Turning now to the justification for being moral, we find in Plato’s The Republic (c. 380 BCE) a story about Gyges, a shepherd in the service of the King of Lydia (in modern-day Turkey), who happened upon a ring that when worn and turned in one direction made him invisible and when turned back made him visible again. Once Gyges became aware of the power of the ring, he arranged to be sent as a messenger to the king. On arriving at the palace, he committed adultery with the queen, killed the king with her help, and took over the kingdom.1
From Plato’s time to the present, this story has helped to dramatically ask the question: Why should I be just or moral when I could really benefit myself more from doing something else? In everyday life, this question suggests the following:
These questions express the fundamental challenge that egoism raises to morality.
In Plato’s Gyges story, the question is posed: Why should Gyges be moral or just when, given his magical ring, he could benefit more by acting self-interestedly? Yet we do not have to reach back to Plato, or to myth, to find examples of egoism raising a challenge to morality.
On December 10, 2008, Bernard Madoff, the former chair of the NASDAQ Stock Market, revealed to his two sons that the investment management arm of his firm was a giant Ponzi scheme – as he put it, “one big lie.” A Ponzi scheme is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors from their own money or from money contributed by subsequent investors rather than from profit, and as a result, at some point the scheme has to run out of money.2 After Madoff’s sons passed on this information to the authorities, Madoff was arrested and charged with bilking his investors out of $50 billion. That made his crime the largest Ponzi scheme ever perpetrated and the largest investment fraud ever committed by a single person. By targeting charities, Madoff was also able to avoid the threat of sudden or unexpected withdrawals and so he was able to keep his scheme going for a number of years.3
Surely Madoff’s behavior should suffice to make him an egoist. Even so, as an egoist, he did make one fairly significant mistake. He didn’t find a way to disappear with a significant portion of his stolen funds just before his Ponzi scheme collapsed. However, the question we need to focus on is: How does egoism purport to justify the behavior of Gyges and Madoff and many other egoists like them?
To answer this question, we need to consider the two main forms that egoism takes:
Let’s begin by addressing the challenge of Individual Ethical Egoism, a view that is often not clearly distinguished from the more discussed Universal Ethical Egoism.5 Individual Ethical Egoism maintains that everyone ought to do what is in the overall self-interest of just one particular individual. That means that all claims about what each of us ought to do are to be based on the overall interests of just one particular individual. The good of that one individual determines what everyone else ought to do.
Let’s call that individual Penelope. Why do only Penelope’s interests count in determining what everyone ought to do? Individual Ethical Egoism must provide us with an adequate justification for giving only Penelope’s interests this status.
Consider what will not work to provide such a justification:
In sum, if the defender of Individual Ethical Egoism were to argue that the same or similar reasons do not hold for other people with the same or similar characteristics to those of Penelope, the defender must explain why they do not hold. This is because it must always be possible to understand how a characteristic serves as a reason in one case but not in another. If no explanation can be provided, and in the case of Individual Ethical Egoism none has been forthcoming, the proposed characteristic either serves as a reason in both cases or it does not serve as a reason at all.
Thus, it turns out that Individual Ethical Egoism, upon examination, is an indefensible position. It claims that everyone ought to do what serves the overall interest of just one particular individual, but it is incapable of providing any justification which could plausibly support that claim.
The Universal Ethical Egoist (let’s call him Yufeng) presumably starts out with the same general goal as Penelope, whose interests were to be served by Individual Ethical Egoism. Yufeng, too, would like to show that the furthering of his own interests is the thing to do. Nevertheless, he recognizes that any reason that he could give for furthering his own interests would suggest a similar or analogous reason that others could give for furthering their interests. As a Universal Ethical Egoist, however, Yufeng confronts this problem by granting that each person has similar reasons for favoring his or her own interests. In order to justify favoring his own interests, Yufeng realizes that he must allow that others are similarly justified in favoring their own interests. It is this willingness to generalize that saves Universal Ethical Egoism from the fate of Individual Ethical Egoism, which refused to generalize, thereby rendering Universal Ethical Egoism a serious challenge to morality. Let us now consider three of the most important attempts to meet that challenge.
