James Rachels: Egoism and Moral Scepticism
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What I expect to learn:
I expect to learn more about egoism and understand what a moral skepticism is. Another thing that I think I will learn here is the different views or ways of thinking of different kinds of people towards morality.
Quote:
“The mere fact that I am acting on my wants does not mean that I am acting selfishly; that depends on what it is that I want. If I want only my own good, and care nothing for others, then I am selfish; but if I also want other people to be well-off and happy, and if I act on that desire, then my action is not selfish.”
Review:
In this chapter, Rachels talks about psychological egoism and ethical egoism and this topic really catches my attention. The argument between selfishness and unselfishness became so interesting for me. Rachels said that psychological egoism holds that all human actions are self-interested and ethical egoism says that all actions ought to be self-interested which I think means that in ethical egoism it is morally right to pursue self-interest and wrong not to. For me there is nothing wrong in pursuing one’s self-interest but the question is when satisfying your own interest, is it really for the good or for worst. There are times that when we satisfy our own selves, we unintentionally causes harm to other people and that is I think supports the statement that interests come before those of other people. We tend to think about other people or we base our interest to the things that other people will think be beneficial for them and to you as well. For me, from this topic I realized that we must always be aware of what our interests are. We must not always think of our own satisfactions but also we must think if our interests are still for good or for worst not just for ourselves but also for other people by there we can satisfy ourselves by having a clear conscience. On the other hand, moral skepticism, this idea answers the common question, “Why be moral?” in this topic we can relate the question why would I think about others? Or why do I need to be unselfish? Yes, thinking about this, is morally good but not morally required. We may choose to be immoral and do things that we want without thinking about the consequences. But look if we know our reason to do an act, and when we understand the reason we have always the choice to do what is morally good and soon it will become required for us.
What I have learned:
I’ve learned in this chapter that both religion and morality are for good and these two will lead us to a better attitude and behavior.
Integrative questions:
- What is the difference between morality and religion?
- How can religion and morality be connected?
- How morality has been thought to depend on religion.
