CAS PH 150 Study Guide - Quiz Guide: Ethical Egoism, Psychological Egoism, Egotism
28 Nov 2016
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Loose definition: it"s always morally right to act in one"s self interest. Strict definition: it"s morally right for a to do action x if and only if x is in a"s self interest. Implies it"s never morally right to do something not in your self interest. Is morally right but not only in someone"s self interest. Morally wrong but you get a lot of money. Conflicts with our intuition of what"s morally right. The free-rider objection: although it might be in our self interest to be out of the state of nature and under an absolute monarch, that does not mean we should always follow the law. In this case, it is in your best interest to break the law in order to get what you want if you do not get caught. Even if egoism can be used to derive conventional morality, that doesn"t show there aren"t other moral reasons/ considerations that come into play.