Universal Ethical Egoism has been forcefully criticized by contemporary philosopher Christine Korsgaard, among others, for failing to meet a “publicity requirement” that is satisfied by morality.6 Those committed to morality, just like those committed to obeying the law, usually want their commitment to be publicly known so that they will be better able to resolve conflicts with others who are similarly committed. By contrast, Yufeng, our Universal Ethical Egoist, is usually not going to want his commitment to Universal Ethical Egoism to be publicly known. If others know that he is an egoist, they will tend to guard themselves against being harmed by him and, as a consequence, he may not be able to benefit at their expense to the degree that he would otherwise want to do. Rather, while privately endorsing egoism, Yufeng is going to publicly, yet hypocritically, profess a commitment to morality in order to secure for himself the benefit that such a public endorsement of morality provides.
Of course, privately, Yufeng thinks that others, like him, ought to be similarly committed to Universal Ethical Egoism, although he will never tell them so, except perhaps when their interests happen to further his own. For him to reveal his commitment to Universal Ethical Egoism on other occasions would work against his interests. There will be times when Yufeng will think that others ought to interfere with him, yet because he and others are publicly committed to a morality that prohibits and attempts to punish interferences of this sort, he will thereby hope to avoid such interference to himself. On other occasions, Yufeng will be able to further his overall self-interest by selectively, and usually secretively, interfering with the interests of others in violation of the requirements of morality. This is exactly what Gyges was able to do in Plato’s dialogue, and what Madoff was able to do in real life as well, at least for a number of years. So while Universal Ethical Egoism is not committed to the same publicity requirement that we find in morality, given its rationale for avoiding that requirement, it is difficult to see how this lack of commitment should count as grounds for rejecting the view. Clearly, keeping their commitment to egoism relatively private was essential to the success of both Gyges and Madoff.7
Now James Rachels offers an argument that he thinks comes closest to an outright refutation of Ethical Egoism.8 Rachels attempts to defeat egoism by paralleling the view with racism and then showing that they are similarly defective. He argues that just as the racist does not provide a good reason why everyone should support the racist’s own preferred racial group, so the egoist does not provide a good reason why everyone should support the egoist’s own interests over everyone else’s interests.
Unfortunately, while Rachels directs his argument against egoism generally, his argument works only against Individual Ethical Egoism. It does not also work against Universal Ethical Egoism, the view that we are presently considering.9 This is because only Individual Ethical Egoism wants to defend putting someone, and by extension some group, in a special category. Universal Ethical Egoism, by contrast, wants to treat everyone the same, at least to the extent of allowing that everyone is equally justified in pursuing his or her own self-interest. So, while Rachels’s argument does work against Individual Ethical Egoism, it fails to meet the more serious challenge of Universal Ethical Egoism.
Still another attempt to meet the challenge of Universal Ethical Egoism, advanced by Kurt Baier, tries to show that the view is fundamentally inconsistent.10 For the purpose of evaluating this critique, let’s use as an example a modern Gyges, Gary Gyges by name, an otherwise normal human being who, for reasons of personal gain, has embezzled $10 million while working as an accountant at People’s National Bank and is now taking steps to escape to a South Sea island where he will have the good fortune to live a pleasant life protected by the local authorities and untroubled by any qualms of conscience. Suppose that a fellow employee, Hedda Hawkeye, knows that Gyges has embezzled money from the bank and that he is about to escape. Suppose, further, that it is in Hawkeye’s overall self-interest to prevent Gyges from escaping with the embezzled money because she will be generously rewarded for doing so by being appointed vice president of the bank. Given that it is in Gyges’s overall self-interest to escape with the embezzled money, it now appears that we can derive a contradiction for Universal Ethical Egoism from the following:
Because premise (2) and conclusion (5) are contradictory, Universal Ethical Egoism appears to be inconsistent.
