James Rachel's Arguments Favoring The Concept Of Ethical Egoism

James Rachel’s arguments initially might seem to be favoring the concept of ethical egoism but in reality he has meant to contradict the very concept. Ethical egoism is a normative theory which entails two specific genres – individual ethical egoism and universal ethical egoism. In the first version “one ought to look out for one’s own interests. I ought to be concerned about others only to the extent that this also contributes to my own interests. In the second version, everybody ought to act in their won best interest, and they ought to be concerned about others only to the extent that this also contributes to their own interests” (“Ethics”, n.d.). Rachels, while setting the tone for his argument, has explained the concept of ethical egoism

Rachels has taken the readers in a journey to the destination through myriads of arguments favoring ethical egoism but it must be noted that the destination is actually the refutation of the very tenets of ethical egoism. Rachels has ultimately proved the lack of feasibility of such concept by drawing upon the fact that, “Any moral doctrine that assigns greater importance to the interests of one group than to those of another is unacceptably arbitrary unless there is some difference between the members of the groups that justifies treating them differently” (Daniel, 2013). This is a justified position. A society must not be based on unequal distribution of advantages and disadvantages because that will usher the menace of discrimination. If the notion of ethical egoism is to be upheld then it will mean the justification of different means of discriminating a person or a group of persons. And as just justification is invalid, the notion of ethical egoism must also be abandoned. Moreover, Rachels has pointed out that, “Ethical egoism would have each person assign greater importance to his or her own interests than to the interests of others” (Daniel, 2013). This is again an arbitrary approach and hence, it should never be

Psychological egoism “is the empirical doctrine that the determining motive of every voluntary action is a desire for one’s own welfare. On this view, even though all actions are regarded as self-interested actions, the egoist readily points out that people usually try to conceal the determining motives for their actions because such concealment is usually in their self-interest” (“Psychological Egoism”, n.d.). But for Rachels this is both an ambiguous and dilemmatic theoretical perspective. In respect of psychological egoism Rachels has pointed out the deep rooted ambiguity within the very doctrine which is related to the confusion of whether to consider self-interest as