Moral Egoism and Solipsism

By Nathaniel J. Kan

TA: Ken West

Is any form of egoism defensible? What beliefs would be necessary in order to justify

egoism?

At first, egoism seems a very appealing theory. It is an expansion of the simple

and instinctive idea of regard for oneself into a theory of the world, ostensibly bypassing

the intuitive leaps required by other moral theories. However this apparent simplicity

should not immediately draw us to the acceptance of egoism. Some confusion follows

from the mixing of the various forms of egoism, and there are distinct problems with all

these forms individually. This paper will examine whether any distinct form of egoism is

defensible.

There are three distinct ideas that fall under the heading 'egoism'; two of which

are moral theories and one that is rather a description of the world as it is. The descriptive

philosophy is psychological egoism: that every action I make I make because it is in my

own interests to do so. The moral theories are rational egoism, that it is rational to act

exclusively in my self-interests, and moral egoism, that it is the moral to act exclusively

in my self-interests.

I would not argue for the truth of psychological egoism; there are obvious

counterexamples. Take, for instance, the man who sacrifices his life to save others: here

he is obviously not acting in his own best interests. The proponent of egoism might rebut
by claiming that the man wanted to sacrifice his life to save others, and thus acted in his

own interests. Because everyone inevitably does the action they want to do, they are

always acting in their own interests. This, however, reduces psychological egoism to a

trivial uninteresting result: egoism is now that just the statement that people act as they

decide to, to which everyone excluding the opponent of free will would agree.

We might argue for the truth of "predominant egoism"1; the idea that the vast

majority of actions we make are self-interested, but exceptions, such as the previous

example, are allowed. This fits into a Hobbesian contractism theory of morality, but does

not seem to provide any grounds for an egoist moral theory.

On the other hand, rational egoism might provide grounds for an egoist moral

theory. If we accept the truth of rational egoism, then we might accept moral egoism on

grounds similar to those on which Kantianism is based, that morality can be derived from

rationality. Rational egoism comes into obvious conflict with Kantianism, in the way that

the Universal Law Formulation of the Categorical Imperative would dictate that in certain

situations I must rationally act against my immediate self-interests, whereas rational

egoism would claim that I rationally must act in accordance with my self-interests. The

classic economists example of the free-rider problem demonstrates this. If there is a

public resource to which members of society have the option of helping to maintain, then

under the ULF I would be required to do my part in maintaining this resource. Were I not

to do so, then it would follow from logic that there would be a contradiction were

everyone to act similarly, as the resource would disappear and I would no longer be

capable of using it without doing my part. Rational egoism, on the other hand, allows me

1
Kavka, G., 1986, Hobbesian Moral and Political Theory, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 35-44,
51-64.
to be a free rider if possible. Upon taking an impartial view, however, this does not seem

to logically follow.

Another well known argument against rational egoism is the game theory

example of the Prisoner's Dilemma. In the scenario, two criminals are separated and

given the same choice, confess and sell the other out, or stay silent. Both staying silent

results in minimal prison time for each; both confessing results in a medium sentence. If

one confesses and the other remains silent, then the confessed felon goes free, and the

other serves a maximum sentence. It can be derived mathematically that from the

perspective of one of the prisoners, confessing is the optimal solution. But logically they

are both better off by staying silent. Thus by choosing the option that is optimal for

himself, the rational egoist makes a choice that results in both being worse off. Then it

can be argued that rational egoism in fact is not rational, it is biased towards one's own

preference.

The rational egoist can respond that this game is an overly simplistic model of

societal interactions. However, it seems that one might imagine a world not much unlike

our own where this very simplistic situation was, in fact, made to be a real one. And it

seems if rational egoism caused a contradiction here, then it would result in a

contradiction in more complicated situations, simply in more discreet ways.

Let us rather examine the viability of moral egoism, the idea that it is moral to do

what is in one's own interests. There are several main arguments for the adoption of

moral egoism as the primary moral theory. To begin with, moral egoism, although at first

seems selfish and not at all what one normally thinks of when they discuss morality,

seems to come to the same conclusions as many of our moral intuitions. Whereas we
might be inclined to expect that the moral egoist would act appallingly in most

circumstances, the moral egoist can argue that he would be encouraged to share resources

and cooperate with others in society, as the alternatives of fighting and not cooperating

would ultimately result in a lesser benefit for him. For example, the moral egoist would

pay his taxes to avoid going to jail, help others as an investment in their future aid, and

act in general obey the rules of society. Also, moral egoism deals with some of the

possible intuitive reservations about utilitarianism. For example, under moral egoism it is

acceptable for one to keep his possessions for himself so long as he is comfortable doing

so, and avoid exploitation by others. Under utilitarian doctrine, such self-regard is not

allowed.

