In contemporary ethics, it seems there are three categories of egoism:
There is psychological egoism, the concept that people naturally pursue their self-interest.
There is the ethical egoism, the concept that one ought to pursue one’s self-interest.
There is rational egoism, the concept that it is reasonable and normal that one should pursue one’s self-interest.
I suggest in contemporary ethics, there are or should also be three categories if altruism:
There is psychological altruism, the concept that people naturally pursue the interest of others solely or primarily, rather than their self-interest first or most.
There is ethical altruism, the concept that one ought to pursue the interests of others, first and foremost over self-interests.
I would like to coin a technical term called rational altruism, the concept that it is reasonable and sensible for each moral agent to pursue the interests of others first and foremost, before seeing to his own needs and desires.
Defining Various Interests:
Now I would like to define self-interest, It is good to pursue self-interest that is harmless, or to make more money honestly, or to gain pleasure like dancing or drinking beer, or a noble, high end pleasure like praying to God or writing a poem.
If what pleases someone is smoking crack, or sexually molesting a child, or beating a girlfriend, or torturing animals, such pleasing self-interests are sick and evil.
If someone is to pursue a self-interest, it should cause no harm in the world to people, the world, or animals. It should not promote demonism or lawlessness.
Now I would like to define other-interest. It is good to pursue other-interest if one is trying to lessen bigotry, injustice, inequality, poverty, unequal treatment and tribal or rivalries. If one is trying to give people equal treatment, non-discrimination in a color-blind society or equal opportunity, that is noble.
If one’s other-interest is to be achieved through big government social engineering, then that grow statism and tyranny, and reduced individual independence and personal liberty, such a bad means leads to a unjust, authoritarian society that is bad for all. This is destructive other interest.
If one is delineating all individuals as solely, exemplified avatars of their group identities, and such collective assignations is their essence that they can never transcend, and that groups in the world are all that individuals are and the world is an endless power struggle between warring groups of victors, oppressors exploiters and discriminating racists and ruling elites of one set of groups versus the vanquished, suffering, exploited, tyrannized, racial victims and the disenfranchised as the besieged underdogs, and one other-interests is promoting class envy, class struggle and violent revolution to place the vanquished on top, and the old, hated ruling elite, now defeated, subjugated and marginalized, then this other-interest is cruel and wicked.
If one’s other interest is noble goals, and sincerely meant and gently advocated and brought forth legislatively and nonviolently, the well-wishers are noble people.
Making one point clear:
I think that both ethical egoists and ethical altruists miss the boat, by smugly and simplistically self-referring (both sides are guilty of this one-sided, simplistic self-referencing.) to themselves as the good guys with the exemplary moral motives, and the other guys as the bad guys with an evil moral motives.
Reality is more complicated than that and people’s natures are complex, with several moral motives at work at the same time and various times, and perhaps there are 10 categories of moral motive: Clean, good self-interest, largely good self-interest, moral neutral self-interest, largely evil self-interest, and purely evil self-interest. There is purely good other-interest, largely noble other-interest, morally neutral other-interest, mostly wicked other-interest, and purely vicious other-interest.
I think that egoists and altruist agree that moral codes are to be followed and they should promote loved, harmony, happiness, and the spread of goodness and perhaps godliness in the world.
Roughly I would describe a good act as one that promotes love, self-realization, peace, moderation, individualism, God-n-earth, liberty, fair treatment and good manners and social cooperation.
Roughly, I would describe a bad act as one that promotes discord, hate, slavery, needless human suffering, inequality, violence, crime, injustice, envy, theft, lawlessness, bad anarchy, groupism, group-living, extremism, and bad manners.
Perhaps we should worry less about people’s motives and insist that their acts mostly be good acts rather than bad acts, towards themselves and how they treat others.
I would also suggest that a person that does good acts is good to himself while being good to others, and doing what is good for himself, will usually be good for others, and doing what is good for others will be, over the long run, what is good for him.
I would also maintain that a person that does a good act is acting in the best interest of both others and himself.
If he commits a bad act, he is not serving the good self-interest of himself, nor the good self-interest of others.
Generally, committing a good act will be good for others and will be motivated by good other-interest, and committing a good act will be good for the self, and motivated by good self-interest. So defined, the benefits of good self-interest and concomitant good acts performed will also typically serve the good other-interests in the community that need to be met. Thus, committing a good act out of self-interest will mostly be compatible with directly or at least indirectly not harm the goo community interests.
As a general rule, when the moral agent commits a good act, no matter what is his moral motive (we hope it is a noble motive), his act is good for his self-interest and for the community’s interest. When he acts bad, he is hurting himself and the community.
Moral Moderation
My presupposition is that moral moderation is the way to live well. Moral immoderation is over reaction, extreme or over-indulgence in a choice, trait-tendency, behavior, or moral motive, or it is under-reaction, too little of, an under-representation of the opposite choice, trait-tendency, behavior or moral choice. Good is moderate, and evil is immoderate.
