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Topic: Psychological egoism

Related Topics

Egoism

Altruist

Psychological hedonism

Ethical egoism

Altruism

Psychological operations

Hedonism

Thought experiment

Social psychology

Qualitative psychological research

First homotopy group

Moritz Schlick

BBC TV

Paradox of hedonism

Utilitarian ethics

	Egoism (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Psychological egoists may then attempt to question the ultimate motive of acting benevolently towards others; they may retort that seemingly altruistic behavior necessarily has a self-interested component, that if the individual were not to offer aid to a stranger, he or she may feel guilty or may look bad in front of a peer group.
		Finally, even if psychological egoism were true, there are a sufficient number of dispositions to generate a wide possibility of moral actions, allowing one person to be called vicious and another humane, and the latter is to be preferred over the former.
		To conclude, whilst psychological egoism is fraught with the logical problem of collapsing to a closed theory and hence being one assumption that could validly be accepted as describing human motivation and morality, normative egoist theories engage in a philosophically more intriguing dialogue with protractors.
	www.uct.kiev.ua /~sofi/arts/egoism.htm (2164 words)

	Psychological egoism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
		Psychological egoistic hedonism - perhaps the commonest version of psychological egoism - claims that the ultimate motive for all voluntary human action is the desire for pleasure or the aversion to pain.
		Psychological egoism is controversial, since many see it as an over-simplified interpretation of behavior, and it cannot rule out altruism without being contradicted by evidence.
		Psychological egoists argue that although actions might not effectively cause pleasure or avoidance of pain, one's contemplated or reactionary expectation of this is the sole factor of the decision.
	en.wikipedia.org /wiki/Psychological_egoism (525 words)

	Egoism [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]
		If psychological egoism is reduced to an assumption concerning human nature and its hidden motives, then it follows that it is just as valid to hold a competing theory of human motivation such as psychological altruism.
		A weak version of psychological egoism accepts the possibility of altruistic or benevolent behavior, but maintains that, whenever a choice is made by an agent to act, the action is by definition one that the agent wants to do at that point.
		Opponents of ethical egoism may claim, however, that although it is possible for this Robinson Crusoe type creature to lament previous choices as not conducive to self-interest (enjoying the pleasures of swimming all day, and not spending necessary time producing food), the mistake is not a moral mistake but a mistake of identifying self-interest.
	www.utm.edu /research/iep/e/egoism.htm (4051 words)

	On Philosophy: Are all people egoistic? [Page 1 of 4]
		Psychological Egoism is a theory which has its roots in ancient Greece, has had many philosophers such as Hobbes subscribe to it, and has now to a certain extent permeated into the consciousness of society.
		Psychological Egoism is a descriptive theory: it makes the claim that the aim of each and every person's action is the maximisation of their own welfare: all humans are purely self-interested.
		Psychological hedonism, that is, the theory that the end of all human action is the agent's own happiness or pleasure, is a form of psychological egoism, and has also been a popular claim, most notably among classical utilitarians such as Bentham or Mill.
	onphilosophy.co.uk /psychological_egoism.html (348 words)

	Egoism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		Psychological egoism, the most famous descriptive position, claims that each person has but one ultimate aim: her own welfare.
		Predominant egoism is not troubled by the soldier counter-example, since it allows exceptions; it is not trivial; and it is empirically plausible.
		Since psychological egoism seems false, it may be rational for me to make an uncompensated sacrifice for the sake of others, for this may be what, on balance, best satisfies my (strong, non-self-interested) preferences.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/egoism (4297 words)

	Sarah Bryant :: Compassionate Medicine
		Psychological egoism, a descriptive claim about human nature, states that humans by nature are motivated only by self-interest.
		In relation to psychological egoism, ethical egoism is the view that one always ought to be motivated by self-interst (Pojman 90).
		However, he argues that it depends too much on psychological egoism because it assumes that one cannot do any better than be an egoist and therefore one should be as enlightened about his or her egoism as possible (Pojman 94).
	www.stolaf.edu /depts/cis/wp/bryant/philo252-egoism.htm (1857 words)

	Psychological Egoism
		Abstract: Psychological egoism, the view that people act solely in their own interest, is defined and shown not to be a meaningful ethical philosophy.
		Psychological egoism as an empirical theory commits the fallacy of hasty generalization or converse accident.
		The psychological egoist would say the action can be said to be in the interest of the soldier because he could not live with himself if he did sacrifice his own life or he did so because he would go out as a hero and so forth.
	philosophy.lander.edu /ethics/egoism.html (1410 words)

	The Truth in Psychological Egosim
		Consequently, if psychological egoism is understood in the first way, as saying people always act to promote their interests, it is true, but uninteresting.
		Egoism must thus be understood as making the stronger claim: that people always choose that action they think will promote their self-interest better than any known available option.
		The embedded insight in psychological egoism is this: a person will continually engage in an activity only if it has the effect of satisfying what she perceives to be in her self-interest.
	www.stpt.usf.edu /hhl/papers/egoism.htm (5307 words)

	Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism
		Psychological egoism is the claim that people always act selfishly, to foster their own self-interest or happiness.
		Psychological hedonism is the claim that people always act to attain their own pleasure and avoid pain.
		The premise of the argument (psychological egoism or hedonism) is highly questionable, for the reasons given in the first part of this handout.
	instruct.westvalley.edu /lafave/Egoism.html (2110 words)

	[No title]
		Abstract: Psychological egoism, the view that people act in their own interest, is defined and refuted as being a meaningful ethical philosophy.
		Psychological egoism is the empirical doctrine that the determining motive of every voluntary action is a desire for one own welfare.
		The Refutation of Psychological Egoism: The generalization that everyone acts from the motive of self-interest is false.
	www.animalliberationfront.com /Philosophy/egotism.htm (1133 words)

	Photo Matt » Psychological Egoism
		Psychological Egoism is a descriptive theory that rather than suggesting, as ethical or rational egoism does, how people ought to live, suggests how people actually go about their lives.
		Psychological egoism is a particularly persuasive theory because at its core it is impossible to empirically prove it wrong.
		At most psychological egoism could allow you to describe your own motivation for every action, but it would be shallow to try and reduce the incredible breadth of human motivation down to one for the sake of the simplicity in an inherently flawed theory.
	photomatt.net /2003/04/10/psychological-egoism (1078 words)

	[No title]
		Psychological egoism goes a bit to far in its claim that self-interest is the only motive behind human actions.
		I reply that, “I am still lecturing on psychological egoism; the moves are to bring our discussion back to the topic.” You think, “Hmmm.” Later at lunch, I have a large mouthful of meatloaf and am gulping water to get the stuff down.
		Even though psychological egoism looks to be false, that doesn’t mean that most motives persons have aren’t those of self-interest.
	www.geocities.com /Athens/Delphi/2517/chap6b.html (1198 words)

	Egoism: Objectives and Readings
		Psychological egoism is the claim that while people can be forced to act unselfishly, all voluntary acts are motivated by selfishness.
		Note that psychological egoism is a controversial claim of descriptive ethics: i.e., psychological egoism is a supposed "fact" about human psychology.
		Psychological egoism is supposed to be an empirical, informative claim.
	instruct.westvalley.edu /lafave/egoism_obj.html (357 words)

	(Type a title for your page here)
		I suspect that a Psychological Egoist might be tempted to say that the intending medical missionary found the experience of imagining the suflferings of the lepers intensely unpleasant, and that his primary motive for deciding to spend his life working among them was to get rid of this unpleasant experience.
		If Psychological Hedonism, or any other monistic theory of motives had been true, we should have had to begin the study of Ethics by recognizing that most moral judgments which we pass on ourselves or on others are made under a profound misapprehension of the psychological facts and are largely vitiated thereby.
		And on the hypothesis of Psychological Hedonism, it is psychologically impossible for anyone ultimately to desire anything except to prolong or acquire experiences which he knows or expects to be pleasant and to cut short or avoid experiences which he knows or expects to be unpleasant.
	www.ditext.com /broad/ethm.html (5115 words)

	24.00: Egoism (lecture notes F01) (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Psychological egoism: all human actions are motivated by selfish desires; the only thing ultimately driving human action is self-interest.
		Ethical egoism (more explicit version): A person ought to do (and ought only to do) what is in his or her best interests over the long run; and whether or not something is in one's best interests over the long run is what makes it the morally right or wrong thing for one to do.
		On this approach ethical egoism is not a challenge to commonsense morality, but an attempted explanation and systematization of it.
	www.mit.edu /~shaslang/2400-01/egoism01.html (1378 words)

	Lecture 4—Egoism
		Varieties of Egoism: For our purposes, we will be concerned with five forms of egoism: common-sense egoism, psychological egoism, practical egoism, rational egoism, and ethical egoism.
		But then ethical egoism cannot be sound, for it precludes the interpersonally authoritative regulation of interpersonal conflicts of interest, since such a regulation implies that conduct contrary to one’s interest is sometimes morally required of one, and conduct in one’s best interest is sometimes morally forbidden to one.
		Thus, ethical egoism is incompatible with ethical conflict-regulation.
	www.angelfire.com /ab3/freewill/CMILecture4.htm (868 words)

	Psychological egoism - Wikipedia (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Psychological egoism is the view that we are always motivated by self-interest, even in seeming acts of altruism.
		Psychological egoism should be contrasted well with ethical egoism, which is the view that we always ought to be motivated by self-interest.
		Max Stirner is known for holding this view of the human psyche.
	wikipedia.findthelinks.com /ps/Psychological_egoism.html (69 words)