Opponents of moral egoism might argue there are significant deviations between

our moral intuitions and the actions suggested by moral egoism. Moral egoism might

direct me to steal money from others for my own benefit if I can avoid punishment by

keeping it secret, but this would conflict with the moral intuitions of the majority, which

would deem this action an immoral one. However, disagreement with our moral

intuitions does not immediately disqualify a moral theory. In the case of utilitarianism,

for example, most people are inclined to say based on their moral intuitions that it is not

moral to kill a random person to harvest their organs and save the lives of several others,

while utilitarianism claims that this is the only moral action.

Another argument for moral egoism is that it requires us to accept much less in

terms of intuitive leaps than other moral philosophies. For example, utilitarianism

requires us to accept the intuitive leap that well-being/pleasure is good in all people, not

just for ourselves. In order to accept utilitarianism I am required from my own experience
that my pleasure is good (desirable) to conclude that other rational beings have pleasure

and it is good. Even though this seems a trivial conclusion it is something.

Kant uses a priori reason to logically determine a system of morality. However,

he still has basic assumptions, namely, other people exist and are rational beings. The

groundwork for moral egoism, on the other hand, only seems to be that I accept the

fulfillment of my own desires as good.

However, there is a very strong argument that can be made against moral egoism:

moral egoism does not constitute a moral theory at all. It is generally accepted that a

moral theory is a theory that can be used to guide how one should live his life, and must

be able to be universally applied to all humanity (or all rational beings). In the case of

moral egoism, there seem to be contradictions that occur when the theory is universally

applied.2 For example, take two people who are on an airplane about to explode, with

only one parachute among them. To person A, moral egoism would prescribe that he take

the parachute and survive, and to person B, moral egoism would likewise recommend he

take the last parachute. It seems here that there is a contradiction: moral egoism is

recommending two different actions for one situation, with equal strength.

The proponent of moral egoism might respond by claiming that it is not

recommending two different outcomes for one situation, it is recommending one action to

A and one different action to B, and it has no measurement of the values of either

outcome. That is, the outcome where A gets the parachute and the outcome where B gets

the parachute are not equal, they do not stand in any relationship to each other; both

outcomes are just each separately recommended to different people alone.

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Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
 A counterargument to this is that it seems the point of moral theories is to be a

scale of measurement for comparing the values various outcomes for a single situation

objectively (regardless of viewpoint). If moral egoism does not act as a measurement, but

only makes recommendations, then it cannot be a moral theory at all. Moral egoism, it

appears, has no method for comparing the welfare of an individual against the welfare of

another; it only can measure the value of one action to an individual against the value of

another action to that same individual. That is to say, moral egoism has nothing to say

about how whether the fulfillment of my interests is better or worse than the fulfillment

of the interests of the next man. Because of this, it seems as if while moral egoism might

be a theory that an individual would live by, it cannot possibly be adopted as a universal

moral theory.

I would argue that the only way the moral egoist has of escaping this dilemma is

to make the claim that the acceptability of moral egoism is contingent on not accepting

the existence of other rational beings as a necessary truth. Essentially, in order to adopt

moral egoism, we must be solipsists.

This conclusion can be admitted by example. Imagine a world with only a single

being (and this being is rational). Here moral egoism seems a plausible moral theory for

this being to adopt, as a dispute between moral theories usually arises when there is a

dispute in how one should act in a situation dealing with other rational beings under the

different theories. The only moral theories that would argue that the being should pursue

an action against its own interests would be deontological theories and moral theories that

demanded fulfilling duties for their sake alone, such as Kantianism. However, it can be

argued that the impartial duties of these theories do not exist without individuals in
competition, as impartiality does not exist when there is only one being (as a separate

idea; when there is only one being impartiality is redundant).3 Impartiality only exists

when there are multiple individuals in competition. One might suggest that impartiality

could be applied regarding conflicting desires of the single being; however, in this case

pursuing either interest would be pursuing a self-interest, as both interests are held by the

being.

If we accept moral egoism as acceptable for the single being world, then it is a

small step to accept it for the case where there is only one provably rational being:

myself. If one does not accept the concept of other minds, he is, from his perspective,

living in a single being world, whether it is true or not. Whether or not solipsism is a true

theory is too large a debate to be wholly discussed in this paper, but it seems safe to say

that egoism is only a plausible theory if we accept solipsism as a truth.

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Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy