Self and Others: A Study of Ethical Egoism

ISBN-13: 9789401077965 / Angielski / Miękka / 2011 / 272 str.

Jan Osterberg

Opis

1. The Aim of This Essay Ethical Egoism, the doctrine that, roughly speaking, one should promote one's own good, has been a live issue since the very beginnings of moral philosophy. Historically, it is the most widely held normative theory, and, next to Utilitarianism, it is the most intensely debated one. What is at stake in this debate is a fundamental question of ethics: 'Is there any reason, except self-interest, for considering the interests of other people?' The ethical egoist answers No to this question, thus rejecting the received conception of morality. Is Ethical Egoism an acceptable position? There are many forms of Ethical Egoism, and each may be interpreted in several different ways. So the relevant question is rather, 'Is there an acceptable version of Ethical It is the main aim of this essay to answer this question. This Egoism?' means that I will be confronted with many other controversial questions, for example, 'What is a moral principle?', 'Is value objective or subjec tive?', 'What is the nature of the self?' For the acceptability of most ver sions of Ethical Egoism, it has been alleged, depends on what answers are given to questions such as these. (I will show that in some of these cases there is in fact no such dependence. ) It is, of course, impossible to ad equately discuss all these questions within the compass of my essay."

Spis treści

1. The Aim of This Essay.- 2. Kinds of Egoism.- 3. The Plan of This Essay.- 4. Terminology and Conventions.- I Preliminary Matters.- 1. A Short History of Ethical Egoism.- 1.1. Preliminary Remarks.- 1.2. Classical Times.- 1.3. From Thomas Aquinas to Nietzsche.- 1.4. From Hobbes to Sidgwick.- 1.5. Hobbes.- 1.6. Butler.- 1.7. Sidgwick.- 1.8. After Sidgwick.- 1.9. Ethical Egoism and Individualistic Society.- 2. Kinds of Ethical Egoism.- 2.1. Introduction.- 2.2. Forms of Ethical Egoism.- 2.3. Interpretations of Ethical Egoism.- 2.4. The Subjective Conception of Intrinsic Value.- 3. The Interpretation of Strong Egoism.- 3.1. Self-Regarding Egoism or Butlerian Egoism?.- 3.2. Eudaimonistic Egoism or Preference Egoism?.- 3.3. Time-Neutral Egoism: A First Objection.- 3.4. Time-Neutral Egoism: A Second Objection.- II The Debate on Ethical Egoism.- 4. Arguments for Ethical Egoism.- 4.1. Introduction.- 4.2. The Argument from Psychological Egoism.- 4.3. The Argument from Biology.- 4.4. Some Other Arguments.- 4.5. Arguments and Presuppositions.- 5. Normative and Semantic Objections.- 5.1. Normative Objections.- 5.2. The Argument from ‘Morality’.- 5.3. The Argument from ‘Morally Ought’.- 5.4. Moore’s Objection.- 5.5. Baumer’s Objection.- 5.6. The Argument from Joint Performability.- 5.7. Daniels’ Objection.- 5.8. The Argument from Moral Help.- 6. Pragmatic and Other Objections.- 6.1. The Argument from Self-Subvertingness.- 6.2. The Argument from Indirect Self-Defeatingness.- 6.3. The Argument from Assentability.- 6.4. The Argument from Pragmatic Inconsistency.- 6.5. Ethical Egoism and Society.- 6.6. Ethical Egoism and the Self.- III The Assessment of Ethical Egoism.- 7. The Strong Form of Ethical Egoism.- 7.1. The Argument from Joint Satisfiability.- 7.2. Joint Satisfiability and Agent-Relativity.- 7.3. The Argument from Self-Defeatingness.- 7.4. The Argument from Pareto-Optimal Equilibria.- 7.5. Nietzschean Egoism.- 8. Weak Forms of Egoism.- 8.1. Introduction.- 8.2. Egoism as a Lexically Ordered Principle.- 8.3. Egoism as a Co-Ordinated Principle.- 8.4. Rule Egoism.- 9. Ethical Egoism and Rationality.- 9.1. The Received Conception of Rational Action.- 9.2. The Argument from Rationality.- 9.3. Gauthier’s Proposal.- 9.4. My Proposal.- IV A Last Resort.- 10. Collective Egoism.- 10.1. The Collectivistic Conception of Morality.- 10.2. Game Theory and the Interpretation of Collective Egoism.- 10.3. A Tentative Interpretation of Collective Egoism.- 10.4. Ethical Egoism and Metaphysical Individualism.- 10.5. Concluding Remarks.- Notes.- Index (names and subjects).