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Ethical Egoism Vs Ethical Subjectivism

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Ethical Egoism and Ethical Subjectivism are two ethical standpoints as explained in the book “The Elements of Moral Philosophy” by James Rachels. Rachels (2014) claims that “Ethical Egoism is the doctrine that each person ought to pursue his or her own self-interest exclusively” (James Rachels, 2014. ). And He goes on to explain the moral ideas of ethical egoism by comparing it to psychological egoism. He says that psychological egoism makes a claim about human nature, or about the way things are, however, ethical egoism is about morality, or about the way things should be. (James Rachels, 2014). According to Rachels (2014) ethical egoism is the notion that people should act according to their self-interests, and that we only ought to feel …show more content…

He states that according to the theory, there is no such thing as right or wrong, that morality is just a matter of feeling rather than reason. (James Rachels, 2014). According to Rachels, Ethical Subjectivism is merely the approval or disapproval of things, in other words, if a person says that something is morally good or bad, this means that he or she approves of that thing, or disapproves of it, and nothing more. (James Rachels, 2014. P.35). He claims that Ethical Subjectivism was developed to answer moral questions such as: what is the meaning of the words “good” or “bad”? Whose opinion is correct? And what is the purpose of moral language? (James Rachels, 2014, p.35). Ethical subjectivism answers these questions because it claims there are no “objective” values in morality. In this view, moral thoughts are grounded in the person’s feelings, and nothing more. Though when it comes to objections, ethical subjectivism is no exception, it is even far more vulnerable that ethical egoism because of it’s claim that “ethics has no moral …show more content…

The first objection is that Simple Subjectivism does not account for moral disagreement. (James Rachels, 2014). For example, Matt Foreman, the director of a gay rights organization, believes that being gay is morally acceptable, while congresswoman Michele Bachmann, believes that it is morally wrong. These clearly opposing claims can not be justified by simple subjectivism, because it states that there is no “objective” value in moral claims. Therefore, it leads us for conclusion that both Matt Foreman and Michele Bachmann are just stating their claims but not disagreeing. These makes simple subjectivism unacceptable as a valid moral

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