namely that it might endorse wicked acts. Rachels believes that this is
a valid complaint against self-interest, but Machan has argued that the
enlightened egoist would see that wicked acts are unlikely to be in his or
her long term interest.
Baier rejects self-interest as unable to resolve conflicts which is a
fundamental requirement of any moral code. The defender of self-
interest tells us that we should not be concerned about this - life is full of
conflicts that cannot be resolved to the mutual benefit of the parties and
one party must win the struggle. This argument therefore is not sufficient
to determine self-interest as immoral but does require us to accept that
dividing the world into two categories (ourselves and everyone else) who
are treated differently is justifiable.
It seems that generally there is no justifiable factual difference between
the categories to support such a division. This tells us why we should care
about people other than ourselves (and reject self-interest) if we want to
be moral. As Rachel writes “we are on a par with one another, that is the
deepest reason why our morality must include some recognition of the
needs of others, and why, then, ethical egoism fails as a moral theory”
(Rachels, 2018, p.90). This is the most compelling reason to accept that
self-interest is indeed immoral. Clearly there are situations where self-
interest is moral (eg close family relationships) and Cottingham makes a
powerful case for this. We have to conclude that simple self-interest as a
moral code is too simplistic to be a universal basis for action, even if we
can find sometimes identify cases where it can be justified.
References
Baier, K. (1958) The Moral Point of View. Ithaca: Cornell University Press
Baier, K. (1993) ‘Egoism’, in: P. Singer, ed. A Companion to Ethics. London:
Blackwell
Cottingham, J (1983) ‘Ethics and Impartiality,’ Philosophical Studies: An
International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition, 43 (1), pp. 83-99.
Machan, T. R. (1979) ‘Recent Work in Ethical Egoism’, American Philosophical
Quarterly, 16 (1), pp. 1-15.
Rachels, J. (2018) The Elements of Moral Philosophy. 9th ed. New York:
McGraw Hill Education. University of Southern Illinois. Baier.
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