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Egoism and Moral Scepticism
James Rachel
Quote
“No one, is it commonly believed, would have such iron strength of mind as tostand fast in doing right or keep his hands off other men’s go
ods, when he could go to the market-
place and fearlessly help himself to anything he wanted…”
Learning Expectation
Differentiate and learn about psychological and ethical egoism
Understand the three commonplace confusions
Review
James Rachels’ Egoism and
Moral Skepticism discusses and examines the psychological andethical egoism. She concludes that both theories are false and confused. Psychological egoism statesthat all actions of men are self-interested, meaning all of his actions are focused on himself and for hisbenefit only. While the Ethical egoism states that all actions SHOULD be self-interested, that men haveno obligation to do other things except only their own interests. I do think Rachels is right in criticizingand contradicting this two moral theories because in my opinion these should not be called MORALtheories because these two states that we humans are selfish in nature that we only act because of ourinterests and if we are to act on the interest of others, it should be that it will have a benefit on us likesatisfaction, but is still considered being selfish.
One thing that caught my attention is what Rachels said in the last paragraph of the reading, “…
we may often be able to make accurate moral judgments, and know what we ought to do, but not do it.
For these ills, philosophy alone is not the cure.” I do like Rachels writing because it really makes a lot of
sense to me and it is comprehensible than other theories. He discusses things in a logical order whichmakes it easy to understand and follow. And another thing that I like about this reading is the example,the Legend of Gyges, which is an interesting story which has challenging moral questions. In all these
readings, Rachels’ was what I understood the most and what I could relat
e to.
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