Egoism and Altruism

Henry Sidgwick

If an egoist takes his own happiness as the ultimate end, there is very little that can persuade him of universalistic hedonism - but if he accepts that his own happiness is important, then universal happiness is an objective good in the same sense

Definitions

Egoism: (Rachels) 'we have no duties to other people and each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively'

Altruism: we have a duty to act in the interests of others, as well as ourselves - our actions are valued by how much they help others

Rachels: 'If a certain action would benefit or harm other people, then that is a reason why we should (or should not) perform that action'

Difficulties with altruism

How to decide what is duty and what goes beyond duty

Relevance to Mill

There seems to be a gap between Mill's suggestion that the happiness is desirable for the individual and his conclusion that we should seek to maximises the greatest happiness for the greatest number

Crisp: 'the gap between egoistic hedonism and universalistic hedonism is vast and Mill appears to be trying to leap it in one bound'

Mill fails to provide an argument for impartiality - he assumes that the reader is altruistic enough to not act out of self-interest alone

Prescriptive, ethical egoism which suggests that moral agents are a means to their own happiness and they have no duty to care about the happiness of others - recommends selfish action

Some claim that we cannot be happy without making others happy

Psychological egoism - human beings have a tendency to only act in their own interest

Some forms of egoism do not actively prescribe harming others, but the value in an action is that it helps us, not others

Self-defeating - some claim that it is arrogant to believe we know what's best for others

Criticism: Altruistic behaviour encourages people to be self-reliant on the kindness of others

Altruist would respond that the critics are misinterpreting altruism - nothing here is said in favour of egoism, so it is not a strong criticism

It is inherently un-egoistic to claim that we should act in a certain way for the benefit of society, so the egoistic is unable to appeal to egoism, but only the negative appeal of altruism

Altruists must not value their own lives enough to act out of self-interest

Response: it is not the same to act purely out of self-interest (like the egoist advocates) and to act partially out of self-interest and partially in the interest of others

Difficulties with egoism

It eradicates the reality of those who are suffering

Egoism is self-contradictory: when conflicting duties arise, egoism is not universalisable

Ignores the principle of equal treatment, which is a widely accepted moral principle

Many say Mill was not an egoist because his theory at its root wants people to maximise the happiness of others - but are they doing that because they think that will maximise their happiness?

According to Parfit, future lives have value, so killing the entire human race is significantly worse than killing 99.9%

Mill assumes the reader is moral, and therefore has sufficient interest in the welfare of others - Williams shows that the amoralist is rare

Mill assumes that we are impartial between our happiness and the happiness of others - this assumption is problematic in general and particularly as it has altruistic assumptions

Mill's psychological egoism classes with his advocation of universal hedonism - Mill responds that those we recognise the validity of utilitarianism, can only be made happy through the maximisation of general welfare

Nagel: we should care about our future selves, and because our future selves depend on the wellbeing of others, that's why we should care about the general welfare

You could summarise: while we don't have enough reason to exclusively pursue the general happiness at the expense of our own, we do have reason to increase our pursuit of the general happiness

The solider example: soldier throws himself on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers - he is not acting egoistically, so Mill's claim of psychological hedonism does not make sense in every case -

In Mill's ideal society there would be no gap between my own good and the overall welfare - utilitarian duty would also be in my own interests - Mill's response to the soldier example might be that they are not acting out of desire, but will engendered from habit