With moral moderation as my first principle, I wish to state that enlightened self-interest is more noble than kindly other-interest, but that both moral motives are at work in the good person. The break down should be that the good person doing good acts in his good self-interest more than he is motivated by his kindly other-interest, but that the latter, secondary moral motive is still taken in consideration by him, and his so operating is good for his interests and the public’s interest.
With my moral fist principle at work, I believe the good person is an individual more than a group person, but he is both. A bad person is a group person more than a developed individualist. The individual is paradoxically unselfish though self-interested, and the joiner is paradoxically selfish though he is other-interested more than motivated by his own interest. There are bad persons that are individualists, but most bad people are bad because they run in packs, thus making poor choices.
To sum up the good person is an individualist, loner and individuators more than he is a joiner, and social, but he is both.
A bad person is a groupist, joiner and non-individuator, and he is extreme, and he will reject individualism almost completely, and a few psychopathic or criminal bad people are utterly selfish individualists.
With my moral first principle at work, I would define a good person with good motives, good character doing a good act is one that is loving, and this means he is more and firstly self-loving but secondarily and less but also he is other loving.
I would depict the bad person with bad motives, vicious character and doing bad acts as one is a person that hates himself and hates others but hides behind claims of collectivist virtue by group-living and non-individuating, hiding in the pack. He is extreme, ruled by hatred, low self-esteem anger, bitterness, ingratitude, nihilism, resentment, and envy. This is what his collectivist existence has driven him to. In rarer extreme circumstances, he may be inordinately selfish, cruel or monstrous as a destructive individualist. He lives imprudently and radically.
With my moral first principle at work, the good person doing good acts would act in his self-interest and in the collective best interest by self-realizing and controlling his own consciousness, his property and wielding his share of power, neither to rule others or be ruled by them, to hurt others or be hurt by them, to steal from others or let them steal from him.
A bad moral person doing bad acts in neither his best interest or in the best interest of the community would run in packs, group-live, non-individuate, serve a cause as a true believer living as a cog in the machine on some level of a statist hierarchy ruled by a privileged elite. His power relationships would be out of balance and very twisted and sick. He would allow elites to rule him, steal his power and deprive him of his liberty, soul-rape him and treat him sadistically, stealing his money and property. He would also get his revenge not by rebelling against the corrupt, unjust system, but he will be sadistic towards those below him on the pecking order, paying them the least, rewarding them the least punishing them the most, and practicing double standards by holding them to the highest standards while he indulges and lets off those on his own level with no performance and no punishment for a lack of merit. He will abuse those below less powerful, steal from them, rob them of their power, their independence, and their happiness. He will needlessly inflict pain on them just to show them that he can because he is more powerful than they are.
Are people basically good?
Let us apply our first principle of moral moderation, which is closely linked to the axioms of epistemological moderation and ontological moderation. Here is how this applies to the question of whether human nature is fallen or not. Human nature is basically wicked, their nature is dominantly bad, hateful, and hating, but it is not completely wicked. Humans also have a natural, secondary, recessive capacity to be good, lovable and loving. Roughly adopting Aristotelian ethics, we must teach each person to fight their bad nature, disciplining themselves while working hard to become a good person with an achieved, habituated, strengthened good will and character, courteous to the self and to others. This good person enjoys whole self-esteem. He loves himself and others.
If the bad person doing bad acts is not reformed or self-reforming, he will act selfish, mean, and discourteous towards others and himself. He will be self-effacing and self-loathing, hating himself and others. He will just follow nis natural inclinations, and do what the group does, not self-realizing or making himself or the world a better place.
What does it mean to be good or to be evil naturally. Traditional altruists define people as fallen but individualist and selfish. They see people as psychological egoists that should be good Christians and Jews and secular humanists that are motivated primarily by serving others, and if they can do somethings rationally self-interested while serving others, that is acceptable.
Mandeville, Stirner and Hobbes are psychological egoists, believing that people act from their own interests. They may be ethical egoists and rational egoists.
Anarchists believe that people are basically good, that altruism is good and unselfish, and that egoism is selfish and bad. Bad behavior is learned, and what is natural is noble and good. People do not need the state, police, and laws to be good, but are the source of corrupting people in the world.
I believe people are born wicked, but that they are still naturally good enough that they can learn to e good, with a lot of effort and hard work, and that this effort can be successful and is the moral obligation of all, for it is the only way to serve good self-interest and good other-interest.
Now I like Rand define egoism as virtue and altruism and selfishness (but these quick, procrustean statements need strong, immediate qualifying.
Enlightened self-love is the primary good and must be taught and learned, and that will help the noble individuators care for himself and for others and for the community at the same time, making compromises and adjustments as necessary. He will use his reason and wisdom and figure it out. The Good Spirits are there to assist him in completing this vital task.
Altruism (Especially bad altruism that is selfish, cruel, sado-masochistic, collective, groupist, self and other-hating, group-living and true-believing. Bad altruism can morph into worshiping a cause, a fixed idea, and that hurts a lot of people. can be an ethical goal, but it requires careful assessment and cautious implementation. Misplaced altruism is the source of most of the evil and suffering rampaging about this world.
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