What is psychological egoism and what implications would its truth have for our understanding of morality? Most importantly, is psychological egoism true? What are the main arguments for and against its being true, and which of these arguments are most persuasive?
Psychological egoism is a theory discussed a lot among philosophers and psychologists, which represents the opinion that humans are all self-centered and only live for their own happiness and benefits, even altruism is a self-deception. In this essay, I will discuss whether psychological egoism is true and the implications exerted on morality by the truth of psychological egoism. On an individual level, for now I do not support the argument that psychological egoism is true.
In terms of the influence caused psychological egoism to morality, there are two major points I want to mention. Firstly, morality builds the fundament of a harmonious society and provides standard of rightness and wrongness. However, if we admit psychological egoism is true, then the righteous behaviors of people cannot be explained by morality any more. There is an argument in article Psychological Egoism and Human Nature by Joel Feinberg stating, “People in general have been inclined to behave well only when it is made plain to them that there is ‘something in it for them’.”, which leads morality to be a shame. If we hate someone and we will not receive any punishments for killing him, will we choose to kill him or not? Psychological egoism says people obey the law and do right things is not because they know it is right, but they are afraid of being punished and cannot get rid of the result with doing wrong things.
Furthermore, psychological egoism also challenges the idea of altruism. Altruism is a voluntary behavior motivated by the desire to help people who need help, but psychological egoism states all the motivations of people are because they want to get benefit and pleasure for themselves. Consequently, people do the voluntary blood donation is because they want to be virtuous and praise by others. By psychological egoism, people treat themselves as an individual, which opposites the idea in morality, that we should act with unity and make distributions for our society. Altruism becomes a self-deception behavior that people please themselves.
Now, let’s discuss several arguments that for psychological egoism being true. As mentioned before, we have right behaviors and make correct judgements may only because we are afraid of punishment which can relate to the moral education we received when we are young. In schools, there are a lot of teachers using rewards to motivate students and giving punishments to teach students what is wrongness. It is human nature to pursue enticing rewards and avoid fearful punishments. However, does this really support that psychological egoism is true? The cultivation of morality not only depends on what kind of education we received but also depend on our rational knowledge of proper behavior and how we practice in really. In recent news, a man killed his 11-year-old daughter on her birthday. This offender must also receive some education like any other else, but why he still committed a crime? If it is true that punishments make people to do right things, then the offender should be timidity to commit a crime. Therefore, it is not solid to support the existence of psychological egoism by using what Bentham calls the ‘sanctions of pleasure and pain’.
Besides, an argument support the existence of psychological egoism in article Psychological Egoism and Human Nature by Joel Feinberg says, “’I am always pursuing something for myself or seeking my own satisfaction.’ Here is what seems like a proper description of a man acting selfishly, and if the description applies to all men, then it follows that all men in all their actions are selfish.” No one will deny that we live for ourselves and prefer to get pleasure and welfare as a return which is seen as a direct support for psychological egoism. However, think about the following example, workers protest the government for the low wage and overwhelming work. These people protest since they want to get more benefit for themselves, does it mean they are selfish? Should they work free for companies so that they can be ‘selfless’ people? I think that there is a logic confusion for this argument. We acknowledge that our motivations are followed by our desire, but it cannot lead to a conclusion that all of us are selfish. Motivation can only explain the voluntary of our behavior, we cannot assimilate it with selfishness.
Then, you may ask how we can explain the behavior that we pursue our own happiness. If there is only one student in the class can get ‘A’ in the final, then we must hope ourselves get that ‘A’ instead of hoping our friends get a higher mark than us. However, this can be explained by self-preservation and instinct of survival in biology. Not only people but also all the organism on the Earth have the instinct of survival. There are limited opportunities and resources in the society, and we know how the failure, pain taste, and understand the truth of survival of the fittest, that’s the reason why we desire to do better and achieve more than other individuals. In fact, people’s sense of competition and the pursuit of happiness and success are different from selfishness. A selfish personality will not help others as long as they think they cannot receive benefits as a return. Take a look at the previous example again, we do not want our friend to get the only one ‘A’, is it because we cannot receive any benefit from it? Probably not, it is caused by our competitiveness, the thought that we try to get stronger and get survive in the university and the society.
Finally, psychological egoism says people want to do something since they know they will get happiness after doing it, which is lack of strong evidence. We can hardly know that doing it will make ourselves pleased before we really do it. Take newborn baby as an example, when the first time they get in touch the world, they do not even know what is happiness. They get happiness during the process of exploring the world. Before hugging by their mothers, they do not know that will make them feel safe and happy. Similarly, we have not tried for a lot of things and before doing it we are not sure whether it will bright us happiness or not. In addition, even things that we have done before, they may not always give us the same result and the same level of happiness. I like the cheeseburger in McDonald’s, and if I eat it for 50 times then the satisfaction I get may be lower than the first I eat it. Generally, people always receive pleasure as a result of doing something, but not knowing it will give pleasure then going to do it in purpose.
In conclusion, the existence of psychological egoism is a thoughtful topic supported by many people, but I think the main arguments for its being true are lack of strong evidence and logic. Psychological egoism is an excessive theory that saying people are 100% selfish which requires more detailed arguments in the future.
