Ethical Egoism

When people do things it is usually for their self-interest no matter how you want to put it. In some cases it is not good to act in your own self-interest but in the interest of others. Sometimes people get being selfish, confused with self-interest. This is easily done since they are so similar because they both are dealing with self. They are also different because being selfish ties more into personal egoism. I believe that it is good to act in your own self-interest for your benefit as long as it is not for a bad cause. Hypothetically, if I was walking around school giving people the answers to test 's for some extra money this would give me pleasure because I would be getting money out of it, but it is for a bad cause. There are four types of ethical principles that I will be using, which are Rational, individual, personal, and universal ethical egoism (Hinman, page 119). There where two pieces of literature, Flannery O 'Connor 's short story, "The Displaced Person" which has lots of characters that illustrate the different types of ethical egoism, Alexander Solzhenitsyn 's novel One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, which is basically about one character who illustrates ethical egoism, and the movie Gandhi which to me shows Gandhi as a rational egoist. The first type of egoism I am going to use is individual egoism. Individual egoism says everyone ought to act in my self-interest. Now that would be nice if everyone acted in my self-interest, but I know in my right mind that this would never happen, because the world does not revolve around me and you should not depend on everyone acting for your self-interest because this never will happen no matter who you are. Ms. McIntyre was the only character in the "Displaced Person" who related to individual egoism. Ms. McIntyre is an old lady who runs a farm in the South. She is one of those people who wants the world to revolve around her and is only alive to further her self-interest. This theory is the most

Cited: O 'Connor, Flannery. "The Displaced Person". Canada: Harper, 1971. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich. New York: New American Library,1962.