Chapter Four

Egoism, Altruism, and the Social Contract

Psychological Egoism
Acting in one’s own self-interest
Difficult to assess the true motivations
of people
Theory of psychological egoism:
cannot be proved or disproved
Ethical Egoism
Ethicalegoism: looking out for one’s
own interests
Evaluating Ethical Egoism
◦ Grounding in psychological egoism
◦ Consistency or coherence
◦ Derivation from economic theory
◦ Conformity to commonsense moral views
Morality
The Moral Point of View
◦ Does one have to take a particular point
of view to see things morally?
◦ An example of moral education by W. D.
Falk
Why be moral?
◦ An individual choice
◦ Self-interested reasons to be moral
◦ The sacrifice for morality