Egoism

Egoism

Moral philosophers commonly divide egoism into two types, psychological egoism being the claim that each person has only his own welfare as his ultimate aim and ethical, also known as normative, egoism being the claim that our one moral duty is to pursue our own welfare as our only ultimate aim.

Other variants include what is sometimes called the economic theory of rationality according to which what it is rational for anyone to do is seek to maximize his utility, defined in terms of satisfaction of his own desires or preferences, with no or few claims being made about what people do or ought to desire or prefer.

A more traditional predecessor of the economic theory holds that what it is rational to seek is only the maximization of one’s own happiness, it being understood that one is happier or less unhappy according as one experiences more pleasure or less pain.

Historically related to these has been the empirical claim – a variant of political realism – that people in fact care very little and generally not at all, one way or the other, about the welfare, fortunes, or fates of others, leaving aside how their welfare, fortunes, or fates may bear on their own aims or concerns, exceptions made in some degree for friends, family, or others similarly close.

This empirical conviction has been foundational for the views of a great many moral philosophers according to whom in one way or another morality is best understood as a device for counteracting limited sympathies, aimed almost if not quite exclusively at stopping us riding roughshod over others in pursuit of our personal goals.

On the other hand, the empirical conviction does not necessitate that opinion.

And it is obviously compatible with the view that morality is an evolving complex of socially ingrained delusions enabling intimidation and coercion that has by no means always seemed most notably a device for counteracting limited sympathies but rather, in varying degrees at different times and places, a device for facilitating domination or for harnessing human sexuality to the perpetuation of human communities.

Much like religion.