grilled cheese than you would; he hasn’t eaten in two days whereas you haven’t eaten for two hours. Nevertheless, there is an intuition that it is your sandwich to do with as you please. If you choose to give it to the beggar then of course you may, but if you eat it yourself, then that’s your prerogative too. Egoism effortlessly explains why there’s nothing wrong with you keeping and eating your own lunch, even when it would benefit others even more. As we will see later, other moral theories, such as utilitarianism, can’t easily allow such a simple thing.
Another argument is that we are each best suited to figure out what our own wants and needs are. Maybe the kinds of things you want out of life aren’t the things your parents want. There are many different visions of the good life–a yurt in the desert, living off the grid, communing with nature and smoking homegrown cannabis; a condo on the upper East Side in Manhattan with a Porsche in the parking garage; a cloistered monastery in the Italian Alps with prayers and silence. People ought to each pursue their own vision of the best life for themselves and be free to do so. If we interfere in each other’s lives, even out of a sense of beneficence, we are more likely to make a botch job of it. We’ll just wind up imposing our own values on each other, when it is far better for each of us to pursue our own interests.
Now, you might think that if ethical egoism were widely adopted that it would result in a bunch of uncooperative, self-absorbed loners. However, that’s not true. Ethical egoism is entirely compatible with collective action based on reciprocity. You may decide to help your neighbor work on his roof because you know that later on he’ll help you with your deck. Or you might decide to pool your money with your friends and get a keg of beer, knowing that you’ll get a better price for such a bulk purchase. Everyone profits by having more beer for less money, including you. In these cases each person acts to promote their own self-interest, but other people benefit as well. The image of ethical egoism is the wolfpack–hunting together the pack can take down a moose, but each wolf is out to benefit itself.
What’s the downside of ethical egoism? There are three main objections to egoism.
Objection 1: horrible consequences.
There are many intuitively heinous actions that, under ethical egoism, are morally permissible. For egoists, nothing that people do to each other in the name of their own self-interest is immoral. Consider the following. In 1991 Phillip and Nancy Garrido of Antioch, California kidnapped a blond, pony-tailed 11-year-old little girl named Jaycee Lee Dugard. For the next 18 years they kept her prisoner in their backyard while they raped her. Phillip Garrido fathered two children with Jaycee, the first when she was only 14 years old, and kept the children isolated, uneducated, and captive. The children had never been to a doctor. In 2009 the Garridos were discovered and arrested. Or consider the case of Kristen Diane Parker, a surgery technician at a Colorado hospital. A heroin addict, she routinely stole Fentanyl, a powerful painkiller, from cancer patients, whom she left in pain as she replaced their drugs with saline. As she carelessly switched her used syringes for fresh ones, Parker infected three dozen people with hepatitis C. Eventually she was caught and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Every day newspaper headlines tell of cases just like these, where people are acting in their own self-interest without regard for others. If you think that Parker and the Garridos are moral monsters, brutal narcissists who have no place in a civilized society, then you should doubt that ethical egoism is the correct theory of morality. After all, under ethical egoism their actions were not merely permissible, but, since they served to advance their own interests, their positive moral duty. Remember, the thesis of ethical egoism is that everyone should always act in their own self-interest, which the Garridos and Parker apparently did. When the kidnapping and sexual enslavement of children and the theft of painkillers from cancer victims turn out to be anyone’s moral duty, one might reasonably question the moral theory at hand.
A defender of ethical egoism might argue that in fact the Garridos and Parker failed to act in their own self-interest, on the grounds that they were caught, convicted, and sent to prison. Surely imprisonment was not in their self-interest. That’s why their actions were wrong; they led to negative consequences for themselves down the road. However, such a defense means that kidnapping, rape, and theft are morally heinous only if you are caught–if you get away with your crimes, then you did nothing wrong after all. Such a defense goes against the intuition that it would have been far worse for Phillip Garrido to continue child rape and enslavement, far worse for Kristen Diane Parker to have continued to infect people with Hepatitis C and steal pain meds from cancer patients. If the world was made better by their capture, then the egoist defense does not work.
Objection 2: subjectivity.
The second objection to ethical egoism is that it makes morality wholly subjective, in just the same manner as matters of taste. Many people think that if anything is purely subjective, then taste is. Thus there is no objective fact of the matter about whether broccoli tastes delicious, or whether roses smell better than lilacs. There are simply personal preferences; some like roses better, others lilacs. It is hardly a matter over which we might have violent disagreement, or, really, any meaningful disagreement at all. You like one and your friend likes the other. You acknowledge each other’s preferences and move on. How exercised can one really get about Coke vs. Pepsi, or what your favorite color is?
If ethical egoism is correct, then morality is just as subjective as matters of taste. Suppose Joe thinks eating babies is morally wrong and Jane thinks eating babies is not only morally permissible, but delicious to boot. As in the cases of taste, there is no true disagreement between Joe and Jane–they are doing no more than expressing the preferences they have, in light of the goals and desires they each possess. Joe advances his interests by not eating babies, and Jane advances her (presumably culinary) interests though cannibalism. Joe is doing the morally right thing (for Joe) and Jane is doing the morally right thing (for Jane). Therefore they are in no position to criticize each other. The most each could say is “I wouldn’t do what you’re doing–but by all means, carry on.” The ethical egoist credo is live and let live, or, perhaps de gustibus non est disputandum12. Each is acting to pursue their own self-interest, which is exactly what ethical egoism says they ought to do. If you think that it is entirely reasonable and morally fair to criticize Jane for her cannibalism, then ethical egoism is not the correct moral theory.
Objection 3: equal treatment.
The third objection to ethical egoism is that it violates an intuitively plausible constraint on moral theories, namely the principle of equal treatment.
Principle of equal treatment: Two people should be treated in the same way unless there is a relevant difference between them.
The Principle of Equal Treatment does not require that everyone be treated alike; it allows variable treatment. Discrimination gets a bad name because people tend to conflate reasonable discrimination with unreasonable discrimination. If you were choosing up sides for a basketball team, no one would expect you to pick an overweight 4´11˝ senior citizen over a 6´11˝ college athlete. Fitness, age, and height are all relevant criteria for basketball performance. Likewise if you’re hiring someone to be the pastor of your church, it is reasonable to expect that a successful candidate will follow that religion. Atheists need not apply. These are cases of discrimination–treating people differently–but there are relevant differences that make the varying treatment permissible and expected.
The cases in the preceding paragraph are judicial discrimination. There is also prejudicial discrimination, which is more pernicious. If one picks basketball players on the basis of religion, or hires a pastor on the basis of height, then that is treating people differently when there is no difference among them relevant to basketball or job performance. It is because those cases violate the Principle of Equal Treatment that we tend to regard them as cases of immoral treatment.
