Essay On Ethical Egoism

In this paper I’ll be discussing how ethical egoism can be applied to an ethical dilemma. The ethical dilemma that I have chosen is about whether I should testify in court knowing that I will help my innocent best friend but I would be incriminating myself. With this chosen dilemma I’ll explain how act-egoism can be applied to this scenario. The purpose of the paper is to see how ethical egoism can be used in a real life situation. Theory of ethical egoism is a moral theory that is about how an action is done for our own best interest. It’s deciding what’s most favorable for me that’ll benefit my own interest. It’s putting one’s own welfare first. Ethical egoism is also seen as for example as performing actions of good deed to someone else where at the end you’re promoting your self-interest. Though you’re thinking of your own self-interest you’re still making sure that what you do is done wisely and have considered any long term effects that may come along. Within ethical egoism there’s act-egoism and rule-egoism. Act-egoism is an egoism where to determine the right action, one has to apply the egoistic principle to individual acts. The theory is saying that one act can be more preferred than
Each individual act was counted for on how it would affect my self-interest in the long term. As discussed before going to prison is a much better decision than sending a best friend to the death penalty. By sending not only a best friend through the death penalty but a human being who is innocent from committing murder in my opinion would be an act of guilt for anyone. For one’s own self-interest one would keep their friendship with their best friend and a guilt free conscious of not testifying and having their friend suffer with the death penalty. On the other hand rule-egoism would serve in the best interest to better one’s