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If we accept that there is no way to act without self interest, we sure will feel . you some insight into yourself and why the world doesn't correspond to your inner  Missing: Finding.
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At this point, however, exclusive egoism turns out to be trivially true, which means that it is unfalsifiable, since there is no empirical instance that could in principle disprove the hypothesis. It does not allow us to distinguish, for instance, between our soldier and the soldier who thrusts a child onto the grenade in order to save himself.

Whereas we generally think that the latter is behaving selfishly, while our soldier is acting in a selfless manner, exclusive egoism maintains that both soldiers are equally selfish, because both are acting in their self-interest.

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Alternatively, the psychological egoist might opt for a non-trivial response to the soldier counter-example. She could argue that, as infants, we have only self-regarding desires; desires for our own well-being, for instance. However, as we grow older, we find that desiring things for their own sake eventually satisfies our self-regarding desires. We then come to desire these things for their own sake. For example, I might detest exercise, but also find that exercising results in physical well-being; after a while, I will begin to desire exercise for its own sake. However, then the psychological egoist will have moved away from exclusive egoism.

It may be true that our soldier would not have had a present desire to save others, unless saving others was connected in the past with increasing his welfare, but this does not mean that his present desire is selfish. At this point, the psychological egoist could adopt the weaker stance of predominant egoism which allows for exceptions, and thereby forestall counter-examples like our heroic soldier; moreover, predominant egoism is both an empirically plausible and non-trivial position.

In the fictional figure of John Galt we find the embodiment of egoism as an ideal. Similarly, the move from psychological egoism to ethical egoism is a move from a descriptive to a normative position. There is also a distinction between short-term and long-term interests: I might gain a short-term benefit by stealing from my friends, but experience a long-term loss when they discover the theft and I lose those friends.

In addition, ethical egoism can also apply to rules or character traits, as well as acts. There are several arguments in support of ethical egoism. Ethical egoists occasionally appeal to the findings of psychological egoism as support for their normative claims; however, regardless of whether psychological egoism is true or not, the jump from a descriptive to a normative position is fallacious, as one cannot use supposed existing conditions as justification for how one ought to behave.

A more valid move is to argue that, as psychological egoism is true, it is impossible to motivate people on non-egoistic grounds. Thus, ethical egoism is the most practical moral theory, or the most capable of motivating people to act ethically. However, as we have seen, exclusive egoism just seems false, and substituting it with predominant egoism loses the crucial claim that it is impossible to motivate people to behave altruistically. On the other hand, if psychological egoism is true, it follows from psychological egoism that I cannot intend to perform an action which I believe is not in my self-interest.

However, if I am wrong, and this action is in my self-interest, then ethical egoism stipulates that I should perform an action that I cannot intend. The appeal to psychological egoism therefore fails to ensure its practicality. However, this is not necessarily a shortcoming of an ethical theory, as part of the value of an ethical theory may lie in its offering us an ideal for us to live up to. Setting aside the appeal to its supposed practicality, ethical egoists might alternatively claim that ethical egoism best fits our commonsense moral judgements.

For instance, it captures the intuition that I should not let others exploit me, and unlike consequentialism, allows me to keep some good for myself, like a house, even though giving this house to someone else might benefit him slightly more. I derive a much larger long-term benefit if I act generously and compassionately towards my friends, for example, than if I steal from them, even though theft might provide the greatest short-term benefit to me.

Nevertheless, it appears that ethical egoism is also at odds with some of our most deeply held ethical beliefs.


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It mandates that one should only ever help someone else if doing so benefits oneself, which means that one is not morally obligated to help those who cannot help or hinder one. Imagine I can easily save a drowning child, but none of the players in this scenario can offer me any beneficial cooperation in return for saving the child like praise or negative retaliation for failing to help like scorn.

Further, say that I am indifferent to the situation presented to me, and regardless of what I do, I will feel no sense of guilt or pleasure, then ethical egoism will remain silent as to whether I should save the child. Moreover, if there is some slight uncompensated sacrifice I will have to make, like getting my shoes wet, then ethical egoism will tell me to refrain from saving the drowning child.

However, we generally think that, in this case, there is a moral obligation to save the child, and ethical egoism can neither explain how such a duty might validly arise, nor generate such a duty. We experience the negative feelings of low self-esteem when we believe that we are inadequate and less worthy than others. But self-esteem is also a state that varies day to day and even hour to hour. When we have succeeded at an important task, when we have done something that we think is useful or important, or when we feel that we are accepted and valued by others, our self-concept will contain many positive thoughts and we will therefore have high self-esteem.

