Episode 131: Greg Salmieri discusses egoism and altruism
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What is ethical egoism and how does it differ from ordinary selfishness?
Yeah. Yeah,
Hello and welcome to Elucidations. I'm Matt Tykman. And with me today is Greg Salmieri, a fellow at the Anthem Foundation who teaches philosophy at Rutgers University. And who co edited a Companion to Ayn Rand in the Blackwell Companions to Philosophy series and Foundations of a Free Society, which is out from University of Pittsburgh Press. Today he is here to discuss egoism and altruism. Greg Salmieri, welcome back to Elucidations. Thank you, it's great to be back. So I think egoism isn't a term that everybody's necessarily always come across, even Not necessarily in a philosophy class. So what exactly does egoism mean?
Well it The word's been used for a number of related theories. I I think the kind of central idea to start with to get a a grip on all of them and how they're related is the idea of an actions being egoistic. And an action is egoistic if it's ultimately motivated by the agent's own well being. The agent is the person taking the action. That's how we use that term in ethics. So there's a person taking an action and he has a goal that he's trying to achieve by taking the action. And if that goal is ultimately to benefit himself, The action's egoistic, as opposed to the goal being to To help someone else to um obey some kind of a duty or Or just him not having much of a goal at all. And what we're talking about here is the ultimate goal of an action.
So, you know, you might do one thing for the sake of something else and that second thing for the sake of a third, but this chain, you know, comes to an end somewhere. And so we're talking about the ultimate goal. So you might well be acting to help someone else, but because you think that doing this will somehow enrich your life. Or you might be acting to help yourself but only because you think it'll fit you to be a better servant of God or a better servant of other people or help you to better do your duty. Whether an action is egoistic or non egoistic is a matter of what the ultimate goal is. In the final analysis, why are you doing this? And is it to benefit yourself? And if so, it's an egoistic action.
And then the various series that have been called egoism make claims about actions either that they all are egoistic or that they all ought to be egoistic or that they um are all egoistic insofar as they're generally the agent's own action as opposed to being motivated by some kind of neurosis or something. We can give different names to these theories. So the the theory that all actions are egoistic, that no one ever acts for any reason other than self-interest is sometimes called psychological egoism. The theory that all someone's genuine actions, as opposed to like compulsions or nervous ticks, they have sometimes that's called egoism about reasons or rational egoism, although that term is also used in another way that we'll discuss.
And then the theory that I'm interested in and that I endorse, and that some of the people I study are proponents of is ethical egoism. Uh, that is the theory that es central to what makes an action good, what makes it right, what makes it moral, is that it benefits the person taking it.
Okay, nice. So Maybe just to make sure that I'm clear on this idea of an ultimate action. Uh it seems like what we're talking about there is like for any given thing that you're doing, like why are you really doing it? You know, so for instance, let's say I'm going to meet my friend in Philadelphia. And like I could take the five oh five train or the five ten train. And either way I'd get to meet my friend in Philadelphia. Um Let's say I do take a five oh five train. It seems like it would be silly to imagine that I'm like taking the five oh five train specifically as an end in itself. Like, no, I don't care about this exact train. The only reason I care about it is because it's gonna get me to my friend and I what I wanna do is see my friend.
But then once we get to me seeing my friend, it seems like we could kinda ask the same question about that. Well okay, but why really do I want to see my friend?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is ethical egoism and how does it differ from ordinary selfishness?
0:13–6:16
2
How do philosophers determine the ultimate goal behind our actions?
6:16–11:30
3
What are the main varieties of egoism (psychological, rational, ethical) and their claims?
11:30–16:38
4
How is “self‑interest” defined – pleasure, desire fulfillment, or human flourishing?
16:38–22:39
5
What is altruism and how has the term evolved from Comte to modern moral theory?
22:39–29:32
6
Can actions that seem self‑sacrificial actually be egoistic when viewed through a well‑being lens?
29:32–35:18
7
How do examples like Steve Jobs, Jeff Bezos, and effective altruism illustrate egoistic versus altruistic living?
35:18–42:25
8
What are the practical implications of adopting an egoist perspective for everyday moral decisions?
42:25–49:24
Speakers
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