Week 1: Egoism and Altruism

Essay question

Why should you be moral?

Key readings

• Baier, Kurt, Egoism, in Peter Singer (ed.), A Companion to Ethics, Oxford: Blackwell, 1991, ch. 16.
• Nagel, Thomas, The Possibility of Altruism, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970, ch. 5, 9-12.
• Singer, Peter, Practical Ethics, 3rd ed., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011, ch. 12.
• Shaver, Robert, Egoism, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Spring, 2015.

Further reading

• Axelrod, Robert, The Emergence of Cooperation among Egoists, The American Political Science Review, vol. 75, no. 2 (June, 1981), pp. 306-318.
• Bloomfield, Paul (ed.), Morality and Self-interest, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.
• Crisp, Roger, The Dualism of Practical Reason, Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, vol. 96 (1996), pp. 53-73.
• Hare, R. M., Moral Thinking: Its Levels, Method, and Point, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981, ch. 11.
• Hills, Alison, The Beloved Self: Morality and the Challenge from Egoism, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.
• Mackie, J. L., Ethics: Inventing Right and Wrong, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1977, pp. 107-20, 189-192
• Parfit, Derek, Reasons and Persons, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987, secs, 1-9, 23-24.
• Prichard, H. A., Does Moral Philosophy Rest on a Mistake?, Mind, vol. 21, no. 81 (January, 1912), pp. 21-37.

Exam questions

• ‘If an action is my action, then its motive is my motive. Thus all motivation is self-regarding’. Does this argument exclude the possibility of truly altruistic action?
• Is any version of egoism plausible?
• Is ethical egoism irrational?
• Could a reason count morally for me but not for you?