Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism

I actually think this is an interesting theory, and I've had a hard time thinking of a counter-example. Evolutionary psychology should predict that most deeds would be selfish, seeing that the reason that they evolved would be that it furthers the possibility of passing on one's genes.If I help someone, I know that it makes the other person happy, but that in turn makes me happy, so if you think about it, I'm only doing the act to make myself happy.

Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying it's bad to do good deeds simply because they're all in all selfish. I think that it's interesting to think about though.As to what you're saying, I doubt you would be doing a good deed if it made you miserable. The motivation for doing most good acts is the very fact that it makes you feel good doing it, for one reason or another. Either because you're trying to impress your friends (which is not a good reason to do a good deed) or because it gives you intrinsic pleasure to do so. Even if doing the good deed somehow resulted in some negative stimulus to yourself, the overall result is pleasure, otherwise you wouldn't be doing it. The example that you give, Stile, is a completely different situation than performing a good deed, and can't be used as an analogy. The sun shining on your wedding day would have been completely out of your control, and so your resulting happiness would have obviously been coincidental. But the happiness resulting from doing a good deed is not accidental, because you didn't just happen to do a good deed. You made a conscious decision, because it would give you an intrinsic reward to do so. That is why I'm entertaining the point that all good deeds are, when you get down to it, selfish. That's not to put any negative connotation on the fact, though.

What I'm saying is that you made a conscious decision to help someone because it makes you feel good. We could go around in a circle about that all day. But my point is that when you make a decision to help someone, you either say, "I have to look good to society, I'm going to help this person," (the wrong reason to do a good deed) or, "You know what, I'll feel really good about myself if I help this person out." Seeing other people happy, in turn makes you happy. In that sense, you're doing the good deed because it would make you feel good to do so. It is therefore indirectly selfish.If doing something good to others made you feel entirely miserable, you wouldn't be doing it at all.

I'm terribly sorry that I'm offending you, as I obviously am. You seem to think I'm trying to take away from the fact that doing a good deed is good, and that I'm some sort of monster who only thinks about himself and no one else.However, if you stopped and logically thought about what I'm trying to say instead of letting your emotions lead your arguments (an incredibly poor way to debate), you might come to see my point of view as being sound.As for offending me in return, when I had done nothing to intentionally offend you: well, you can probably already figure out what I think about that. That's right. You want to keep your baby clean, because a clean baby makes you feel better than a dirty baby, as well as making the baby feel better. Wouldn't you feel like a piece of shit (pardon the pun) if your baby was all soiled up? It makes you feel better, therefore, to clean him. Umm, no? That's precisely the opposite of what I'm saying. Me: You're honestly trying to tell me that you would do something that makes you completely miserable just for the hell of it, even if the outcome could only be misery?You: No! I do it because I'm helping someone! ((Yeah, I got that.)) And the outcome isn't misery for myself!There you go. In the end, it makes you feel good, EVEN IF the immediate result is displeasing, such as a stinky household. In the end, you still feel good, because your baby is clean.

Thanks for the welcome, Bluejay! But precisely the point I'm trying to make is that, even if it doesn't consciously result in happiness, it still subconsciously makes a person happy to do a good deed, and that is why they do it. I'm actually talking from an evolutionary perspective. I'm saying that if a good deed didn't present some kind of personal gain, it wouldn't be done. It is subconscious, I agree, but I fail to see how that is irrelevant.Edited by Lokins, : HTML edit.

Ok, I'll address that directly then. Yes, I'm saying that it is (albeit subconsciously, I'll use that word, because of course you don't actually tell yourself "I want to feel good about myself" upon doing a good deed) the result of feeling good that drives you to do the act. I would also like to now avoid the term "feeling good"... It's not like you get a warm and fuzzy feeling, that's not what I'm saying (although sometimes it is the case). I'm saying that it makes your environment an overall better place to be when you do a good deed, and that necessarily is your motivation for the act.The unavoidable consequence that the house will stink is not the motivation, if that were the case, that would be the equivalent of letting a stink bomb go off in your house for no apparent reason. But the unavoidable consequence of baby being clean is not only unavoidable, it is the direct result that you sought out upon doing the act, and is therefore the motivation for the act.Try not to think about what I'm saying in terms of any specific emotion. I'm talking on an evolutionary perspective here, purely logically.

