Journal 2 - Classical Utilitarianism

JOURNAL 2

For my journal this week, I will be talking about chapter 4 and 5. In the following paragraphs, I will be elaborating on egoism, altruism and social contract which is chapter 4 of the textbook. This chapter responded to questions to why some people care about other’s interest due to the future help that person can give you. It also expounded on why others only do care about themselves and why not others. Firstly, why be moral? In my own opinion, it seems to be an individual choice. People want to be moral to avoid punishment and for their own self-interest. Individuals are capable for morality and sacrifice is needed. I am going to proceed with the definition of some terms which really stood out to me. Altruism in the textbook could be defined as concern for the well-being of others. On the other hand, egoism is the primarily concerned with their own well-being. Both definitions are opposed of each other. Reading the first paragraph of my textbook, I asked myself, in which of these definitions do I stand? Obviously, I will say that I am an altruist because I always try to care about others interests than mine. Furthermore, I came across an interesting question which asked if selfishness was good or bad. According to me, I will say selfishness is bad because you not sharing with others in need, but I may be wrong for other people. This question depends on us individuals and the condition in which we find ourselves in. For example, if someone is selfish to another person, it might be because he wants do something important with that particular thing or may be it might be for someone else. Though, others will still see this case of not sharing as bad no matter what. The term for this question is known as the normative question of egoism. Another question intriguing question was if people are basically selfish or selfish-interested? In my own opinion, there are always limitations to why a person is selfish and the reason why he or she decides to be selfish. Reading through this chapter, made me realize that we should learn not to judge others based on their behavior and the decisions they made in certain conditions or cases. In addition, an interesting term that stood out to me is the difference between the psychological and ethical egoism. In psychological egoism, it refers to the descriptive theory about what people are like example, people are selfish. In contrast to ethical egoism deals with is it 'good' for people to pursue their own self-interest, must consider from whose perspective. Example, if I collect degradable for 10 years, I can buy a car. Additionally, it is a normative theory, what we ought to do, how we ought to act, divided into individual ethical egoism (look out for best interest) or universal ethical egoism (I scratch your back, you scratch mine.) One of the theory which I find it interesting is reciprocal altruism which was one of my best theory in this chapter and altruism makes sense because they can pay you back later. Example, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours. Just like if we helped someone now if he or she was in need, we will expect that person to help us in the future as we did to him. Getting into another theory which is the social interaction theory deals with the belief that we all would be better off if everyone looked out for themselves instead of worrying about each other. I partly agree with this stance. To me, I won’t be better if it wasn’t also for someone else to tell me my wrong deeds than to be alone. Like a saying” two heads are better than one.” In chapter 4, I loved the paradox of hedonism which refers to the impulse toward pleasure, if too predominant, defeats its own aim. Example, if we try to become happy while only focusing on happiness and no other factors, we will fail. I completely agree with this paradox because it makes a lot of sense not only to me but to other individuals who carefully read it. After reading chapter 4, I noticed that ethical egoism had some weaknesses and strengths. One of the ethical egoism strength I could identify is that we can still benefit others, freedom, couldn't all acts be considered selfish in some way. Example from the textbook, Lincoln saving pigs because he couldn't deal with leaving them. On the other hand, ethical egoism has a weakness which is the need proof of continuous self-interest, how can altruism be a lie, why should we be moral, naturalistic fallacy