Ethical Egoism

I think that I'm looking for Murray Rothbard. Has anyone read Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature or know of any good rebuttals to it? Has anyone read Rothbard? Is there a reason to also The Ethics of Liberty or will I get enough of the gist of his theory with Egalitarianism as a Revolt Against Nature?

I'm just going to go for the one book. How much time does anyone really need to spend on this?

Quoting thewonder

I tend to be of the opinion that Ethical Egoism results in an aporia of human relations where trust is rendered as an impossibility.

Which means that it is not in our self-interest to just take our own needs into account. Further, most of us are social mammals with empathy. So to varying degrees and varying due to situation, we don't like to see others suffer, we like companionship, we love some people, there is a lot of win win stuff, so someone taking their own needs into account must necessarily takes the needs and life quality of others into account. Only damaged social mammals would not.

So if the ethical egoist things that being selfish means not taking into accout the needs of others, they are damaged or dumb or both.

Though really my argument is not an arguement against ethical egoism, as long as the person realizes what being human entails and is not too damaged.

It would be an improvished life, which some do live, if they only care about themselves. A not fully human life. It is not in anyone's self-interest to lead that life.

Reply to Coben To my understanding, human beings have been proven to be somewhat naturally alturistic. Humans, at the very least, have the capacity for alturism. To me, there seems to be no reason to neglect a basic facet of the human condition whilst deciding upon how to act.

i am thinking at the moment that ethical egoism is the current state of affairs. Even if we don't realize it our social behavior has been shaped by many years of trial and error. It seems that we use others and are used by others in a systematic way that "lifts all boats" so to speak.

Reply to Franklin Crook Can such circumstances be altered?

Yes, I think so, Please forgive my slowness to respond, my typing skills are minimal. I am not sure to what circumstances you are referring. As social creatures, any anti-social behavior is inherently detrimental to the system. Paradoxically, it seems that some of the rebels have actually contributed the most, but i guess that only goes to show that the system wasn't correct.?

I guess it is as dynamic and ever changing as we are. I don't know about you but i am a different person after every book i read or experience i have.

I would concur, but, I'm an Anarcho-Pacifist, so, take that how you will. I was asking if you just saw that as the current state of affairs or the state of affairs in general. You don't seem to think that it is the case that Ethical Egoism just simply describes how things are. I don't think that it is either, but, do wonder about such things. I honestly haven't parcelled out an Ethics to offer as an alternative. Reply to Franklin Crook

Anarcho-Pacifist, I am unfamiliar, just googled, was surprised by the influences of Tolstoy and Gandhi. Not convinced of its efficaciousness though. Wouldn't having a sword in a sword fight be beneficial? It seems like you as an anarcho-pacifist are depending on the instincts of others to accomplish your ideal. I am new to this whole thinking about thinking thing so please forgive my errors.

Well, thanks for your conversation "thewonderr" I have to go (domestic duties). maybe next weekend.

Reply to Franklin Crook Sure thing, Franklin.

I started off reading Tolstoy, and, later after coming through most of the Left came back around to Anarcho-Pacifism. Richard B. Gregg has a good chapter on the effectiveness of nonviolence in The Power of Nonviolence titled "Moral Jiu-Jitsu". He states most of the advantages of nonviolence there. I don't know how right he is, but, I think that he was on to something.

I'll see you later.

Quoting Coben

Which means that it is not in our self-interest to just take our own needs into account. Further, most of us are social mammals with empathy. So to varying degrees and varying due to situation, we don't like to see others suffer, we like companionship, we love some people, there is a lot of win win stuff, so someone taking their own needs into account must necessarily takes the needs and life quality of others into account. Only damaged social mammals would not.

Yes.

Quoting thewonder

To my understanding, human beings have been proven to be somewhat naturally alturistic. Humans, at the very least, have the capacity for alturism. To me, there seems to be no reason to neglect a basic facet of the human condition whilst deciding upon how to act.

