Assignment 2

Topic: E.G.O.I.S.M

In this world, consists of a variety of human behaviour between good, bad, evil, honest and egoism. Whatever actions done are to achieve one result which is the best. In ethics, egoism occurs depending on the impacts of each situation. People may be motivated by a myriad of feelings such as anger, fear, love, compassion, pride, a sense of justice, or a desire for knowledge. In philosophy theory in ethics Egoism has two variants, descriptive or normative.

What is different between the descriptive egoism and the normative egoism?

The distinction between psychological egoism and ethical egoism reflects the contrast of "is" verses "ought," "fact" verses "value," or "descriptive" verses "prescriptive."

The descriptive egoism (Psychological egoism) is the determining motive of every voluntary action is a desire for one's own welfare. On this view, even though all actions are regarded as self-interested actions, the egoist readily points out that people usually try to conceal the determining motives for their actions because such concealment is usually in their self-interest.

1. Psychological egoism is a descriptive theory resulting from observations from human behaviour. As such, it can only be a true empirical theory if there are no exceptions.

2. Psychological egoism makes no claim as to how one should act. That all persons seek their self-interest on this theory is a purported fact, and this belief is viewed by the psychological egoist as non-moral and verifiable.

The normative egoism(ethical egoism) is the ethical that each individual should seek as an end only that individual's own welfare. The idea here is that an individual's own welfare is the only thing that is ultimately valuable for that individual.

1. Ethical egoism does not claim that all persons, in fact, seek their own self-interest; ethical egoism only claims that we should or ought seek our self-interest, even though all persons might not do so.

2. If ethical egoism is to be regarded as a theory, it must be universalized to hold for all persons.

According James Rachel, explain about common confusion concerning selfishness and self-interest

       Actions in self-interest are not necessarily incompatible with the interest of others.

For example, it is in your self-interest for everyone to be happy. If you are to help others, you must first be in a position to do so. I.e., in many instances, you have to help yourself first to obtain the knowledge of how to help others


REFERENCE
http://philosophy.lander.edu/ethics/ethical_ego.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egoism

http://spot.colorado.edu/~heathwoo/Phil220/egoism.html