges did at every chance that we can get away with it and the only times we may follow moral rules is if we are under the fear of suffering the consequences of breaking them then the idea of morality in our society is completely defeated because morality works in the opposite direction of psychological egoism