When we have failed, done something harmful, or feel that we have been ignored or criticized, the negative aspects of the self-concept are more accessible and we experience low self-esteem. Self-esteem can be measured using both explicit and implicit measures, and both approaches find that most people tend to view themselves positively. Higher scores on the scale indicate higher self-esteem.


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Please rate yourself on the following items by writing a number in the blank before each statement, where you. R denotes an item that should be reverse scored. Subtract your response on these items from 5 before calculating the total.

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Data are from Rosenberg Society and the adolescent self-image. An interesting finding in many samples from the Western world, particularly in North America, is that the average score is often significantly higher than the mid-point. One interesting implication of this is that participants in such samples classified as having low self-esteem on the basis of a median split will typically actually have at least moderate self-esteem.

Perhaps some cultures place more importance on developing high self-esteem than others, and people correspondingly feel more pressure to report feeling good about themselves Held, A problem with measures such as the Rosenberg scale is that they can be influenced by the desire to portray the self positively. The observed scores on the Rosenberg scale may be somewhat inflated because people naturally try to make themselves look as if they have very high self-esteem—maybe they lie a bit to the experimenters to make themselves look better than they really are and perhaps to make themselves feel better.

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If this the case, then we might expect to find average levels of reported self-esteem to be lower in cultures where having high self-worth is less of a priority. This is indeed what has generally been found. Heine and Lehman reported that Japanese participants living in Japan showed, on average, moderate levels of self-esteem, normally distributed around the scale mid-point.

Many other studies have shown that people in Eastern, collectivistic cultures report significantly lower self-esteem than those from more Western, individualistic ones Campbell et al. Do, then, such differences reflect these different cultural priorities and pressures, or could it be that they reflect genuine differences in actual self-esteem levels? There are no easy answers here, of course, but there are some findings from studies, using different methods of measuring self-esteem, that may shed some light on this issue.

Indirect measures of self-esteem have been created—measures that may provide a more accurate picture of the self-concept because they are less influenced by the desire to make a positive impression. Participants worked at a computer and were presented with a series of words, each of which they were to categorize in one of two ways. One categorization decision involved whether the words were related to the self e. A second categorization decision involved determining whether words were pleasant e. On some trials, the self words were paired with the pleasant items, and the other words with the unpleasant items.

On other trials, the self words were paired with the unpleasant items, and the other words with the pleasant items. Greenwald and Farnham found that on average, participants were significantly faster at categorizing positive words that were presented with self words than they were at categorizing negative words that were presented with self words, suggesting, again, that people did have positive self-esteem.

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Furthermore, there were also meaningful differences among people in the speed of responding, suggesting that the measure captured some individual variation in implicit self-esteem. A number of studies have since explored cross-cultural differences in implicit self-esteem and have not found the same differences observed on explicit measures like the Rosenberg scale Yamaguchi et al. Does this mean that we can conclude that the lower scores on self-report measures observed in members of collectivistic cultures are more apparent than real?

Nevertheless, values such as modesty may be less prioritized in individualistic cultures than in collectivistic ones, which may in turn reflect differences in reported self-esteem levels. There are also some interesting age differences in self-esteem that have been uncovered. One interesting implication of this is that we often will have higher self-esteem later in life than in our early adulthood years, which would appear to run against ageist stereotypes that older adults have lower self-worth.

What factors might help to explain these age-related increases in self-esteem? One possibility relates back to our discussion of self-discrepancy theory in the previous section on the cognitive self. Recall that this theory states that when our perceived self-discrepancy between our current and ideal selves is small, we tend to feel more positive about ourselves than when we see the gap as being large.

Evidence from Ryff suggests that this may well be the case. As we saw in our earlier discussion of cultural differences in self-esteem, in at least some cultures, individuals appear motivated to report high self-esteem. As we shall now see, they also often actively seek out higher self-worth.

For those of us who are actively seeking higher self-esteem, one way is to be successful at what we do. When we get a good grade on a test, perform well in a sports match, or get a date with someone we really like, our self-esteem naturally rises. When we fail in one domain, we tend to move on until we find something that we are good at.

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In short, we feel good about ourselves because we do a pretty good job at creating decent lives. Another way we can boost our self-esteem is through building connections with others. Forming and maintaining satisfying relationships helps us to feel good about ourselves. A common way of doing this for many people around the world is through social networking sites.

There are a growing number of studies exploring how we do this online and the effects that it has on our self-worth. When our friends do not respond to our updates, however, this can negatively impact how we feel about ourselves.