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UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations UC Riverside UC Riverside Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title A Defense of Egoism Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/8k415803 Author Ho, Bach Van Publication Date 2017 License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ 4.0 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE A Defense of Egoism A Dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Philosophy by Bach Ho June 2017 Dissertation Committee: Dr. Andrews Reath, Chairperson Dr. John Fischer Dr. Gavin Lawrence Dr. Jeremy Heis Dr. Fransisco Ayala Copyright by Bach Ho 2017 The Dissertation of Bach Ho is approved: __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ __________________________________________________ Committee Chairperson University of California, Riverside Acknowledgments I would like to thank my parents for their love and support. I would like to thank Andrews Reath, John Fischer, Gavin Lawrence, Jeremy Heis, and Francisco Ayala for serving on my committee. iv Dedication To my mother, Lilan Tran. v ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION A Defense of Egoism by Bach Ho Doctor of Philosophy, Graduate Program in Philosophy University of California, Riverside, June 2017 Dr. Andrews Reath, Chairperson Egoism is the view that self-interest is the exclusive standard of morally right action. In this dissertation, I present two arguments for egoism: a naturalistic argument and an intuitive argument. The naturalistic argument grounds egoism in a theory of what the end of every living thing is: The end of a living thing is, I will argue, only to survive. I set the stage for and develop this argument across the first four Chapters. In Chapter 1, I present the case for the prevailing, neo-Aristotelian view of the end of a living thing: The end of a living thing is to instantiate its species. The pursuit of this end is typically understood to involve not only survival, but also flourishing, reproducing, and helping other members of one’s species, all in species-characteristic ways. In Chapter 2, I argue that the aforementioned species view is false. In Chapter 3, I develop the view that the end of every living thing, including every human living thing, is only to survive. vi In Chapter 4, I argue that human well-being (or self-interest), the notion of what intrinsically benefits a human being, consists in and only in survival. In the fifth and final Chapter, I develop the intuitive argument, which adopts the method of reflective equilibrium. I argue that egoism aligns well with a critical mass of our intuitions about the moral life. vii Table of Contents Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The Case for Species-Based Natural Normativity ............................................ 5 Section I. The Case against the Possibility of Individual-based Natural Normativity ... 5 First Move: Life Cannot be Given a Metaphysical Analysis ...................................... 8 Second Move: Being a Living Thing is a Consequence of Having a Life-form ...... 16 Section II. The Development of Species-based Natural Normativity........................... 25 Thompson on the A Prioricity and Normativity of Life-forms................................. 26 Lawrence on Life-forms as Sets of Boundary Conditions ........................................ 33 Foot and Hursthouse on How the Content of Life-forms is Determined .................. 34 Chapter 2: A Critique of Species-based Natural Normativity .......................................... 40 First Criticism of SBNN: Life-forms do not extend to all Cases of Excellence in Living Things ........................................................................................................................... 41 Second Criticism of SBNN: The Failure of the Case for the Existence of Life-forms 67 Chapter 3: Survival is the Ultimate End ........................................................................... 81 Introduction ................................................................................................................... 81 Criticism of the Species View....................................................................................... 83 Other-regarding Behavior is Not Normative for a Living Thing .............................. 89 1. Problems for the neo-Aristotelian and the ecologist ......................................... 90 2. Survivalist view is at least as, if not more, plausible ........................................ 97 3. Facts outside a living thing are irrelevant to its ultimate end ......................... 100 3.1. Facts outside a living thing are irrelevant to the normativity of survival 101 3.2. It is not normative for a living thing to relate to inanimate phenomena .. 103 3.3. It is not normative for a living thing to help other living things or to reproduce......................................................................................................... 108 Summary of criticism of OtherRegarding ............................................................... 118 Survival is the Ultimate End of a Living Thing .......................................................... 120 1. Growth of the living thing as a whole, is normative ........................................... 122 2. Self-sustenance of the living thing as a whole, is normative .............................. 124 3. Growth is a form of self-sustenance ................................................................... 125 4. Self-sustenance is survival .................................................................................. 127 What should a living thing’s survival look like? .................................................... 133 1. Helping living things to survive ...................................................................... 134 2. Guiding a living thing’s choices ..................................................................... 136 Survival is the Ultimate End of a Human Being......................................................... 140 Chapter 4: Well-being is Survival................................................................................... 146 Introduction ................................................................................................................. 146 Benefit to a Human Being is Survival ........................................................................ 148 Intrinsic Benefit to a Human Being is Survival ...................................................... 150 Human Well-being .................................................................................................. 159 Chapter 5: A Defense of Egoism .................................................................................... 168 viii 1. Introduction ............................................................................................................. 168 2. Selfishness is Generally Morally Attractive ........................................................... 170 3. Egoism and Helping Others .................................................................................... 178 3.1 The sentimentalist view of unselfish regard for others ..................................... 179 3.2 The Kantian and self-sacrificial views of unselfish regard for others .............. 182 3.2.1 Self-sacrifice vis-à-vis unreasonable requests for self-sacrifice ................ 188 3.2.2 Self-sacrifice vis-à-vis helping others ........................................................ 188 3.2.3 “Small” self-sacrifice ................................................................................. 191 4. Egoism and Harming Others ................................................................................... 196 4.1 Prejudice against selfishness in the Maleficence objection .............................. 197 4.2 Defending an egoistic policy toward harming others ....................................... 210 Conclusion: Could Life Be Metaphysical? ..................................................................... 216 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 230 ix Introduction This dissertation is a defense of egoism, the view that self-interest is the exclusive standard of morally right action. It consists in five Chapters. In Chapter 1, I present the prevailing view of the ultimate end of a living thing, viz., that it is to instantiate its species. 1 In Chapter 2, I present my critique of the view. Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to a naturalistic defense of egoism, viz., a defense of egoism that appeals to normativity in living things generally. In Chapter 3, the centerpiece of the dissertation, I argue for and develop the thesis that survival is the ultimate end of every living thing, including every human living thing. In Chapter 4, I argue that human well-being, the notion of what intrinsically benefits a human being, consists in and only in survival. In Chapter 5, I offer an argument for egoism that I take to be an adjunct to the main naturalistic argument of Chapters 3 and 4: I defend egoism using the method of reflective equilibrium, i.e., bringing widely accepted intuitions about how to live into alignment
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