Paper on Egoism
...e “what’s in it for me?” or “how will this benefit me?” thought to a lot of situations, especially those situations that someone other than the self would benefit most from an act or action. Sometimes students take a psychological egoists approach to the classroom and campus, for example (which he or she believes to be wholly self-centered and self-motivated) students argue that people are always innately self-serving). While sure people in general do at many times do focus on the self when the situations calls for or demands it, for example when a person schedules a dentist appointment for themselves for a routine check-up, or brings their car to the mechanic to be fixed, but the wholly self-centered belief is very faulty at best. People who believe in the egoist theory will admit that, at times people can be primarily other-directed and we see many examples of that from volunteer workers, teachers, and especially parents who have no choice but to think beyond themselves because of their children in their lives who are depended on them. According to author Peter Singer from his book A Companion to Ethics “ People are simply not so prudent or consistent as this account. Even the very moderate amount of deliberately decent conduct that is actually found in human life would not be possible if it relied solely on these traits.” However, the interesting part is the belief that that they should not be, that they should be more about the self. Here are some reasons why college students including my self tend to be egoists. One is the identity concern. Most college students when starting out in college do not have a clear view of who they are or a firm identity. In fact, part of going to college for me was to find out what I am good at what I can do with my life, and where do I fit in society. Given that so many students are looking for a way to structure our lives, a theory that appeals to the self as the groundwork for normative action makes sense. Egoism promotes self-recognition as the source of action and this appeals to those students whose "self" is in a state of instability. Another reason is that most college students have relatively few responsibilities outside of ourselves. This factor can clearly stand out at times in the classroom especially between married or older students and traditional age students around my age. For students who also have kids egoism probably wouldn’t appeal to them, due to the fact that they have a great amount of responsibilities outside themselves, such as their kids. Without the experience of responsibility for something other than our own egos, there’s a pretty limited base for understanding other normative views. A third reason is the flood of media commercials and advertising that encourages an egoism attitude. From the time we are little kids all this can become ingrained in us. Sports athletes have an egotistic approach, everytime you turn on the television you see an athlete pitching the latest sneakers, or models wearing the right jeans or shoes, all of this pitched as the way to be a unique individual, to be “cool”. If you combine this with the need to create an identity, you can easily the pressure toward egoism. But these are not good reason to stay with an egotistic approach. Most of a college student’s life still lies ahead of them as far as potential goes, and this potential usually involves relationships career wise, marriage, and deep long lasting friendships. These are things that all college students strive for. But to truly attain these relationships one must commit themselves to things and values of substance that go beyond their own isolated ego. A good illustration of this is Aristotle discussion of deep friendships, and the ability to form deep friendships, something all college students including myself hope to achieve over our lifetime. The potential to form deep friendships with people my age, and possibly find a girlfriend was a big motivation for me when I was contemplating the decision to further my education beyond highschool. Now according to Aristotle having a "complete" friend involves active participation in the person’s life, and “that the real joy of friendship is in loving a friend, not in being loved”. The difference between friends for usefulness or pleasure and a true or complete friend is that the complete friend, no matter what the situation involves will always be there for you. Friendship compels a person to greater things than just seeking things for self-interest. In essence when you think about it there can’t truly be deep friendship between two people if one or both parties is seeking the relationship just for their own benefit, whatever that benefit may be. The reason for this is that they miss out on the actually joyfulness and elation of loving another person for who they which is what results when one take the usual egoism approach which many of us college students do. Egoism in the traditional sense just doesn’t jive well with Aristotle’s view of what complete friends are. Ethical egoism states that all friends should be in first thing first, useful for the self, “what can this person do for me?”. Now someone who takes a psychological egoism approach (the idea that people always act in their own interests, even when they are helping others) to helping a person in need, may say that say that this is at its central core a self-serving motivation because we are thinking about how this will benefit us in the long run. But it does not equal most people’s experience. For example does a person who volunteers at a food shelter; does so because of the long-ter...