Would it be fair to say that what you're really advocating here is *well-roundedness*, rather than *egoism*? Egoism could recommend any number of egregious harms, whenever doing them would somehow prove beneficial to you. But I'm sure you don't really endorse that (and not *just* because, as a contingent empirical matter, stoic detachment is a more reliable route to true self-benefit).
I can see how this concern for well-roundedness would push against utilitarianism's hegemonic moral maximizing. But it's worth flagging that effective altruism is not hegemonic in the same way. It just says to use our moral efforts efficiently (and to have a non-trivial degree of moral/altruistic concern). But it's much less "demanding" in allowing that our moral efforts might be strictly contained, e.g. to just 10% of our overall life concerns. You can still play Mario in the other 90%. So EA is actually compatible with well-roundedness in a way that full-blown utilitarianism might struggle with.
Yes--details need to be worked out but in the ethically egoist view I'm developing (or hope to develop) you really cannot do egregious harms while truly benefiting yourself because of the interconnectedness of yourself to others. (This will be the tricky part to work out but basically, what I'll be arguing is that the neo-Confucians recover Yang Zhu even though they also have Mengzi in their framework in that to them to benefit yourself is to benefit the world, and you need to do it in these Confucian circles of benefiting).
I like the idea that you can still play Super Mario for a lot of time (and it's harmless as it goes)--but for ethical egoist, if Super Mario delights you then you have some ethical obligation to do it (which goes further than the claim that it's permissible to play Super Mario).
Duties to self can also be a part of non-egoist frameworks (incl. both pluralistic consequentialism and pluralistic deontology), of course! :-)
I'm not a huge fan of deontic concepts, so would hesitate to call it an obligation, but I agree that self-care goes beyond "mere permissibility": it's positively *worth doing* delightful things in life!
I agree with Richard that ethical egoism, typically understood, can readily allow (and even require!) harming others in ways that you don't want to allow, so a better name for your view would be better.
I think Nathan Robinson's complaint is misplaced and unfair: why, among all the many frivolous, wasteful, and actively harmful things that many people, fields and professions people engage in, is philosophy singled out as some kind of waste of time or distraction? Really??
I still need to do a lot to work out all the details of it, but it does need to show that you really benefit *yourself* next to benefiting others if you go for self-realization.
Things where we try, but fail to realize ourselves but are beholden to these false goods Spinoza talks about tend to be very harmful both for ourselves and others (hence the horrible spiral in which people can fall trying to uphold their reputation and increase it)
This is beautifully written. At first, I was thrown off by the endorsement of "ethical egoism." Consideration for others is the cornerstone of ethics and "ethical egoism" suggests prioritizing self. Egoism traditionally fails to recognize or prioritize our interconnectedness. But this argument that self-interest *must* involve interconnectedness is a great one.
Chomsky made the right choice because when we love another, we share their space and share their joy. Nothing matters more than this immediate moment and this small, shared space and Chomsky intuitively recognized that. Spending time, simply being present and available for his grandchildren was the very opposite of wasted time. I cannot imagine a solid ethical argument to the contrary. I don't know what to call this expansive conception of self and self-interest but whatever its name, it is beautiful and true.
OK, I understand a little better now. Spinoza sees tenacity and nobility as the primary virtues: tenacity is the character trait corresponding to our rational striving for self-preservation and nobility is the character trait corresponding to our rational striving for the benefit of others.
I was really sorry to see you have cancer, and I’m so pleased you’re recovering – I’ll be thinking of you every day, I think you’re a real blessing to the philosophical community.
I’m a bit unwell (with something temporary and minor) and under a lot of unavoidable work pressure at the moment from various sources (like a deadline for submitting my dissertation), so this might come across as a grouchy rant; my apologies for that, I'm a bit of a grouchy ranter at times.
You say, “I worry that effective altruism and related utilitarian ethical theories reflect our relentless obsession with optimization and work ethic.”
Do utilitarians work harder than other people? Do they not spend time doing things for themselves, or for fun? Why think this? I’m not a utilitarian, but I feel that cartoonish, extreme versions of utilitarianism that barely exist if they even exist at all are often treated as standing in for the actual view. I mean, what do, say, Mill or Brad Hooker say that supports this kind of utilitarianism? Mill was very clear that he thought all your moral reasons are grounded in your own attitudes; the reasons he gave for following utilitarianism were that you care about others (the main one), you want to get on with others, and you’re afraid of punishment by others or by God (which you might suffer if you do things that are really bad for other people). What in that means you don’t have reason to have fun or care for yourself at all?
