What Is Psychological Egoism?

Psychological egoism is the doctrine that everyone only can desire for his own self-interest ultimately. Psychological egoism (PE) have three main points. First, PE define helping other as a mean to seek for one’s own self-interest, which means there is no pure altruism. eg: people make a donation in order to gain a favorable reputation. Second, it is “can” instead of “ought” in the definition (different from ”ethical egoism”), which implies that PE is a matter of fact that people always desire for self-interest, and they cannot desire for anything else, for it is human’s natural to do so. Third, PE focus on “what I desire”. Different versions of PE use different word to call it ; And the most common version (psychological egoism hedonism) use “pleasure”.

Then, I will argue how our understanding of morality will change if PE is true.

Or even worth, if something bad in morality will give them pleasure, they will against the morality. For example, if killing other people can get more wealth or pleasure without punishment, then people will follow their desire defying the morality to kill other people. Second, if PE is true, then much of morality become sham, or self-deception. People act ethically is just a camouflage of their true motives(which is still their own pleasure). Thus, there does not exist morality, because morality is something we believe and obey from the heart , even if it may harm our