The soundness of this argument depends, however, on premise (4), and Yufeng, our Universal Ethical Egoist, believes there are grounds for rejecting this premise. As Yufeng understands the “oughts” of Universal Ethical Egoism, he is justified in preventing others from doing what they ought to do in violation of premise (4). This is because Yufeng understands them to be analogous to the “oughts” of competitive games, which do justify just this sort of behavior.
Consider, for example, how in football a defensive player might think that the opposing team’s quarterback ought to pass on third down with five yards to go, while not wanting the quarterback to do so and indeed hoping to foil any such attempt the quarterback makes. Or to use Jesse Kalin’s example:
I may see how my chess opponent can put my king in check. This is how he ought to move. But believing that he ought to move his bishop and check my king does not commit me to wanting him to do that, nor to persuading him to do so. What I ought to do is sit there quietly, hoping he does not move as he ought.11
The point of these examples is to suggest that a Universal Ethical Egoist may, like a player in a game, judge that others ought to do what is in their overall self-interest while simultaneously attempting to prevent such actions or at least refraining from encouraging them. And this provides grounds for rejecting premise (4) from the earlier argument against Universal Ethical Egoism.
The analogy of competitive games also illustrates the sense in which a Universal Ethical Egoist claims that she herself ought to do what is in her overall self-interest. For just as a player’s judgment that she ought to make a particular move is followed, other things being equal, by an attempt to perform the appropriate action (the defensive player attempting to stop the quarterback’s throw), so likewise when a Universal Ethical Egoist judges that she ought to do some particular action, other things being equal, an attempt to perform the appropriate action follows (Madoff’s attempt to benefit indefinitely from his Ponzi scheme).
In general, defenders of Universal Ethical Egoism stress that because we have little difficulty understanding the implications of the use of “ought” in competitive games, we should also have little difficulty understanding the analogous use of “ought” by the Universal Ethical Egoist, which in turn provides grounds for rejecting premise (4) of the argument that was supposed to show that Universal Ethical Egoism was an inconsistent view.12
The challenge of Universal Ethical Egoism to morality has proven to be a strong one, as the failure of the previous three arguments to meet that challenge indicates. In fact, owing to past failures to provide a strong defense of morality over egoism, most moral philosophers today have simply given up hope of providing an argument showing that morality is rationally preferable to egoism.13 Rather, they seem content to show that morality is simply rationally permissible, which implies that egoism is rationally permissible as well. Most contemporary moral philosophers do not think anything more can be established.
While this consensus among moral philosophers today is quite strong, a few philosophers express hope that we can do better and actually provide arguments showing that morality is rationally required and not just simply rationally permissible.14 Most moral philosophers today would certainly like to have a good argument of this sort. So given the importance of the question of whether morality can be shown to be rationally required, let us consider just one more attempt to meet the challenge of Universal Ethical Egoism and show that morality is rationally preferable to it.
Let us begin by imagining that each of us is capable of entertaining and acting upon both self-interested and moral reasons and that the question we are seeking to answer is what sort of reasons for action it would be rational for us to accept.15 This question is not about what sort of reasons we should publicly affirm, since people will sometimes publicly affirm reasons that are quite different from those they are prepared to act upon. Rather, this question focuses on what reasons it would be rational for us to accept at the deepest level – in our heart of hearts – when we are speaking truthfully to ourselves.
Granted, some people are incapable of acting upon moral reasons. For such people, there is no question about their being required to act morally or altruistically. Yet the interesting philosophical question is not about them but about people, like ourselves, who are capable of acting morally as well as self-interestedly and are seeking a rational justification for following a particular course of action.
In trying to determine how we should act, let us assume that we would like to be able to construct a good argument favoring morality over egoism. Given that good arguments are nonquestion-begging, they do not assume what they are trying to prove.