Right. I agree with that. But the point I am also making is that an ethical egoism who is not altruistic is also not egotistical. He or she is not taking care of him/herself in the full social mammalian way. So, actually there is nothing wrong with ethical egoism as long as the ethical egoism is aware of their full nature and needs. Ethical egoism then becomes a different heuristic, rather than a different set of social behaviors.

How do I figure out how to behave with other and what attitudes to have? Via what satifies my needs and desires. This might be an easier heuristic for some. Now that they are viewing it that way, they need to look at the full range of their needs nad wants which will include intimacy, being respected and liked and loved, being able to be welcomed in group activities, not experiencing hurting others unless it is absolutely necessary and so on.

It is how they come to their conclusions, not the conclusions.

Now I assume that ethical egoists probably don't reallize their full humanity, as I would view it. But in actual fact, I think, their isn't a problem as long as they check their full selves out.

An advantage is it minimizes guilt this way.

If you have a set of rules about being good to people, for itself, perhaps, say, the way Christianity has done this - the Good will seem like a not win win thing. It will seem like you should do these things because they are good, even if you would enjoy life more if you were not a good neighbor, friend, husband whatever. And guilt is a major part of most deontological and even consequentialist systems.

The ethical egoism, should they look at the full range of their needs will more fully understand that this being good to others is not (just) for others, but is good for them. They make the choice selffishly and need not feel like they are giving something up.

Reply to thewonder I am thinking, sorry i don't get much time to research, Too much work. One quick question though, do you think Gandhi would have had as much of an influence without the multitude of disenfranchised Indians?

Ethical egoism when applied to the individual in my eyes is not ethical.

Ethical egoism applied to a collective, now that to me sounds like a much better state of affairs.

Ethical egoism as a collective unified human ego seems much more appropriate as it inherently requires you to think of the needs, rights and abilities of those individuals who make up the collective. A collective that focuses on increasing its ability to meet its universal needs (food, housing, education, and healthcare) will do far better than a collective that is focused on helping a subjective elite achieve their individual goals, wants and desires. With the false hopes that the needs of the collective will trickle down from the top from the people when they meet their wants, its easy to identify who from the collective has an individual ego mindset and who has a collective mindset.

First comment since joining. Hope this comment is acceptable.

Reply to thewonder

all people become ethical egoists at particular points in there life the moment they draw a conclusion that a certain ethical practice is acceptable or unacceptable.

Boy, i seem to have gotten behind. These last few comments are to the point really. I suppose that Egoism that is Ethical would be the same as any self interest that is in one self's (and by extension one's communities) interest, but does one have to be aware of it then, or can it just be a belief or intention that one has that he or she only thinks is in their interest. I am not sure if we should't separate the objective reality that ultimately self interest is based in our social ideal with the individuals belief. Although it brings to mind the example of a soldier obeying orders that gets him killed. Are those collective interests helping him then?

Reply to Mark Dennis Reply to Mark Dennis I enjoyed your comment. As new member myself i welcome your posts and felt yours was well said and i agree in that a collective that Ethically Egoist would be a much better state of affairs. However, i am not sure that has much chance with our as humans strong individuality and general stupidity. Hope to hear from you again.

Reply to thewonder Hey, i was able to read a little of Richard B Gregg article on The Power of Nonviolence and my immediate impression was that their prohibition on violence coincided with their inability to effect change with it. I mean, the few examples i read were examples of peoples who were the weakest and really couldn't do more than the walkouts or refusals and whatnot. My question is; wouldn't doing all those things and also being willing to violently defend or even attack been more effective? I seem to think that compared to the history of violence involved revolts the examples of truly effective non-violent ones are few.

Reply to thewonder I downloaded that article you mentioned and am giving it a bit more attention. The Moral jiu-jitsu is interesting. I hope to have an opinion on it in a few days. Till then

Reply to Franklin Crook Thank you for your comment. You made an excellent point about human individuality and stupidity.