	Egoism
		First is psychological egoism: the theory that people are fundamentally selfish or self-interested, so that people always do whatever they most want to do in the circumstances.
		Therefore, psychological egoism seems to be an unreasonable and unjustified assumption unless we define self-interest as whatever motivates all actions.
		Psychological reasons: if psychological egoism is true then there seems to be no point in supporting any ethical theory other than ethical egoism.
	academics.vmi.edu /psy_dr/egoism.htm (650 words)

	Egoism - Enpsychlopedia
		psychological egoism - the doctrine that holds that individuals are always motivated by self-interest
		rational egoism - the belief that it is rational to act in one's self-interest
		Egoism may also imply or may be fundamental to any number of related concepts, such as:
	www.enpsychlopedia.com /psypsych/Egoism (332 words)

	Thomas Hobbes and the Psychological Egoist Motif - Shandon L. Guthrie
		He truly does not deny the label of "psychological egoist" to Thomas Hobbes and is quite sure that this is a proper understanding of the Hobbesian moral system that all of his subsequent political ideas are predicated on.
		That is, although Hobbes admits the presence of psychological egoism in the context of the sinister state of nature, it is not clear that such an egoism is preferable as a meta-ethical belief.
		However, if psychological egoism is rooted in human nature, and human nature is unalterable, then it follows that psychological egoism is not a chosen moral system by human beings.
	sguthrie.net /hobbes.htm (3462 words)

	[No title]
		The first two arguments are a priori, and seek to establish that we are selfish simply on the basis of a consideration of the nature of action and motivation.
		The denial of Psychological egoism is thus not the doctrine that we are all, always and everywhere, motivated by the desire to help others.
		If the psychological egoist opens himself up for falsification, then the examples of unselfish behavior abound and the theory will be shown to be false.
	spot.colorado.edu /~oddie/psyego.html (2536 words)

	Psychological Egoism
		The decisive arguments against this view (it’s called psychological egoism) were developed by Joseph Butler and published over two and a half centuries ago (1726!).
		I’ll add that it’s just as much of a problem for the psychological egoist to admit that people act in ways that may be consistent with their long-range happiness, but not for the sake of their long-range happiness.
		If the psychological egoist isn’t going to admit that he has just been refuted by empirical evidence, he has two options: (1) He can adopt a very broad notion of “self-interest” –; one that makes his thesis amount to little more than that people do what they do because they want to.
	personal.bgsu.edu /~roberth/psygo.html (876 words)

	Egoism (Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-14)
		Egoism is a teleological theory of ethics that sets as its goal the benefit, pleasure, or greatest good of the oneself alone.
		Perhaps the psychological egoist fails to distinguish the beneficial consequences of an action from the self-interested motivation.
		If ethical egoism is true, that appears to imply that psychological egoism is false: there would be no point to saying that we ought to do what we must do by nature.
	webs.wofford.edu /kaycd/ethics/egoism.htm (602 words)

	Psychological Egoism
		Psychological egoism is the view that people are always selfish.
		Like psychoanalysis, psychological egoism makes no genuine claims and can never be refuted.
		Since egoism is an a priori claim, as we have seen, it supposes that in every case such a story will be not just available but justified by the evidence.
	allfreeessays.com /student/Psychological_Egoism.html (578 words)

	Strange Loops - Egoism and the Experience Machine
		That's the question that psychological egoism attempts to answer, stating basically that in any situation a person will always choose whichever action they perceive to be in their best interest (an ethical egoist, on the other hand, would claim not that everyone always acts this way, but that people should act this way).
		The egoist might claim that the monk is spending his life helping the poor in order to receive happiness or avoid pain in the afterlife, or to become respected by his fellow monks and perhaps be granted the sainthood he dreams of.
		The people who put forth this thought experiment say that if psychological egoism is the case, and all people always seek to maximize their own happiness, then every person should be willing to hook up to this flawless machine.
	www.strange-loops.com /philegoism.html (1523 words)

	Spinoza's Psychological Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
		The best recent general discussions of psychological egoism come in the context of the interpretation of Hobbes, to whom Spinoza is sometimes compared.
		Perhaps the psychological view that Spinoza introduces at IIIp28 is susceptible to the sort of objection which one might raise against psychological hedonism, the view that human beings only desire pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and what is instrumental to these things.
		Spinoza's predominant egoism, together with some of his still stronger statements of psychological egoism such as that at I Appendix, suggest that individuals are not, or are not often, altruistic.
	plato.stanford.edu /entries/spinoza-psychological (7710 words)

	Re: Is it psychological egoism?
		Egoism is not the view that >everyone always seeks his own good, a view which is trivially true (and >un>derlies Socrates' reasoning).
		Any judgement on psy egoism which nefariously failes to include the ultra-sophisticated and equisitely argued discourse of Ayn Rand cannot but fail to be disapproved by the approved cognoscenti.
		But if that is > > the case, then if the first statement is psychological egoism, is there some > > psychological -ism term for the second statement as well.
	www.uni-heidelberg.de /subject/hd/fak7/hist/o1/logs/sophia/log.started940910/mail-19.html (441 words)

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