moral theory that places the life of the individual above everything else
and thus ethical egoism is the moral code that we should accept.
Is Rand’s rationale for endorsing ethical egoism as the preferred moral
code convincing? If one accepts the deficiencies of altruism that she
highlights it would be easy to reach this conclusion. However, on
closer inspection Rand seems to present us with a false choice - either
altruism or ethical egoism. Whilst Rand is entitled to argue the case
against altruism, it does not follow that ethical egoism stands as the
only viable alternative. As Rachels explains, if altruism means that we
might be required to make sacrifices at any time and for any person then
of course ethical egoism looks appealing by comparison. However, to
present altruism and ethical egoism as ‘either/or’ is not a reasonable
position to take. The common sense view of morality sits between the
two extremes and tells us that we ought to balance our interests against
those of others - sometimes our interests will take priority and at other
times the interests of others will win out. But if we endorse this ‘mix and
match’ approach we are not accepting self-interest as the basis for morality.
Having suggested that the common sense view of morality sits between
egoism and altruism, we need to evaluate whether self-interest might
indeed be compatible with common sense morality. By common sense
morality we mean obeying certain rules such as ‘do not lie’, ‘do not
murder’ or ‘avoid doing harm to others.’ On the face of it these duties
appear to be a somewhat random set of rules with no unifying feature.
Rachels thinks that ethical egoism might be the one “fundamental
principle from which all the rest can be derived” (Rachels, 2018, p.83).
Rachels illustrates his point with a number of examples. We often need
to rely on people being honest in their dealings with us. However, it is not
realistic to expect people to be honest with us if we lie to them. It therefore
is in our self-interest to refrain from lying. Similarly, consider the duty
not to harm others. Let us suppose that we regularly go about harming
others. At best we will find that others are reluctant to do us favours
when we need them. At worst our harms may be so severe that we end
up in prison. We should therefore conclude that our best interests are
served by not harming others. On this basis self-interest seems far from
immoral, rather it leads us to a workable theory of morality in which self-
interest is the fundamental principle that holds our core duties together.
Although this argument is appealing it does not fully establish self-
interest as a coherent moral theory. We can accept that under most
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