Psychological Egoism vs Ethical Egoism vs Rational Egoism - Do Any Make Logical Sense?

Do you know the difference between psychological egoism, ethical egoism, and rational egoism?

Hey, Ben here, and in this video, I’ll be answering the question, “can you explain what egoism is, and what the difference is between psychological egoism, ethical egoism, and rational egoism. So, I’ll give the definitions and differences and then explain if any of these can rationally exist and what the major objections to each are, including my own take.

Egoism is the philosophy concerned with the self’s role, or ego, as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Egoism is a form of consequentialism meaning, the consequences of one's conduct are the ultimate basis for any judgment about the rightness or wrongness of that conduct rather than someone’s intent.

There are three main theories of egoism: psychological, ethical, and rational. Watch the full video for an explanation and analysis for all three.

[felicitymick]

I’m reviewing psychological and ethical egoism for my philosophy class, thank you for summarizing it clearly!

[rukbatlupa]

I came to this video via a debate I’m having with an associate. He maintains that egoism and being an egotist overlap in that being egotistical is the natural practice of the philosophy of egoism. I hold that I need to learn more about both but based on what I know, egoism is a philosophy, but egotism is a separate psychological view of oneself and is more closely linked to trauma and narcissistic tendencies than a conscious choice of personal ethics.

Thank you for putting this information into a small, easy-to-digest format.

[kallianpublico]

Selfishness - motive tied to personal happiness?
Personal happiness - satisfaction of preferences(appetites) tied to rewards and opposed to stress.
Reward - things that satisfy appetites.
Stress - things that frustrate or cause separation from goals.
Satisfaction - mental, physical, social, or all three combined, process of accomplishment.
Accomplisment - stress whose overcoming fills an appetite; or an appetite whose fulfillment is worth the stress.
Appetite - any personal desire
Desire - Any needful or pecuniary urge
Urge - bodily feeling sometimes stimulated by external stimuli.

[anonxnor]

To Hume, at 4:27: The mother feels great pain that her child is sick. She tries desperately to mend her own pain, by caring for and trying to heal her sick child. She tends to her child, because not tending to it would make her feel worse (or at least, she imagines that she would feel worse). So she is still motivated by her own selfish interest to avoid pain.

[NKiwi]

We must remember that certain instincts (like feeling pain when ones child dies) are part of our nature due to the evolutionary advantages it gives to the individual. It is technically irrational to cry when ones child dies, however we as humans are still to a certain extend controlled by our instincts. We can try to rationalize the death of ones child as a good thing, however the instinct of sadness overwhelms the rationalization. Certain instincts are stronger then rational thinking, because this also brings with it an evolutionary advantage (If a species were to decide that not having children is the rational choice, that species would eventually disappear).

[ronnywijngaarde]

@Thinking Deeply with Ben

Hmmm.

First, about the circular reasoning argument;


Hmm I think its an oversimplification to say, that psychological egoism is about assuming that a person derives pleasure from any made choice.



The point is that a person associates, interprets, evaluates and prioritizes in a situation, and then makes a choice based on what he or she values and prioritizes, in the context.


Not what happens but the personal experience and evaluation, determines the made choice.
This is what I as a psychological egoist, call egoism.
---
Secondly, about evoquation fallacy:


How is it flawed to call two different things by the same name, if no two things are actually the same, yet we do it anyway? This seems like a matter of detail in classification.

A jeep is not a limousine.

No car is exactly like another car, yet we can confidently call both a car. No egoism is exactly like another egoism, yet we can call both egoism.

[matijagrguric]

I'm not convinced by the objections. It's impossible to do something without wanting to do it

[kallianpublico]

Equivocation - calling two different things by the same name.
Tautology - saying the same thing in two different ways?
Ethical egoism - moral imperative
Rational egoism - categorical imperative?

[kallianpublico]

Is survival selfish? The philosopher who asked "why not suicide?", what was his answer? Also what is instinct in this fight between motive and consequences? Is flinching from heat or sheltering from cold "selfish", "moral", or some other form of "self-imposed" sadism or masochism?
Is evolution self-torture? Or self-expression? Or imposed torture or imposed change? What does one's view of free will and determinism say about this?

[ZoiusGM]

I don’t know if this view I hold already exists but I will call it moral illusionism or psychological egoistic illusionism: all actions are really caused by humans' self-interest - psychological egoism is true - but there is the illusion of altruism which is useful in humans' societies, interactions and their well-being.

I don't find the counter-arguments of Psychological Egoism convincing. Psychological Egoism can seem kind of fallacious because you can pick every action and say that x and y desire of that person caused it to act that way, like you are forcing the answer but I think through questioning of that individual, clinical psychological questioning we can find out the personal reasons and maybe be 90% or more sure of their accuracy (truthfulness). The obstacle of that may be the desire of people to seem like good people and so they may hinder the questioning by just repeating that they did what they did because they wanted to 'simply' help others.

[thea]

hello i have a question
a woman was murdered in a neighborhood and everyone in there witnessed it but none of them did nothing, no one even called for the cops except for an old lady but when the cops came the woman is already dead. when the cops questioned the residents of the neighborhood about the murder, their answers are "i dont know" "i was tired" "we were afraid"
did the residents showed ethical

[Princess-deyana]

Just clicked here to see your handsome self speak 🤗

[lucijak]

Am i the only one who seen his mustache be shaped that way that your eyes are fixed on his lips? i dont know if that was done intentionaly or not but it kept me from clicking away from this video. If it is intentional you are genius and im really blown away.

[zoraksama]

If you sacrifice your future for the betterment of someone else, is it possible to do so without thinking, even for a moment, that you will be a part of it, whether in memory or otherwise? If the answer is no, you cannot say that psychological egoism is incorrect, because it is correct for you.

[luukzwart]

Sedgwick was 13 when he published philosophical work? Doesn't seem right. I won't dive deeper into this, but wikipedia gives entire different dates.

[maninthebox]

I feel like that is an extreme simplification on trying to explain away psychological egoism but alrighty then.

[jonathanschenck]

Doesn't clear up Spinoza view of being Anti-Egoist in a sense of the 1 spoken about in the consciousness of the universe's the one. See metaphysics for more information.
To attack any part of the whole is to be devoid of full awareness.

[amiraslkhalili]

Islam and being a Muslim and some degree Christianity( specially Orthodoxic and catholic church ) moralizes entitlement to virtue and civil rights while liberal democracy and in practice pluralism rationalizes entitlement to virtue and civil rights . why a society or community or an individual cant be rational but rather moral, brings up this discussion that morality and value based mentality and consciousness vs rationality and reason based mentality and consciousness could be the grounding features . this value based consciousness and reason based consciousness in my view epigenetic . This could finally bring us to this discussion that if one defines constructivism as a conscious working model reaching from rationality to value while if one defines structuralism as conscious working model reaching from value to rationality ; then liberal democracy evolves and flourish individually if the epigenetic conscious working model of a society member is based on constructivism rather than structuralism.