Topics Mind

Question If the nature of a man is to be egocentric, is this person capable of doing true good or is he always going to be egocentric and therefore evil even if his deeds are good and he means them to be good? Is it possible to escape this nature, deny it, and act for good because of the good itself or just impossible because such person would always try to be good just because his ego demands it?

Accepted:
December 31, 2015

Comments

Your remarks raise some of

Your remarks raise some of the oldest questions in moral philosophy: What is human nature? How should the relationship between morality and an individual's good or interest to be understood? What motivates the morally good person to act morally?

It should be said, though, that your reasoning seems to germinate from a fair number of controversial assumptions.

First, you condition your first question on our being "egocentric." Whether we are in fact egocentric — where I take this to mean that we necessarily act to advance what we believe to be in our best interests — has long been debated by philosophers. Hobbes arguably thought so, but many philosophers have disagreed. One famous contemporary critique of this kind of egocentrism ("psychological egoism") was put forth by Joel Feinberg. (http://web.mit.edu/holton/www/courses/moralpsych/feinberg.pdf) Feinberg in effect argues that psychological egoism either rests on a tautology (that everything a person does stems from her own motives doesn't entail that these motives are selfish or self-interested), confuses the pleasure we often feel in acting disinterestedly with the aim of disinterested action, and requires explaining away every apparently disinterested act as an instance of self-deception. For what it's worth, I suspect Feinberg is right here. While it is possible that we are necessarily 'egocentric,' it doesn't square with the evidence we have regarding human motivation.

Secondly, you seem to suppose that if a person's action is egoistically motivated, that act can't be an instance of "true good." Acting to promote one's own interests can be morally objectionable, but need not be. A good deal of what we do is both egoistically motivated and at least morally permissible. Except in the rarest of circumstances, getting a glass of water when one is thirsty is both egoistically motivated and morally permissible. Indeed, there are probably cases in which acting to advance one's egoistic interests is not only permissible, but morally admirable. A person who asserts her right to equal and fair treatment may be doing so (at least in part) from egoistic motives, but her doing so seems like an instance of "true good."

So I'm skeptical that the question you raise at the end -- whether we can "deny" our egoistic nature and "act for good" -- is so potent a question as you suppose. We do not have to deny our egoistic nature, since being purely egoistic is not our nature, nor is it true that doing what is truly good is also at odds with our individual interests.