I’m also not a huge fan of EA, but I’ve spent five weeks at the GPI as a Global Priorities Fellow, and everyone there seemed to be having a nice time. (I also didn’t meet any utilitarians there; the common belief people have that EAs must be utilitarians as an a priori matter is really odd, I think. Can’t we just check? Or maybe the view is that EAs mut be utilitarians because only utilitarianism justifies trying to help other people well, which isn’t true.) The GPI has nice deck chairs outside, a nap room, good food, and after work (which isn’t especially long) they often go to the pub for a chat or hang around playing badminton and other games in the car park. What do EAs actually say along the lines of “Optimize the general good in every single thing you do in life” or “Don’t take time off work”? If nothing, let's be charitable and not attribute such extreme views to them.
The essay says that it disagrees with views that we should maximize the good. It then seems to endorse a view that we should maximize the good. This is ethical egoism: “Ethical egoism claims that I morally ought to perform some action if and only if, and because, performing that action maximizes my self-interest” (Robert Shaver, “Egoism,” SEP; Eudaimonists also understand their ethical egoism this way, with different language: they say that your reason for anything, including your reason to be virtuous, is that it benefits you, and they seem to maximizers about flourishing, not satisficers – they don’t say to be virtuous but to not try to be as virtuous as possible, or to flourish but avoid flourishing a lot.)
Opposing maximizing the good while embracing ethical egoism doesn’t make sense, so “ethical egoism” must be being used in a novel way here; that's fine, we can call things whatever we want, but it’s unnecessarily confusing to use an existing term for a contradictory view without explaining why.
I can’t tell what ethical egoism does mean here, but it seems to be either the view that a strong reason for performing an action is that it benefits me, or the view that we should give our own wellbeing priority over the wellbeing of others. The first interpretation is uncontroversial (the view that there’s no such thing as prudential reasons doesn’t have much of a following). So, it seems to be the second interpretation that’s correct: We should give our own wellbeing priority over the wellbeing of others. (I’m hoping you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.)
But why think this is true? Say there’s a father with a small child who’s sick. If the father stays up to look after the child it will be slightly detrimental to the father’s wellbeing; he’ll be tired, struggle at work the next day, be in a bad mood, and might get sick. Why is it ethically wrong for the father to stay up with his child? It seems perfectly acceptable. (I really struggle to grasp the idea that I shouldn’t ever sacrifice a little of my wellbeing for others, especially those I love; it’s my idea of a hellish, worthless life, so to me it even seems quite good that parents sometimes prioritize their children’s wellbeing over their own to some extent.)
A common response by Eudaimonistic ethical egoists is to say that either (1) acting well towards the child is good for the father because it’s virtuous, and virtue is a constituent of wellbeing. So, parents should care for their children, because that’s what’s good for the parents. (I always find this really abhorrent, because I like people who care for others for those others' sakes, and I don’t like being within 10 feet of people who help others only to help themselves, but okay.) But then the initial motivation for egoism goes unsatisfied: if it’s virtuous for you to care for others, and being virtuous promotes your own wellbeing, then you do very well to not spend time on your own projects or care for things like your own health. Looking after others is actually really good for you, so do that. Or (2) your wellbeing is partly constituted by others’ wellbeing, so when a father helps his child, he’s helping himself. But then again, the initial motivation for egoism is lost: if your wellbeing isn’t distinct from others’ wellbeing, then it makes no sense to prioritize your wellbeing; that wouldn’t even mean anything, it’s the same as others’ wellbeing. If you give up everything good in your life apart from helping others, that could be incredibly beneficial to them, and their wellbeing isn’t distinct from yours, so although you’ve sacrificed all your projects, health, and happiness, you’ve ended up flourishing fantastically well. So, egoism can’t take either of these routes without supporting the kind of life it set out to oppose.
[I just saw in a comment that the route you want to take is that doing something good for yourself benefits others; that means that if something benefits others, it's good for you (you just have to move the relative positions of the people). So again, this view allows that if you spend your life promoting others' wellbeing, it will be great for you; so there isn't a justification for self-care in this view.]
I think when philosophers get into ethical egoism (as with many other things) they tend to massively over-philosophize and over-complicate things. Mightn’t it just be the case that it’s good to do things that are good for other people, but it’s also fine and important to look after yourself and okay to have a nice time? That’s what nearly all humans think, anyway; it's not a crazy idea.
Yes--this post is exploratory, not rigorous philosophy (I'll need at least a month and everything going well before I can do proper rigorous philosophy again, and even so, I tend to meander a lot, should've specialized in continental philosophy :)
Would it be fair to say that what you're really advocating here is *well-roundedness*, rather than *egoism*? Egoism could recommend any number of egregious harms, whenever doing them would somehow prove beneficial to you. But I'm sure you don't really endorse that (and not *just* because, as a contingent empirical matter, stoic detachment is a more reliable route to true self-benefit).
