Psychological egoism is the view that, as a matter of fact, there is only one thing that can motivate you to act as a human being: namely, what you perceive to increase your well-being. While ethical egoism makes a different kind of a claim. On this view it is morally right for you to pursue your own well-being, and morally wrong for you not to do so. It is therefore morally wrong for you to promote the well-being of others if this diminishes your own well-being. “Ought implies can” principle is the idea that can be morally required to act in some way only if you can act in that way. It is always right for you to pursue what it is you think is in your interests, because it would be impossible for you to do anything else. In order for some act …show more content…
This theory doesn 't describe what you should be doing morally for yourself but rather prescribes you to do it for yourself. The two objections to psychological egoism are the everyday objection and the evolutionary objection. The best arguments for ethical egoism rely on psychological egoism as their premise. These arguments also make us of other general philosophical principles. Even if we accepted those principles, we still have strong reasons to doubt the truth of psychological egoism. Because of this it is unlikely that there are sound arguments for ethical egoism. Prisoner 's dilemmas are very common in everyday life, a lot of people are looking at the benefit for only themselves and not the group that would be affected with the selfish interests of one individual affecting the whole group. One prisoner 's dilemma that I can think of happens to be women wearing makeup. Society would likely be better off if we all didn 't. Each day across America, several million man-hours (woman-hours, actually) are devoted to an activity with questionable benefit for society. Foregoing makeup would free up fifteen to thirty minutes (just an estimate as to average makeup application time) for each woman every morning. However, if no one wore makeup, then there would be great temptation for any one girl to gain an advantage versus everyone else by breaking with the norm, using mascara, blush, and concealer to hide imperfections and enhance her natural