I'm absolutely not claiming that suicide is a physical impossibility. People do stupid things all the time that can serve no benefit to themselves. Killing themselves is one of them. Obviously the majority of people in the world do not kill themselves, otherwise our species wouldn't be doing very well. However, that's the exception when we're talking about the rule. Actually, war is in human nature. We're built by our genes to see us as the good guys, them as the bad guys. I really hope you're not going to quote mine me on that, because THAT DOESN'T MEAN THAT WAR IS GOOD. Just because something is in our nature doesn't mean that we accept it as a good thing. Nuclear war is a result of our nature (war is also in the nature of chimps, by the way) being amplified by our use of technology. We could talk about war if you want, but I think that's getting a bit off topic.You misread my quote. I'm saying that when people do good deeds (in the traditional sense of the word) it makes our personal environment an overall better place in the long run (and I think you're now misunderstanding what I mean by "environment"). Alright, so now I'll throw out another word: this time, "selfish". If you want to think of "selfish" as meaning "consciously making a decision to something for the benefit of myself" then we have to throw that out too. But I still stand firm on the fact that we do good deeds because it gives us subconscious intrinsic gain. Not necessarily "selfish" gain in the way that you're objecting to.I hope that we can compromise on that.

There needs to be some sort of motivation for an act, otherwise a person can be deemed insane for doing it. Without some sort of motivation, saying, "I'm going to do a good deed for the hell of it," is on par with saying something like, "I think I'll go outside, spin 3 times, suck on a rock for a bit, then place it back on the ground." It simply doesn't make any sense for a person to think to do that, if there isn't any motivation. Normal, healthily-working neurons just wouldn't behave that way. There has to be a drive to do an act. I eat because I'm hungry, and eating will satiate my hunger. I watch tv because I'm bored, and it entertains me. I do a good deed because it pleases me to do so, I like to see good things happen. THAT is the drive, and THAT is the motivation. This, I suppose, is what I've been trying to say all along, and I hope I've made it clearer.Now, whether you believe in mind-body dualism is another story, but assuming that it's false, the above statement is very likely to be true.As for your analogy: I am a gay male, so I would have to strongly disagree with you on this one, but that's a topic for another forum.But about the analogy itself, one word that you said was key: "right conduct". "Right conduct" in this case means that society has placed the rule that it is generally wrong in this day and age to openly and actively express hatred towards homosexuals. You would most likely be chastised in some way, by some group of people. It can be said in this case, then, that your motivation not to express your hatred actively (I suppose you could indirectly call that a good deed...) is your desire to avoid this chastisement. In this case, avoidance of a negative result could be seen as a "personal gain" (see my above argument). It all comes down to the same thing.

Bluejay: I would like to apologize. I never go into debates with the intention of personally offending anyone, and I hope that you don't either. I let my offense to your previous statement toward homosexuals take over my thoughts, and so I jumped to the "hatred" conclusion, when I know that that is not necessarily the case. For that I'm sorry, I never meant to offend you, and I hope that your offense won't prevent you from reading my argument. You misinterpret what I was trying to say here. I was trying to say that if someone were to say "I'm going to do a good deed for the hell of it," it would be the equivalent of saying "I think I'll go outside, spin 3 times, suck on a rock for a bit, then place it back on the ground." What I'm saying is that there must be a motivation for an act. That can only necessarily be one thing: the seeking of pleasure (subconsciously). I know you think there could be multiple motivations, but I'll explain why I don't think that could be the case (getting down to the nitty gritty of things):Our brain has sensory input. That sensory input, as far as I know, can only be interpreted as "pleasure" or "pain", or "good" or "bad". This duality is fundamental. If something coming into our brains is interpreted as "good", we try to keep it that way. If something is interpreted as "bad", we try to right it, make it "good" (as interpreted by our own individual brains. In other words, avoid an aversive stimulus). Therefore if we interpret something out there as needing righting, we do a good deed, and make it "good" in our minds. The seeking of "goodness" is, and can be, the only motivation for doing an action of any sort. Our brain doesn't know of anything but itself, so it can only interpret something as bad, and try to make it good again. Decrease the amount of aversive stimuli, and/or increase the amount of appetitive stimuli.Now, considering the possibility of another motivation other than making something "bad", "good" again. This other motivation would have to be some other force out there making the neurons in our brain fire and making us do a good deed, besides pain or pleasure. I can think of no such force, which is why I've been lead to this conclusion.

You're absolutely right, I can't. That, I'm pretty sure, is a definite weak point in my argument. However, I'd be hard pressed to find a counter example. I know that that of course doesn't prove my argument to be correct, though. I just thought it was interesting to point out (all that being said haha).In any case, I'm going to pull out of this debate actively I think, unless you guys have anything more to say. I think any further talking would just be assertion, I've made all my points. It was really fun discussing this with you guys!

Bluejay: I'm glad you've responded. I was actually really worried as well that I'd made you so angry that we would end up being enemies on the forum, I certainly wouldn't have wanted that.Despite our difference of opinion on this subject, it shouldn't have any play into what we talk about on these forums, and I'm glad that we're on good terms about it. Side note, that I just wanted to say I'm grateful that you think this way. More people should.