Arguments Against Psychological Egoism

Psychological Egoism is the idea that only self-interest motivates human action. For psychological egoism, we want to make ourselves as well off as we can be. According to this theory, there is only one thing that motivates humans and that is self-interest. To agree with psychological egoism, means you cannot be altruistic, the idea that humans can have an ulterior motive, as it is just simply human nature. The Expected Benefit argument claims that only self-interest motivates human action. I believe that Psychological Egoism, is a true theory that holds strong arguments as to why, all human actions are motivated by self-interest, because whatever argument is made against this theory can always be refuted back to the idea that any action that
was done, would not have been done, if the person did not think that it would make them better off.
The Expected Benefit argument’s purpose is to support psychological egoism. This argument has two premises that support why self-interest is the motivator for human action. The premises for the Expected Benefit Argument are: 1) Whenever you do something you expect to be better off as a result.
2) If you expect to be better off, then you are aiming to promote your self-interest.
3) Therefore, whenever you do something, you’re aiming to promote self-interest (96, Shafer-Landau). Premise one states that, when doing something or completing an action, you know that after it is done you will be better off. As humans we choose to do things because we know that it will make us better off. In almost all circumstances people will complete actions because they know that what they have to do will make them better off. An instance could be the case of having to finish a task for someone’s profession, even if someone doesn’t want to do it. It is in their best self-interest to do as they are told by their boss, and finish the task. Then, once they get their work done, the boss will be happy that person did their work. Eventually, completing an action because in the end they will be better off by not making their boss angry with that person, showing that self-interest was the motivator.
Premise two says that if you expect to be better off then you are aiming to promote self- interest.
This premise is true for someone who agrees with psychological egoism, because if you want to be better off and if you want to be happier than you are at your current state, then you are aiming to promote self-interest. Through aiming to promote self-interest, you will complete actions that will make you better off. It is very unlikely to hear of a case where people do not want to be better off. Therefore, coming to the conclusion that, whenever you do something, you are aiming to promote self-interest. Whether we realize it or not, almost all of our actions aim to promote self-interest. An example of expecting to be better off would be when someone decides to study for a test. They expect that if they study for this test that they will get a good grade and then be better off having a good mark, rather than a bad one. This is promoting self-interest because their motivation is to get a good grade on the test for their own self-benefit. If you do not study for the test, and you get a bad grade, you will not be better off, because an “A” is always better than getting and “F”. Since humans want to look out for their self-interest, this person will choose to study to get the better
grade. When agreeing with a psychological egoist, I believe it is almost impossible to find a case where you cannot relate back to the idea of self-interest in the end. Similar to the clip that we watched in class from “Friends”, it seems as though all human actions whether we mean to or not, somehow relate back to keeping ourselves in mind. Some people may not realize that what they are doing is a direct consequence of looking out for self-interest, because they may think they just want to be happy. If they want to be happy, they still are completing actions that eventually help self-interest. Humans have the nature and drive, to want to make ourselves as best off as we can be. It is tenable to say that if we as humans have the chance to do something that will benefit ourselves, we will take that chance. Not to say that we are all greedy, but self-interest is a very important part of human life and looking out for ourselves. If we are looking out for our self-interest then, we will choose to only complete actions that will help the self-interest of our own selves and benefit our interests, rather than choosing to do something that will not benefit ourselves.
A case that shows how we cannot stray away from the idea of humans always being motivated by self interest goes as follows, for example, say you see an old man struggling to cross the street, and you do not really feel the need to help him to make yourself feel better, but then you see that he really cannot make it across the street and if you leave him there he can get hit by a car. So what do you do? You go over to the man and you help him across the street. Subsequently, you feel better because you have just helped his man. Even if your first intention was not to help the man across the street, you still helped him and got a benefit out of it in the end. If you did not help the man, and a car did hit him, you would have felt absolutely horrible, or at least felt bad, therefore, to avoid yourself from feeling bad about not helping the man, you go over and help the man. Either way, you are looking out for your self-interest, and how you are going to feel after helping or not helping the man. Self-interest through a psychological egoist can always be brought back into an argument.
To challenge a psychological egoist is to say that not all human actions are motivated by self-interest.
One could argue against premise one that states, "Whenever you do something you expect to be better off as a result“ (96, Shafer-Landau). An argument against this would be that, whenever you do something you are not always expecting to be better off. For instance, you could choose to do something for someone, such as help him or her with his or her homework, but since it is not your homework, you are not expecting to be better off, just simply helping the person. The problem with this statement is to question, whether or not the person helping actually was not aiming to be better off. I believe that if a person takes the time to complete any type of action, they are doing it because it is in their best self-interest. If someone takes the time to help someone with their homework, they will feel accomplished and feel better after they helped that person do their homework, or else they would not have agreed to help. There would be no point to help, with out having any motivations of self-benefit, such as being more accomplished afterwards. Thus, coming back to the idea that wanting to get something out of helping someone else, is ultimately self-interest. A person against psychological egoism may question, how could an action such as drinking a glass of water, be done out of self-interest? I would argue in agreement with psychological egoism that you decide to drink a glass
of water because you are thirsty and therefore, you will be happy after the glass of water. It is unlikely that someone is drinking a glass of water just because they have to, and if that’s the case they could be drinking that water because of something such as, their mother told them to and then they’re doing it because it will make their mother happy. Therefore, making their mom happy is in their self-interest. Thus, out of self-interest they are motivated to drink the water and please their mother.
The objection against psychological egoism is that there is a distinction between what motivates people and the reasons why they do a specific action, and then what results from doing the action. Since psychological egoism is a theory about what motivates human action, the objection is that, although there are different actions other than those governed by self-interest, it is possible that one’s motivation and reasoning is to genuinely help people. Therefore, going against psychological egoism, since the fact that of feeling pleasure after is not taken into account, because it does not have to do with the action. A true psychological egoist would respond to this objection by saying that there is not a distinction between the reasons and the results, but rather that you reason to do something because you know the result you want. No matter what the result is, if you have made yourself better off in the end, you were motivated by self-interest. Although some good arguments are made against psychological egoism, many of the arguments can be refuted and thus related back to the agreement with psychological egoism. The Expected Benefit argument explained in this essay, clearly shows how self-interest is the motivator behind all human actions. The argument against psychological egoism does not hold enough evidence as to what the difference is between the reasons you complete an action, or what you are getting as a result. I believe that the Expected Benefit argument is a stronger argument, supporting the claim as to why all human actions relate back to self-interest. As part of human nature, we as humans want to make ourselves as well off as we can be.