morally wrong. Hence in cases like these no moral judgements apply.
This is obviously absurd” (Baier, 1958, p.4).
Hospers replies to this concern by pointing out that Baier’s example
involves “two acts of the same kind, namely attempted murder (or the
attempt to foil the murder attempt of the other)” but not the same act. He
says “there is no contradiction in two such acts being attempted or in
both being right” (Machan, 1979, p.7). We are not saying that the same
action is both right and wrong at the same time, only that two different
actions are not contradictory. This is neatly summarized by Rachels who
describes the moralist like a “Commissioner of Boxing” (Rachels, 2018,
p.86) whose job is to get each fighter to do his best but no more. What
the moralist is not is “a courtroom judge who resolves disputes” (ibid.).
In many cases, it will be in the long-term interest of each of the two
parties to compromise and reach a solution. In cases where self-interests
genuinely conflict then ethical egoism will not be able to mediate those
conflicts. The ethical egoist is not concerned about this - one of the
parties winning out through an unmediated ‘fight’ is part of life and should
be accepted as such. For the egoist, “life is essentially a long series of
conflicts in which each person is struggling to come out on top … each
person [has] the right to do his or her best to win” (Rachels, 2018, p.86).
If we accept the egoist’s conclusion that life is indeed a struggle in
which I have to promote my interests above everyone else’s, Rachels
points out an obvious difficulty. Egoism means dividing “the world into
two categories of people - ourselves and all the rest” (Rachels, 2018,
p.89). The theory demands that we treat the interests of ‘the rest’ as
less important than our own. But what is the justification, if any, for this
differential treatment? If there is no basis for treating me differently to
everyone else then we have to conclude that ethical egoism is indeed
“unacceptably arbitrary.”
There are reasons in practice why we might choose to treat one person
or group of people differently to another which are perfectly legitimate.
For example, Rachels asks us to imagine two subjects applying to law
school. One scored well on the admissions test while the second never
took the test. It would not be arbitrary to admit the first to candidate to
the law school but not the second because the candidates are clearly not
equally well qualified. Rachels asks “what makes me so special” that my
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