In a film by Sacha Guitry, The Pearls of the Crown (1937), three thieves are arguing over the division of some valuable pearls. One of these thieves gives two to the thief on his right, then two to the thief on his left. “I,” he says, “will keep three.” “How come you get to keep three?” one of the other thieves asks. “Because I am the leader,” he replies. “Oh. But how come you are the leader?” asks the other thief. “Because I have more pearls,” he replies. In the film, this question-begging argument, which assumes just what it purports to prove, surprisingly satisfies the other two thieves because they do not further question how the pearls have been distributed. Nevertheless, let’s assume that we would like to do better by constructing a good argument for morality that does not similarly beg the question.
The question at issue here is what reasons each of us should take as supreme, and this question would be begged against Universal Ethical Egoism (hereafter simply egoism) if we proposed to answer it simply by assuming from the start that moral reasons are the reasons that each of us should take as supreme. But the question would be begged against morality as well if we proposed to answer the question simply by assuming from the start that self-interested reasons are the reasons that each of us should take as supreme. This means, of course, that we cannot answer the question of what reasons we should take as supreme simply by assuming the general principle of egoism: Each person ought to do what best serves his or her overall self-interest. We can no more argue for egoism simply by denying the relevance of moral reasons to rational choice than we can argue for altruism simply by denying the relevance of self-interested reasons to rational choice and assuming the general principle of altruism: Each person ought to do what best serves the overall interest of others.16 Consequently, we have no other alternative but to grant the prima facie relevance of both self-interested and altruistic reasons to rational choice and then try to determine which reasons we would be rationally required to act upon, all things considered. (Notice that in order not to beg the question, it is necessary to back off from both the general principle of egoism and the general principle of altruism. From this standpoint, it is still an open question whether egoism or altruism will be rationally preferable.)
This leaves us to consider two kinds of cases: cases in which there is a conflict between the relevant self-interested and moral or altruistic reasons, and cases in which there is no such conflict.
It seems obvious that where there is no conflict and both reasons are conclusive reasons of their kind, both reasons should be acted upon. In such contexts, we should do what is favored both by morality or altruism and by self-interest.
Consider the following example. Suppose you accepted a job marketing a baby formula in a developing country where the formula was improperly used, leading to increased infant mortality.17 Imagine that you could just as well have accepted an equally attractive and rewarding job marketing a similar formula in a developed country where the misuse does not occur, so that a rational weighing of the relevant self-interested reasons alone would not have favored your acceptance of one of these jobs over the other.18 At the same time, there were obviously moral reasons that condemned your acceptance of the first job – reasons that you presumably are or were able to acquire. Moreover, by assumption in this case, the moral reasons do not clash with the relevant self-interested reasons: they simply made a recommendation where the relevant self-interested reasons were silent. Consequently, a rational weighing of all the relevant reasons in this case could not but favor acting in accord with both the relevant self-interested and moral reasons.
Now when we rationally assess the relevant reasons in conflict cases, it is best to cast the conflict not as one between self-interested reasons and moral reasons but instead as one between self-interested reasons and altruistic reasons.19 Viewed in this way, three solutions are possible:
Once the conflict is described in this manner, the third solution can be seen to be the one that is rationally required. This is because the first and second solutions give exclusive priority to one class of relevant reasons over the other, and only a question-begging justification can be given for such an exclusive priority. Only by employing the third solution – sometimes giving priority to self-interested reasons, sometimes giving priority to altruistic reasons – can we avoid a question-begging resolution.
