Contemporary Moral Problems

Book Review Chapter 1: Ethical Theories:

James Rachels: Egoism and Moral Skepticism

Library Reference: N/A

Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Contemporary-Moral-Problems-James-White/dp/0534584306/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233793391&sr=8-1

Quote:  “the agents merely doing what he most wants to do”

    Basically, this is the first argument for psychological egoism. This is actually an unselfish act because the agent only does what he wants to do. All voluntary actions are motivated by agents.

Learning Expectation:

    I would definitely want to learn what Egoism and Moral Scepticism is because this is actually the first time in my life I have ever heard of such term. It really sounds esoteric in a way that it makes me don’t want to hear about it. Obviously I am not much of a fan of philosophy. But for the sake of knowing what it means, I can bear it.

Review:

    So this part of the chapter is all about Egoism and Moral Skepticism. To tell you or to give you a brief introduction of the author, James Rachels, he is a University Professor of Philosophy at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is also the author of several books about philosophy.

So what is Egoism? Egoism is actually divided in to two, which are psychological and ethical egoism. The first one is where one acts very selfish. They only do things that would benefit themselves. They’d do things that they want. Men are selfish in everything that they do. On the other hand, ethical egoism is the contrary. It is an unselfish act. People do things or do what they have interest in only. Regardless of what it may be, just as long as they love what they are doing, they don’t care about others. Plus, they have no obligation to do anything but their interest.

What I’ve learned:

    I have learned what egoism finally is. Egoism is an act of man, which is selfish. This means that a man is selfish in everything that he does. This falls under the first division of egoism, as there are two. The other one is ethical egoism, which states that a man has no obligation to do anything but his own interest.

Questions:

1.    Does anybody actually even think of these things asides from philosophers?

2.    Is this a big deal?

3.    Can it even help change the world?

4.    What’s the relation of this to our course?

5.    Why do we need to study these philosophies?

Citation: (James E. White, St. Cloud State University, 2003)