Online research in philosophy

Globalization and knowledge economy nowadays have brought changes in social structure and living style and cause the occurrence of social problems, proposing new requirements to the conceptions and application of social welfare. A scholar named Midgley responses this by his conception of the developmental perspective in social welfare. This article addresses on the comparison between the value of developmental social welfare and the value of social work, in order to achieve a clear view on the similarity and difference of the two conceptions and provide references for the improvement on the prospects and methodologies.

Until recently it has been conventional to assume that ethical egoism is "ethical" is name, alone, and that no account that considers one's own interests as the standard of moral obligation could count as seriously "ethical." In recent years, however, philosophers have shown increasing respect for more sophisticated forms of ethical egoism which attempt to define self-interest in enriched terms characterizing self-interest as human flourishing in both material and psychological dimensions. But philosophers are still skeptical that any conception of self-interest could underpin ethical theory. This paper considers recent arguments by Richard Joyce, who is willing to concede enriched conceptions of self-interest, but who claims that egoism cannot support appropriate counterfactual conditionals about morality, or inferential uses of ordinary moral thinking. I argue that ethical egoism can satisfy each of Joyce's desiderata for morality, provided that it is taken to involve the very notion of enriched self-interest that Joyce is elsewhere willing to consider. In showing that egoism can count as a moral theory, I show, in effect, that Joyce's arguments for error theory about morality are really arguments for error theory about agent-neutral, non-egoistic morality.

Reason, egoism, and utilitarianism, by H. Sidgwick.--Is egoism reasonable? By G. E. Moore.--Ultimate principles and ethical egoism, by B. Medlin.--In defense of egoism, by J. Kalin.--Virtuous affections and self-love, by F. Hutcheson.--Our obligation to virtue, by D. Hume.--Duty and interest, by H. A. Prichard.--The natural condition of mankind and the laws of nature, by T. Hobbes.--Why should we be moral? By K. Baier.--Morality and advantage, by D. P. Gauthier.--Bibliographical essay (p. 181-184).

Virtue ethics is often alleged to be egoistic, based upon its linking of virtue and happiness. Virtue ethicists often respond that their approach to the moral life is only “formally egoistic” and therefore not objectionable. This paper develops a clear, non-arbitrary definition of egoism (often lacking in these exchanges) as systematic pursuit of one’s own welfare, and then catalogues four broad egoistic strategies for achieving it. I identify “formal foundational egoism” as the one mostplausibly attributed to virtue ethics (its subtlety allows it to account for many features of the moral life, seemingly justifying Aristotelians in their admission that their theory is egoistic in this way). I show instead that any moral theory whose first principle is that each should pursue her own welfare is indeed objectionable. I conclude by showing how virtue ethics can avoid all forms of egoism by counseling the pursuit of perfection rather than welfare alone.

Recently Terrance McConnell has attempted to show that not only does psychological egoism lend no support to ethical egoism but is even incompatible with it. 1 McConneU's attempt has been vitiated by Paul Simpson's critique of the version of psychological egoism that McConnell offered) In this discussion I will consider McConnell's and Simpson's arguments and then offer a version of psychological egoism that avoids Simpson's objections. After showing that one version of ethical egoism is incompatible with that version of psychological egoism, I will consider other versions of ethical egoism in an attempt to find the best version of that moral doctrine. It will turn out that even the best version of ethical egoism is incompatible with the version of psychological egoism that avoids Simpson's criticisms. However, another version of psychological egoism will be offered that is compatible with all versions of ethical egoism and that is also not open to Simpson's objections. An argument will be offered, and then criticized, that seems to lend support to ethical egoism and that rests, in part, on this other version of psychological egoism.

Egoism can be a descriptive or a normative position. Psychological egoism, the most famous descriptive position, claims that each person has but one ultimate aim: her own welfare. Normative forms of egoism make claims about what one ought to do, rather than describe what one does do. Ethical egoism claims that it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be morally right that it maximize one's self-interest. Rational egoism claims that it is necessary and sufficient for an action to be rational that it maximize one's self-interest.

In this paper I distinguish three degrees of epistemic egoism, each of which has an ethical analogue, and I argue that all three are incoherent. Since epistemic autonomy is frequently identified with one of these forms of epistemic egoism, it follows that epistemic autonomy as commonly understood is incoherent. I end with a brief discussion of the idea of moral autonomy and suggest that its component of epistemic autonomy in the realm of the moral is problematic.