Do you think it would be accurate to say that there is an observable individual ego, national ego and a unified collective ego of humanity?

So for example, the individual ego: Look at the amazing things I’VE done!
National ego: Look at the amazing things OUR COUNTRY has done!
Unified Ego: Look at the amazing things OUR SPECIES has done.

If we accept the existence of a dialogical self, then is the agent of the individual ego the same agent as the collective egos of national and unified? I’d say not, for a human can love themselves but be resentful, indifferent or hateful of their country.

To moderators: Once these questions are answered we will get back to the topic at hand. I believe these points to be relevant but defer to yourselves.

Reply to Mark Dennis Well, I think it is all the same aspect on our evolutionarily adapted instincts. Some more than others. As in the expression of beneficial traits may be expressed more strongly in some lines but not yet in other lines due to other supports of propagation. However, wouldn't a best case scenario be an individual who recognizes each for itself. Let me rethink here>>> I am not sure that a single person couldn't have all three of those egos at different times, even if they were to logically conflict. Think of the partisan supporter at a rally of the winning candidate extolling the supposed virtues of the country yet denouncing that same country the next october.

Perhaps it is a matter of need and perceived threat only. I am sorry to say that i have a rather pessimistic view on humanity in general.

Sorry to drag along in my thoughts. As far as a unified species ego, I think that might be hard to define. I mean, we have had the cinematic scenarios that depict us as a species rising up against the existential threat from the Others, but i can't think of anything real where that has come into play despite the many things that i think should be addressed as a species. I can see the idea passed along in grade school that you might be referring to, (look how far we have come, from rocks to space and all that.) I guess we as humans have learned to want to belong to some group. And the importance of thats groups exclusivity is a whole other subject.

Sir, I see that we are on different levels here. I am fascinated by some of your terminology, specifically the "dialogical self," I feel i must do some research before i can offer anything of value. Please excuse me while i upload. Thank You

Reply to Mark Dennis Well, thank you for that journey into psychology. As your question, "If we accept the existence of a dialogical self, then is the agent of the individual ego the same agent as the collective egos of national and unified? " Well, I would say yes, not only is there the question of what other agent would it or could it be, but to "if we accept the existence of the diological self," from what i was able to quickly glean from Wikipedia the dialogical self included extensions of ones self ((extension=modes,) am I equating that right?) capable of holding a multiplicity of viewpoints. Do you think i am reading this right. All in all, I still think that yes a human can hold multiple, and even logically contradictory viewpoints at the same time.

Reply to Franklin Crook No problem what so ever. It's refreshing that you're researching. I'll message you some more material on Philosophy of Mind. Suffice it to say, that at one point psychology was once a branch of philosophy before it started to stand out as it's own field. Most decent philosophical writing on Philosophy of mind comes with an understanding of psychology.

I'd say that Wikipedia has some confusing language on this subject so while you are understanding it, do some more research on it to get the correct terminology, I'll message you more on this too.

Now, back to how this relates to ethical egoism as I don't want to veer anymore from OPs question here.
I know we are getting into the risky realms of prescriptive analytical philosophy. Which means I'm probably imagining an ideal world where everything goes right in order to believe this is conceivable. There is a probability(albeit low) that if education were structured in a certain way and really was equally accessible to all, we could theoretically shift focus onto the collective ego by recognising that a collective ego does acknowledge the individual. If I acknowledge that I have a duty toward the collective I am a part of (humanity), I can be aware of what that truly means. So that means I am here for everyone, however I am a part of everyone and must include myself in that group. I must also recognise that as a human I am capable of being a driving or contributing force toward the ideal goals of the collective, because humans are capable of doing this. Which means any self advancement must be in service of this, no more making millions as the goal itself, you make millions to effectively and ethically redistribute in a way that contributes towards meeting the needs of the collective. I must also recognise that I am not the only contribution to my own advancement as I will have advanced because of aid from within the collective. Family, friends, government, school, employer, church, god etc.

