Self and Others: A Study of Ethical Egoism

276 Pages·1988·7.209 MB·English

by  Jan Österberg (auth.)

SELF AND OTHERS
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
STUDIES IN EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, AND PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE
Managing Editor:
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Florida State University, Tallahassee
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, University oj California, Berkeley
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University oj Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, University oj Pittsburgh
VOLUME 196
J AN OSTERBERG
Uppsa/a University, Sweden
SELF AND
OTHERS
A Study of Ethical Egoism
KLUWER ACADEMIC PUBLISHERS
DORDRECHT I BOSTON I LONDON
Library of Congress CataJoging-in-Publication Data
Osterberg, Jan, 1941-
Self and others.
(Synthese library; v. 196)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
1. Egoism. 2. Ethics. I. Title. II. Series.
BJl474.007 1988 171'.9 87-28669
ISBN-I 3 : 978-94-010-7796-5 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-009-2879-4
DOl: 10.1007/978-94-009-2879-4
Published by Kluwer Academic Publishers,
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© 1988 by Kluwer Academic Publishers
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
My interest in moral philosophy was originally aroused by Ingemar
Hedenius. He suggested that I should write my doctoral thesis on
Sidgwick. I soon became interested in what Sidgwick regarded as the fun
damental normative problem, viz. that both the claims of Morality and
those of Egoism appear reasonable. This essay is the outcome of my at
tempt to resolve this 'Dualism of the Practical Reason'.
Many people have helped me. Lars Bergstrom has been my supervisor
during most of my time as a postgraduate. Without his support and en
couragement this book would never have been written, and without his
advice and criticism it would have been much worse.
Earlier drafts of the essay have been discussed in Lars Bergstrom's
seminar. Lars Bergstrom, Sven Danielsson, Wlodek Rabinowicz, Thanos
Sarafidis, and Bertil Stromberg pointed out a number of errors and sug
gested improvements.
Several other people have helpfully commented on the text: Thorild
Dahlquist read and made valuable comments on Chapter 1 and part of
Chapter 10. Howard Sobel, who acted as the Faculty Opponent when an
earlier version of the essay was submitted as a doctoral thesis to Uppsala
University, offered detailed and trenchant criticism. Mats Furberg
pointed out several stylistic infelicities. Paul Needham checked and im
proved my English and also suggested substantial improvements.
Stig Kanger gave invaluable help and support of many kinds, intellec
tual as well as practical.
The manuscript was typed by Marianne Carlstedt, Ulla Carlstedt, and
Dagmar Kanger (who generously sacrificed her spare time to this task).
Bengt Molander and Birgit Lindstrom assisted with the proof-reading.
Erik Jonson and Zalma Puterman assisted with the publication of the
earlier mimeographed version.
To all these people, whose generous assistance has sometimes made me
doubt that Sidgwick's problem is a live issue, I am deeply grateful.
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I should also like to express my gratitude to Burmans docent-stipendie
fond and to Kungl. Humanistiska Vetenskaps-Samfundet i Uppsala for
grants that made the publication of this essay possible.
Uppsala, December 1987
JAN OSTERBERG
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements ........................................ vii
Introduction .............................................. .
1. The Aim of This Essay ................................ 1
2. Kinds of Egoism ...................................... 2
3. The Plan of This Essay ................................ 5
4. Terminology and Conventions .......................... 7
PART I
PRELIMINARY MATTERS
Chapter 1. A Short History of Ethical Egoism ................ 11
1.1. Preliminary Remarks ................................. 11
1.2. Classical Times ...................................... 12
1.3. From Thomas Aquinas to Nietzsche. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 15
1.4. From Hobbes to Sidgwick ............................ 17
1.5. Hobbes ............................................. 21
1.6. Butler .............................................. 24
1.7. Sidgwick ..... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 27
1.8. After Sidgwick ...................................... 29
1.9. Ethical Egoism and Individualistic Society ..... . . . . . . . .. 31
Chapter 2. Kinds of Ethical Egoism .......................... 35
2.1. Introduction ........................................ 35
2.2. Forms of Ethical Egoism ............................. 35
2.3. Interpretations of Ethical Egoism ............. ;........ 42
2.4. The Subjective Conception of Intrinsic Value. . . . . . . . . .. 44
Chapter 3. The Interpretation of Strong Egoism ............... 49
3.1. Self-Regarding Egoism or Butlerian Egoism? ............ 49
3.2. Eudaimonistic Egoism or Preference Egoism? ........... 53
3.3. Time-Neutral Egoism: A First Objection ............... 57
3.4. Time-Neutral Egoism: A Second Objection ............. 63
x TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART II
THE DEBATE ON ETHICAL EGOISM
