Psychological Egoism

Should we believe that psychological egoism is true? Discuss what you take to be James Rachels’ best argument against the plausibility of psychological egoism and whether or not it is successful in refuting psychological egoism.

Intro

According to psychological egoism, all people are motivated by their own self-interest. Certainly, according to Plato’s story of Glaucon, all individuals are selfish and are motivated by only self-interest. However, James Rachels in “Egoism and Moral Scepticism,” argues that it is not true that selfishness motivates human behavior because humans are far more complex creatures that have a variety of motivations, and the world is more than just simplistic black and white. Rachels refutes Thomas Hobbes’s belief that humans selfishly act only to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Although there is always evidence that seems to suggest that psychological egoism is true, Rachels is correct in denying this theory for a number of reasons.

Psychological egoist would argue that everything people do is basically what they most want to do. Actions are all motivated by some inner desire weather selfish or unselfish. Yet, Rachels strongly argues against this proposition because he states that there are times when people clearly act against their own desires, meaning that we sometimes act against our own wishes and desires and we do things because we feel we should. More specifically, Rachel claims that we perform actions “…which we may not want to do, but which we do anyway as a means to an end which we want to achieve;” (pg76) or because “we feel ourselves under an obligation to do them” (pg76). For example when we go see a doctor for to cure our disease is something what we want to do an action against desire. To illustrate, when one promises another to help her work on her final project but on the same day she has a partyto attend. However, helping her friend is a feel of an obligation but on the further end is the fact that she still wants to help her rather than going to a party and that causes her actions as being unselfish.