For example, suppose that you are in the waste disposal business and you have decided to dispose of toxic wastes in a manner that is cost-efficient for you but predictably causes significant harm to future generations. Imagine that there are alternative methods available for disposing of the wastes that are only slightly less cost-efficient and will not cause any significant harm to future generations.20 In this case, you would weigh your self-interested reasons favoring the most cost-efficient disposal of the toxic wastes against the relevant altruistic reasons favoring the avoidance of significant harm to future generations. If we suppose that the projected loss of benefit to yourself was ever so slight and the projected harm to future generations was ever so great, then a nonarbitrary compromise between the relevant self-interested and altruistic reasons would have to favor the altruistic reasons. Hence, as judged by a nonquestion-begging standard of rationality, your method of waste disposal was contrary to the relevant reasons.
Notice also that this standard of rationality will not support just any compromise between the relevant self-interested and altruistic reasons. The compromise must be a nonarbitrary one, for otherwise it would beg the question with respect to the opposing egoistic or altruistic perspective.21 Such a compromise would have to respect the rankings of self-interested and altruistic reasons imposed by the egoistic and altruistic perspectives, respectively. Accordingly, any nonarbitrary compromise among such reasons in seeking not to beg the question against either egoism or altruism will have to give priority to those reasons that rank highest in each category. Failure to give priority to the highest-ranking altruistic or self-interested reasons would, other things being equal, be contrary to reason.
Of course, there will be cases in which the only way to avoid being required to do what is contrary to your highest-ranking reasons is by requiring someone else to do what is contrary to his or her highest-ranking reasons. Some of these cases will be so-called lifeboat cases, as when two individuals are stranded in a lifeboat that has only enough resources for one to survive. Although such cases are surely difficult to resolve (maybe only a chance mechanism, like flipping a coin, can offer a reasonable resolution), they surely do not reflect the typical conflict between the relevant self-interested and altruistic reasons that we are or were able to acquire.
We can see how morality can be viewed as a nonarbitrary compromise between self-interested and altruistic reasons. First, a certain amount of self-regard is morally required or at least morally acceptable. Where this is the case, high-ranking self-interested reasons have priority over low-ranking altruistic reasons. Second, morality obviously places limits on the extent to which people should pursue their own self-interest. Where this is the case, high-ranking altruistic reasons have priority over low-ranking self-interested reasons. In this way, morality can be seen to be a nonarbitrary compromise between self-interested and altruistic reasons, and the “moral reasons” that constitute that compromise can be seen as having an absolute priority over the self-interested or altruistic reasons that conflict with them.22
Yet does Morality as Compromise provide an answer to the egoism as practiced by Gyges in myth and by Madoff in reality? Well, it does provide a good – that is, a nonquestion-begging – argument favoring morality over egoism and in this way justifies morality over egoism. Of course, this may not have the hoped-for effect on real-life egoists. They may not care whether there is a good argument or justification for what they are doing or proposing to do. To deal with them, we may have to resort to avoidance or coercion. If we do need to resort to coercion, however, Morality as Compromise can also provide us with a good argument for doing so. What more could we expect it to do to meet the challenge of egoism?
Of course, exactly how Morality as Compromise is to be implemented in practice needs to be determined. So far developed, it is open to a number of different interpretations. A consequentialist approach would presumably favor one sort of interpretation of the compromise, a nonconsequentialist approach of either a Kantian or Aristotelian variety would presumably favor yet another, as we will see in subsequent chapters. So Morality as Compromise is anything but a decision procedure for solving practical moral problems. Nevertheless, however this debate between alternative interpretations is resolved, it is clear that some sort of a compromise view or moral solution is rationally preferable to either egoism or altruism when judged from a nonquestion-begging standpoint. Surely, that should suffice to answer the challenge of egoism.
In this chapter, we have seen that the challenge of Individual Ethical Egoism showed itself to be incapable of providing any justification that could plausibly support the view. By contrast, Universal Ethical Egoism showed itself a formidable challenge to ethics, easily turning aside objections appealing to the publicity of reasons, to parallels between egoism and racism, and to consistency. This challenge, as we saw, could only effectively be met by a nonquestion-begging argument that favored morality over both egoism and altruism.