By pursuing Nietzsche’s philosophy this far, we have in fact returned to the dispute

between Socrates and Callicles. In the Gorgias, Socrates is able to refute Callicles by the use
of counterexamples. He invites him to consider the case of sexual predators on children, who
get what they want in opposition to conventional moral scruple, and invites Callicles to
endorse their way of life. And he cites the example of a bird that eats and excretes
simultaneously as the perfect desire satisfaction machine, asking Callicles if this is not a
perfect exemplar of the sort of “good life” he is commending. Callicles angrily rejects these
counterexamples and declares that he has nothing of the sort in mind. But in doing so he is
clearly inconsistent. If we understand egoism to be the doctrine that the best life you can have
is the one you choose for yourself without regard for the inhibiting effects of conventional
morality, other worldly religion, or the impact on other people, then egoism must rank the life
of the drunkard (who is quite content, let us say, to lie comatose among the garbage of the
city) on a level with that of a political leader whose strength of will and visionary purpose
bring law, order, and prosperity to his war-torn country. Callicles is, of course, deeply
reluctant to make this equivalence, and that is how Socrates forces him to abandon the
egoistic principle upon which he had built his argument. But it is an equivalence that logic
obliges him to make.

Nietzsche is caught in a similar dilemma. He writes “The value of egoism depends on

the physiological value of him who possesses it: it can be very valuable, it can be worthless
and contemptible” (Nietzsche, 1895, 1889, 1968: 97). Just what is to be understood by
“physiological” here is not altogether certain, but we should think of it as a vitality or
presence that some people exhibit and others do not. If this is right then we can just as readily
point to St. Paul, whom Nietzsche loathed, as to Cesare Borgia, whom Nietzsche admired.
Both lives were filled with a powerful sense of purpose that enabled them to transcend
conventionality and pursue self-chosen goals in the face of adversity. The problem is that
Nietzsche, like Callicles, wants to condemn one and praise the other.

Now it might be argued that these observations are fully in accordance with an
alternative
and more plausible version of rational egoism than the one Socrates attacks. This version says
that the best life is the one that is best for me. It does not say that what I want or will here and
now accords with the best life for me. We might express this by saying that egoism says you
should prefer to promote your own interests over the interests of other. But it does not say
that this necessarily gives you reason to pursue your own desires. My desires are those things
I experience as longings or inclinations. My interests are those things that are of fundamental
importance to my life and well-being. Something is in my interest if it promotes that well-
being. But what is in my interest need not always coincide with what I want or desire at any
given moment, even on reflection. For instance, suppose I am a cigarette smoker who
develops early signs of respiratory disease. I decide to give up smoking, but for some
considerable time I continue to experience a powerful desire to smoke. I do not yield to this
desire, however, because I recognize that it is not in my interest to do so; it is not good for
me. Or, to change the example, I may be the sort of person who would far rather play
computer games than study. But if doing so puts my educational prospects at risk, giving in to
this preference would work against my own interests. I would thus have good self-centered
reasons to resist what is nonetheless a strong personal inclination. It follows that if I am an
egoist about my interests, there will be occasions when I have good reason not to do what I
want or feel like doing.

The best life, on this conception, is not one in which you succeed in getting what you
want whenever you want it, but one in which you succeed in securing what is in your
interests over the longer term. This revised form of egoism has some advantages over the
simple desire version. Though it doesn’t sound much like Nietzsche, it does provide the basis
of a reply to the sorts of counterexample that Socrates uses against Callicles. We can now say
that it is not in the interests of the drunk or the pedophile to give in to their self-destructive
desires. Consequently, egoism is not committed to commending these modes of life.
However, the problem is avoided only temporarily. If “what is in my interests” is defined by
what I will to be in my interests, the vacuity returns. If, in full knowledge of the facts, the
smoker decides to continue smoking, then that is up to her. If, having seen the social
opprobrium that such a life is sure to attract, the pedophile nevertheless spurns conventional
opinion and willingly opts for the life of the pederast (so long as he can escape prevention
and punishment), then he too can claim to be a rational egoist. If having read Nietzsche, I
determinedly model my life on St. Paul rather than Borgia (despite the scorn of the
Nietzscheans), I can claim the status of a higher man no less than the would-be Cesare
Borgia.
 The only way to avoid the vacuity is to replace the question “What shall I will?” with
the question “What ought I to will?” But this requires that there be some external standard by
which to determine my will. The possibility of such a standard is just what Callicles and
Nietzsche deny. Without it, however, their egoism becomes empty. This is revealed by the
fact that at a certain level, Plato agrees with the revised version of egoism. He too believes
that it rational to do what is in my best interests, and that the best possible life I can lead is
the one that is good for me. His dispute with Callicles and Thrasymachus is first about what
this life actually consists in, and second about how what we would call “morality” enters into
it. Plato thinks that it is directly, not just indirectly, in my interests to do what justice requires
of me. If I follow my crudest desires, I cannot make my life less degrading or disgusting by
resolving to like it. And I can only meaningfully take pride in real accomplishments. In short,
in asking how I want to live my life there is no avoiding the question of how I ought to want
to live it. This is why the pursuit of the good life is a matter of discovery and not just an
exercise of the will. It involves inquiry into the precise nature of universal and enduring
values—What is justice? What is beauty? What is knowledge?—questions that Plato’s other
dialogues address.

In several of these dialogues a further strand of thought comes into play. When people
speak in favor of egoism over altruism they often conflate two different though closely
related ideas. Sometimes they mean to praise doing my own thing, whatever my own thing
may be. But sometimes they mean spending my time on the things I find most pleasing or
gratifying. In this conflation, egoism becomes confused with hedonism—the doctrine that
gratification and pleasure (and the avoidance of pain) are the essential ingredients of a good
life. It is worth holding the two ideas apart, because this is in fact a distinct philosophy of
value. Hedonism (from the Greek word for “pleasure”) is a philosophy that Plato also wants
to reject, and the arguments surrounding it are well worth exploring. But it requires a chapter
to itself.