Shoemaker Ethical Egoism

Ethical egoism is the view that every action is performed in order to maximize one’s own self-interest. Shoemaker argues, however, that in order for an ethical theory to be tenable it should be publicizable. He explains that ethical egoism should not be publicized, and is therefore implausible, because by working in their own best interest, ethical egoists will essentially eliminate the best outcome for themselves. When two ethical egoists act together in a way that is beneficial to themselves individually, as seen in the Prisoner’s Dilemma, their result is worse than if they had not acted to fully benefit themselves. Therefore, acting in their own self interests resulted in an outcome that actually wasn’t in their best interests. In other