I can see how this concern for well-roundedness would push against utilitarianism's hegemonic moral maximizing. But it's worth flagging that effective altruism is not hegemonic in the same way. It just says to use our moral efforts efficiently (and to have a non-trivial degree of moral/altruistic concern). But it's much less "demanding" in allowing that our moral efforts might be strictly contained, e.g. to just 10% of our overall life concerns. You can still play Mario in the other 90%. So EA is actually compatible with well-roundedness in a way that full-blown utilitarianism might struggle with.
Yes--details need to be worked out but in the ethically egoist view I'm developing (or hope to develop) you really cannot do egregious harms while truly benefiting yourself because of the interconnectedness of yourself to others. (This will be the tricky part to work out but basically, what I'll be arguing is that the neo-Confucians recover Yang Zhu even though they also have Mengzi in their framework in that to them to benefit yourself is to benefit the world, and you need to do it in these Confucian circles of benefiting).
I like the idea that you can still play Super Mario for a lot of time (and it's harmless as it goes)--but for ethical egoist, if Super Mario delights you then you have some ethical obligation to do it (which goes further than the claim that it's permissible to play Super Mario).
Duties to self can also be a part of non-egoist frameworks (incl. both pluralistic consequentialism and pluralistic deontology), of course! :-)
I'm not a huge fan of deontic concepts, so would hesitate to call it an obligation, but I agree that self-care goes beyond "mere permissibility": it's positively *worth doing* delightful things in life!
I agree with Richard that ethical egoism, typically understood, can readily allow (and even require!) harming others in ways that you don't want to allow, so a better name for your view would be better.
I think Nathan Robinson's complaint is misplaced and unfair: why, among all the many frivolous, wasteful, and actively harmful things that many people, fields and professions people engage in, is philosophy singled out as some kind of waste of time or distraction? Really??
I call it self-realization in this piece -- https://aeon.co/essays/how-to-face-the-climate-crisis-with-spinoza-and-self-knowledge
I still need to do a lot to work out all the details of it, but it does need to show that you really benefit *yourself* next to benefiting others if you go for self-realization.
Things where we try, but fail to realize ourselves but are beholden to these false goods Spinoza talks about tend to be very harmful both for ourselves and others (hence the horrible spiral in which people can fall trying to uphold their reputation and increase it)
This is beautifully written. At first, I was thrown off by the endorsement of "ethical egoism." Consideration for others is the cornerstone of ethics and "ethical egoism" suggests prioritizing self. Egoism traditionally fails to recognize or prioritize our interconnectedness. But this argument that self-interest *must* involve interconnectedness is a great one.
Chomsky made the right choice because when we love another, we share their space and share their joy. Nothing matters more than this immediate moment and this small, shared space and Chomsky intuitively recognized that. Spending time, simply being present and available for his grandchildren was the very opposite of wasted time. I cannot imagine a solid ethical argument to the contrary. I don't know what to call this expansive conception of self and self-interest but whatever its name, it is beautiful and true.
OK, I understand a little better now. Spinoza sees tenacity and nobility as the primary virtues: tenacity is the character trait corresponding to our rational striving for self-preservation and nobility is the character trait corresponding to our rational striving for the benefit of others.
Thank you - a relief and a delight
Thanks for this. I looked up Robinson's piece and had some related thoughts just now: https://loveofallwisdom.substack.com/p/you-dont-have-to-drop-philosophy
I was really sorry to see you have cancer, and I’m so pleased you’re recovering – I’ll be thinking of you every day, I think you’re a real blessing to the philosophical community.
I’m a bit unwell (with something temporary and minor) and under a lot of unavoidable work pressure at the moment from various sources (like a deadline for submitting my dissertation), so this might come across as a grouchy rant; my apologies for that, I'm a bit of a grouchy ranter at times.
You say, “I worry that effective altruism and related utilitarian ethical theories reflect our relentless obsession with optimization and work ethic.”
Do utilitarians work harder than other people? Do they not spend time doing things for themselves, or for fun? Why think this? I’m not a utilitarian, but I feel that cartoonish, extreme versions of utilitarianism that barely exist if they even exist at all are often treated as standing in for the actual view. I mean, what do, say, Mill or Brad Hooker say that supports this kind of utilitarianism? Mill was very clear that he thought all your moral reasons are grounded in your own attitudes; the reasons he gave for following utilitarianism were that you care about others (the main one), you want to get on with others, and you’re afraid of punishment by others or by God (which you might suffer if you do things that are really bad for other people). What in that means you don’t have reason to have fun or care for yourself at all?
