PHL275H1 Lecture Notes - Lecture 1: Joseph Butler, Egotism, Hard Wired
Document Summary
Challenges to everyday understanding of morality: psychological egoism. Special focus on common form of psychological hedonism. If either is true, morality cannot perform function of telling us to aim at some nds rather than others, to care about others happiness, etc- we are merely hardwired to pursue our own pleasure. Pe is radical: we care only about our own pleasure (feinberg) Supporters of pe need positive arguments: anything i desire is desired by me, since getting what you want always gives you pleasure, what you wanted was that pleasure (not persuasive enough) Problem: these are all negative points, showing that positive arguments for pe do not succeed: pe makes our everyday motivations more complicated. Example: i see my son alex hurt and rush to help him, relieving his pain. Alex"s pain, i relieve alex"s pain, i get the pleasure that was my initial goal. Pe complicates psychology and puts order of explanation backward.