Chapter 4. Arguments for Ethical Egoism. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 71
4.1. Introduction ........................................ 71
4.2. The Argument from Psychological Egoism ..... . . . . . . . .. 72
4.3. The Argument from Biology .......................... 74
4.4. Some Other Arguments ............................... 76
4.5. Arguments and Presuppositions ....................... 79
Chapter 5. Normative and Semantic Objections ................ 80
5.1. Normative Objections ................................ 80
5.2. The Argument from 'Morality' ........................ 82
5.3. The Argument from 'Morally Ought' .................. 83
5.4. Moore's Objection ................................... 85
5.5. Baumer's Objection. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 90
5.6. The Argument from Joint Performability. . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 93
5.7. Daniels' Objection. ..... .. .. ..... . .. .. ...... . .. . .. . .. 97
5.8. The Argument from Moral Help...... ....... .. ... .... 98
Chapter 6. Pragmatic and Other Objections ................... 100
6.1. The Argument from Self-Subvertingness ................ 100
6.2. The Argument from Indirect Self-Defeatingness ......... 104
6.3. The Argument from Assentability ..................... 107
6.4. The Argument from Pragmatic Inconsistency ........... 112
6.5. Ethical Egoism and Society ........................... 114
6.6. Ethical Egoism and the Self. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 116
PART III
THE ASSESSMENT OF ETHICAL EGOISM
Chapter 7. The Strong Form of Ethical Egoism ............... 125
7.1. The Argument from Joint Satisfiability .......... . . . . . .. 125
7.2. Joint Satisfiability and Agent-Relativity ................ 127
7.3. The Argument from Self-Defeatingness ................. 129
7.4. The Argument from Pareto-Optimal Equilibria .......... 133
7.5. Nietzschean Egoism .................................. 137
Chapter 8. Weak Forms of Egoism .......................... 141
8.1. Introduction ........................................ 141
TABLE OF CONTENTS xi
8.2. Egoism as a Lexically Ordered Principle. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 142
8.3. Egoism as a Co-Ordinated Principle ................... 145
8.4. Rule Egoism ........................................ 149
Chapter 9. Ethical Egoism and Rationality. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 156
9.1. The Received Conception of Rational Action ........... 156
9.2. The Argument from Rationality ....................... 158
9.3. Gauthier's Proposal .................................. 160
9.4. My Proposal ........................................ 167
PART IV
A LAST RESORT
Chapter 10. Collective Egoism .............. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 177
10.1. The Collectivistic Conception of Morality ............. 177
10.2. Game Theory and the Interpretation of Collective Egoism 180
10.3. A Tentative Interpretation of Collective Egoism ........ 187
10.4. Ethical Egoism and Metaphysical Individualism ........ 195
10.5. Concluding Remarks ................................ 200
Notes ..................................................... 202
Bibliography .............................................. 240
Index (names and subjects) .................................. 251
INTRODUCTION
1. The Aim of This Essay
Ethical Egoism, the doctrine that, roughly speaking, one should promote
one's own good, has been a live issue since the very beginnings of moral
philosophy. Historically, it is the most widely held normative theory,
and, next to Utilitarianism, it is the most intensely debated one. What is
at stake in this debate is a fundamental question of ethics: 'Is there any
reason, except self-interest, for considering the interests of other people?'
The ethical egoist answers No to this question, thus rejecting the received
conception of morality.
Is Ethical Egoism an acceptable position? There are many forms of
Ethical Egoism, and each may be interpreted in several different ways. So
the relevant question is rather, 'Is there an acceptable version of Ethical
Egoism?' It is the main aim of this essay to answer this question. This
means that I will be confronted with many other controversial questions,
for example, 'What is a moral principle?', 'Is value objective or subjec
tive?', 'What is the nature of the self?' For the acceptability of most ver
sions of Ethical Egoism, it has been alleged, depends on what answers are
given to questions such as these. (I will show that in some of these cases
there is in fact no such dependence.) It is, of course, impossible to ad
equately discuss all these questions within the compass of my essay. I
shall discuss them, often in a rather cursory manner, only to the extent
that they are relevant to my main purpose, concentrating on questions
peculiar to Ethical Egoism.
What makes Ethical Egoism especially interesting is that it is intimately
linked to the received view of rational action; indeed, one version of
Ethical Egoism, I shall argue, constitutes the normative core of that view.
Why has this view of rational action-that is, one version of Ethical
Egoism-become part and parcel of Western ideology?! This question,
belonging to the history of ideas, falls outside the scope of my essay.
However, although my main aim is analytic and normative, I also want