Abstract
Psychological Altruism (PA) is the view that everyone, ultimately, acts altruistically all the time. I defend PA by showing strong prima facie support, and show how a reinterpretive strategy against supposed counterexamples is successful. I go on to show how PA can be argued for in ways which exactly mirror the arguments for an opposing view, Psychological Egoism. This shows that the case for PA is at least as plausible as PE. Since the case for PA is not plausible, neither is that for PE.
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Notes
For what is often considered a paradigmatic example of Psychological Egoism, and arguments for it, see Hobbes’ Leviathan, esp. Chapters III-XIII. Note that it is a matter of controversy, however, whether Hobbes (1968) was in fact a Psychological Egoist. For discussion see Moseley (2010) and Shaver (2010).
For the purposes of this paper, I will use ‘selfless’ and ‘for the benefit of others’ interchangeably.
The Commonwealth, AqB679#ff. My translation. c.f. Republic Bk II.
The Cainites were an actual Gnostic sect, although I have changed some of their theology to suit my purposes. Call Jim a possible ‘Cainite*’ if you wish. See Doresse (1986), pp. 36, 45.
The issue is more complicated than this, however. As [Adam Sennet] has pointed out (personal communication), it is not clear that PA dissolves the self-interest/duty conflict, since there can be cases such as the following: Arnold acts out of self-interest as a means to the good of Barbara, but, in so doing, harms Charley (and, in fact, this is the only way to benefit Barbara in this particular way). So, here is a case of self-interest and duty again coming into conflict. I do not think this ultimately harms my claim, as this has far more to do with trade-offs between different possible beneficiaries, and the response to these kinds of issues would have to rely on a substantive moral theory, which I am not prepared to defend here. Also, it seems like one’s self-interest, in this case, can be paraphrased away (although this is unclear). But, this line of thought does bring up some interesting possibilities. As [Sennet] points out (personal communication), it could well be that just getting rid of the ‘self-interest’ component of the duty/self-interest dilemma doesn’t solve anything, as the problem is really about the conflict of duty versus interests per se (not just self-interest).. [Sennet] calls this the ‘duty/non-self-interest’ dilemma.
It is, however, worthwhile to determine what the summum bonum is, if we wish to correctly benefit others.
I am especially grateful to (Jim Stone) for helpful comments on the points regarding falsifiability.
Many thanks go to Scott Berman, Ruth Groff, Adam Sennet, Irem Kurtsal Steen, Jim Stone, Bill Wringe, and Dean Zimmerman for helpful comments and suggestions.
References
Doresse, J. (1986). The secret books of the egyptian gnostics. Rochester: Inner Traditions International.
Hobbes, T. (1968). Leviathan. In C. B. Macpherson (Ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin, chs. 14–15.
Moseley, A. (2010). “Egoism”, The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. J. Fieser (Ed.), URL=<http://www.iep.utm.edu/egoism/>, retrieved June 25.
Shaver, R. (2010). “Egoism,” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, E. N. Zalta (Ed.), URL=<http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/>, retrieved June 25.
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Further Reading
Baier, K. (1990). Egoisim. In A companion to ethics. (Ed.). Peter Singer. Oxford: Blackwell.
Batson, C. D. (1991). The altruism question. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Part III.
Berman, S. (2003). A defense of psychological egoism. In N. Reshotko (Ed.), Desire, identity, and existence (pp. 143–57). Academic Printing & Publishing.
Dacey, A. (2001). Elliott Sober and David Sloan Wilson: unto others: the evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Journal of Value Inquiry, 35(2), 279–283.
Slote, M. A. (1964). An empirical basis for psychological egoism. Journal of Philosophy, 61, 530–537.
Sober, E., & Wilson, D. S. (1999). Unto others, the evolution and psychology of unselfish behavior. Harvard University Press.
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Steen, M. Why Everyone Acts Altruistically All the Time: What Parodying Psychological Egoism Can Teach Us. Philosophia 39, 563–570 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9304-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-011-9304-y