This shouldn't be confused with putting humanity at the center of everything either, but that's for a different discussion. I can tell you the ultimate form of ethical egoism, but it's extremely unlikely to ever happen.

Oh, as a little side fun fact, the change where psychology became it's own field is so relatively recent that the Boston Public Library hasn't sorted their collection to reflect this. One second you'll be on the philosophy aisle, you go into the next one and there is the logic section, then two whole shelves of psychology, going onto self help, and then ethics. I kind of like it this way though, feels like a joke about the emotional nature of ethics and how it can sometimes be so far removed from logic hahaha!

I think i must disagree with a lot of the previous statement. It seems like you are describing an ant colony. Currently, we seem to tolerate the rebels and defective. How would they fit into the collective ego? I seem to remember the rebels as being one of the greatest influences of our history. I am concerned that your idea of "if education were structured in a certain way and really was equally accessible to all, we could theoretically shift focus onto the collective ego by recognizing that a collective ego does acknowledge the individual." tends to fascism.

Reply to Franklin Crook Depends, what do you mean by defective and what do you mean by rebels?

I can see why you observe the ant colony thing, however I think we shouldn't mistake having a unified ego as having a unified controlling hive mind as ants do. Whether or not ants even have an ego is beyond our ken.

Lets bring it down a notch from a unified collective ego and just describe an ethical national egoism.
Now, how familiar are you with the writings of MLK jr? "I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law."
Here we have an insight on two different interpretations of the law and how they relate to ethics. First, we have those who hold true the Rule of the Law. By this interpretation, all laws are ethical and to be followed without question. Then we have those who hold true to the Spirit of the Law. This interpretation comes with the belief (which is generally agreed upon in moral philosophy) That which is legal, is not always ethical, and that which is illegal, is not always unethical. So, even rebels can be deemed as moral agents. Without bad, how do you know what good is? Three examples: Rosa Parks illegally refusing to give up her seat for a white man. Was this wrong? Modern example: Man with a chronic illness self medicating with marijuana in a country it is illegal. Is this wrong? Timeless example: A family illegally emigrating to a country to escape war/violence/famine/prejudice and/or persecution. Is this wrong?

Are all criminals, merely that.. criminals? Or are some people moral agents who hold to the spirit of the law and wish to be part of the process for molding and shaping it into something a little bit better? I see moral philosophy as a collaborative effort. We are all molding the field of moral philosophy as we go and we are the models we are observing when we are deliberating on whether or not an action is wrong or not. From the seemingly virtuous person who may give us an insight on what it means to be good, to the morally despicable person who may give us an insight on what it means to be bad.

Now going back to the dialogical self, we also can view ourselves as having internal agents. A theme you will find in TV and Cinema is the Angel and Devil on your shoulder. This kind of simply describes how agents of a dialogical self interact within. Your inner monologue, can be interpreted as different agents of self, some of which have conflicting goals. For example, when a person goes skydiving it is not uncommon for a lot of internal conflict on the way up. Fear and survival instincts telling you to by no means jump out of a moving airplane and your need for thrill, adventure and excitement spurring you on, telling you to just jump. Finally the agent of rationality settles the dispute by reminding the decisive you that you are wearing two parachutes and are with professionals to help keep you safe.

Rounding back to OPs question. If these three different agents I've described, the individual ego, the national ego and the unified human ego are truly identifiable and we as humans have the ability to improve ourselves and contribute towards the collective, (which must also treat us with respect and allow for equal opportunity for all within a democratic society, without sacrificing people for the sake of a fictional higher class. So not fascism, never that) Then I still believe that ethical egoism when applied to the collective ego and even the national ego (so long as your nation doesn't achieve this by needlessly warring or enslaving other countries and peoples and seeks to cultivate outward friendship with other nations in service of the collective ego) can truly be ethical.

However, this is in an ideal world where people can agree on how to ground ethics in the first place.

I am astounded and offended at the same time. At one point i am intrigued with your connections, yet next offended with your professorial tone. I (we) know nothing about you sir. I am intrigued non the less. And to your point of Martin Luther King Jr. I don't believe he had a choice as to his punishment yet took what he was given. What prisoner is given an option for imprisonment or not? A Pope Maybe? What other options did he have? I don't mean to lessen the man or what he stood for, on the contrary, He helped changed the Law. The Law (social dynamic) is our creation and should always be something to be proud of maybe. If at least better than before, right. I am kind'of the mind that maybe we should be looking mor to the future of some kind of post-humanism where these values that we hold as humans now aren't so applicable. This Truth we hold so precious will change.

You give too much sir at one time. Parse it out please.

Reply to Franklin Crook We all have choices in every situation. MLK Jr wasnt mainly talking about himself and his own situation but of a situation shared by many of his colour at the time. I'm merely observing his sentiment as still applicable.

I apologise if I have offended you in some way. It's not my intent at all this is just how I write. I want to give as high quality and substantive answers because that is what is required to do philosophy well and I try and aspire to that in my answers. I have told you directly about myself, Aspergers and a 10 year self directed student of philosophy, psychology, mathematics, physics, ethics and logic.

I just want the discussions to keep going. Not here to do competitive debating. Id rather listen learn and share when I get the urge to and hope that I might make some valuable points.

Is where or who an argument comes from that much more than the arguments themselves?

Perhaps you are right sir. It may be my own inadequacies that are offensive to me. I agree that your points are substantive and high quality and i can't help but promote that in a discussion of philosophy. This environment is new to me. I have spent a majority of my life with only the comfort of books while the only human interaction was with those who may have read only one or considered them weapons.
It seems i am far behind, yet i will not let that deter me. Excuse me please if i get testy sometimes.
As to your last point to "Is where or who an argument comes from that much more than the arguments themselves?" well no, i think an argument stands for itself. Which kind of makes me ashamed for my previous comments about your professorial tone. I recall listening to a podcast, i believe was "Making Sense" not too long ago and the podcaster spent a long time defending his decision of interviewing a person of which had racist beliefs. The interview wasn't on those topics and the subject was relevant, yet he (the Podcaster) was vilified by VOX for giving a platform for this ideologue So in actuality, perhaps the messenger (or perception of the messenger) does matter if the point of communication is to get ones view across to the most.

Reply to Franklin Crook You dont need to be so humble my friend, you're asking what I percieve to be great questions and are a great person to have these discussions with.

You aren't inadequate, you're curious, realistic and healthily skeptical! All great traits to have.

Just so you are aware, I find tone is something that doesn't translate well via writing (Cohens preface to logic points to the subtleties in verbal language as being much a part of it as the written word, body language, inflection and so forth.) and I assure you my tone when discussing philosophy with you is only intended to be one of friendliness, patience and authentic passion for the discussion.

Sorry OP for getting so off topic! Hopefully you find our discussion valuable toward the subject. Relational meanings are a very difficult thing to argue for.

Reply to Franklin Crook
I can't remember why I brought up The Power of Nonviolence. That doesn't really have too much to do with what I'm on about.

Reply to Mark Dennis I don't actually agree that emotionality is problematic for Ethics. I think that the problem is just sensationalism. What is felt is the natural response to whatever Ethics there are.

Also, I think that the philosopher that I'm looking for is Thomas Hobbes. Assumedly, I should read Leviathan. Does anyone know where Hobbes parcels out an ethic, or of theories of Ethics that stem from Hobbes. I feel like there is an antithetical methodology to my general sentiments out there somewhere, but, as I do, admittedly, tend to keep to my own circles, I'm not entirely sure where to look.