I’m also not a huge fan of EA, but I’ve spent five weeks at the GPI as a Global Priorities Fellow, and everyone there seemed to be having a nice time. (I also didn’t meet any utilitarians there; the common belief people have that EAs must be utilitarians as an a priori matter is really odd, I think. Can’t we just check? Or maybe the view is that EAs mut be utilitarians because only utilitarianism justifies trying to help other people well, which isn’t true.) The GPI has nice deck chairs outside, a nap room, good food, and after work (which isn’t especially long) they often go to the pub for a chat or hang around playing badminton and other games in the car park. What do EAs actually say along the lines of “Optimize the general good in every single thing you do in life” or “Don’t take time off work”? If nothing, let's be charitable and not attribute such extreme views to them.
The essay says that it disagrees with views that we should maximize the good. It then seems to endorse a view that we should maximize the good. This is ethical egoism: “Ethical egoism claims that I morally ought to perform some action if and only if, and because, performing that action maximizes my self-interest” (Robert Shaver, “Egoism,” SEP; Eudaimonists also understand their ethical egoism this way, with different language: they say that your reason for anything, including your reason to be virtuous, is that it benefits you, and they seem to maximizers about flourishing, not satisficers – they don’t say to be virtuous but to not try to be as virtuous as possible, or to flourish but avoid flourishing a lot.)
Opposing maximizing the good while embracing ethical egoism doesn’t make sense, so “ethical egoism” must be being used in a novel way here; that's fine, we can call things whatever we want, but it’s unnecessarily confusing to use an existing term for a contradictory view without explaining why.
I can’t tell what ethical egoism does mean here, but it seems to be either the view that a strong reason for performing an action is that it benefits me, or the view that we should give our own wellbeing priority over the wellbeing of others. The first interpretation is uncontroversial (the view that there’s no such thing as prudential reasons doesn’t have much of a following). So, it seems to be the second interpretation that’s correct: We should give our own wellbeing priority over the wellbeing of others. (I’m hoping you’ll correct me if I’m wrong.)
But why think this is true? Say there’s a father with a small child who’s sick. If the father stays up to look after the child it will be slightly detrimental to the father’s wellbeing; he’ll be tired, struggle at work the next day, be in a bad mood, and might get sick. Why is it ethically wrong for the father to stay up with his child? It seems perfectly acceptable. (I really struggle to grasp the idea that I shouldn’t ever sacrifice a little of my wellbeing for others, especially those I love; it’s my idea of a hellish, worthless life, so to me it even seems quite good that parents sometimes prioritize their children’s wellbeing over their own to some extent.)
A common response by Eudaimonistic ethical egoists is to say that either (1) acting well towards the child is good for the father because it’s virtuous, and virtue is a constituent of wellbeing. So, parents should care for their children, because that’s what’s good for the parents. (I always find this really abhorrent, because I like people who care for others for those others' sakes, and I don’t like being within 10 feet of people who help others only to help themselves, but okay.) But then the initial motivation for egoism goes unsatisfied: if it’s virtuous for you to care for others, and being virtuous promotes your own wellbeing, then you do very well to not spend time on your own projects or care for things like your own health. Looking after others is actually really good for you, so do that. Or (2) your wellbeing is partly constituted by others’ wellbeing, so when a father helps his child, he’s helping himself. But then again, the initial motivation for egoism is lost: if your wellbeing isn’t distinct from others’ wellbeing, then it makes no sense to prioritize your wellbeing; that wouldn’t even mean anything, it’s the same as others’ wellbeing. If you give up everything good in your life apart from helping others, that could be incredibly beneficial to them, and their wellbeing isn’t distinct from yours, so although you’ve sacrificed all your projects, health, and happiness, you’ve ended up flourishing fantastically well. So, egoism can’t take either of these routes without supporting the kind of life it set out to oppose.
[I just saw in a comment that the route you want to take is that doing something good for yourself benefits others; that means that if something benefits others, it's good for you (you just have to move the relative positions of the people). So again, this view allows that if you spend your life promoting others' wellbeing, it will be great for you; so there isn't a justification for self-care in this view.]
I think when philosophers get into ethical egoism (as with many other things) they tend to massively over-philosophize and over-complicate things. Mightn’t it just be the case that it’s good to do things that are good for other people, but it’s also fine and important to look after yourself and okay to have a nice time? That’s what nearly all humans think, anyway; it's not a crazy idea.
Again, sorry for the grouchy tone - I should have left this for a couple of weeks for when I have time to write it better.
Yes--this post is exploratory, not rigorous philosophy (I'll need at least a month and everything going well before I can do proper rigorous philosophy again, and even so, I tend to meander a lot, should've specialized in continental philosophy :)
I hope your recovery goes well and you have a good place to rest with a nice view of the beautiful autumn in St Louis.