Tradition
Egoism
Overview
Egoism is a philosophy concerned with the role of the self, or ego, as the motivation and goal of one's own action. Different theories of egoism encompass a range of disparate ideas and can generally be categorized into descriptive or normative forms. That is, they may be interested in either describing that people do act in self-interest or prescribing that they should. Other definitions of egoism may instead emphasise action according to one's will rather than one's self-interest, and furthermore posit that this is a truer sense of egoism.
The New Catholic Encyclopedia states of egoism that it "incorporates in itself certain basic truths: it is natural for man to love himself; he should moreover do so, since each one is ultimately responsible for himself; pleasure, the development of one's potentialities, and the acquisition of power are normally desirable." The moral censure of self-interest is a common subject of critique in egoist philosophy, with such judgments being examined as means of control and the result of power relations. Egoism may also reject the idea that insight into one's internal motivation can arrive extrinsically, such as from psychology or sociology, though, for example, this is not present in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
In the original texts
Passages from public-domain books where Egoism is discussed.
The chief and fundamental incentive in man, as in animals, is =Egoism=, that is, the urgent impulse to exist, and exist under the best circumstances. The German word _Selbstsucht_ (self-seeking) involves a false secondary idea of disease (_Sucht_).[2] The term _Eigennutz_ (self-interest) denotes Egoism, so far as the latter is guided by reason, which enables it, by means of reflection, to prosecute its purposes…
Arthur Schopenhauer, The Basis of Morality
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
This need may be for direct sexual satisfaction or even for those higher desires, derived from need, which we are in the habit of calling love as opposed to sensuality. In all of these aspects, egoism is the self-evident, the constant, and narcism the variable element. The antithesis of egoism, _altruism_, is not the same as the conception of libidinous occupation of objects. Altruism differs from it by the absence…
Sigmund Freud, A General Introduction to Psychoanalysis
names the idea; states what it is; opens on it
It is plain, indeed, that the name ‘Egoism’ more properly applies to the theory that ‘my own good’ is the sole good, than that my own pleasure is so. A man may quite well be an Egoist, even if he be not a Hedonist. The conception which is, perhaps, most closely associated with Egoism is that denoted by the words ‘my own interest.’ The Egoist is the man who holds that a tendency to promote his own interest is the…
G. E. Moore, Principia Ethica
states what it is; names the idea
And as in these cases transcendent altruism in theory co-exists with brutal egoism in practice, so conversely, a more qualified altruism may have for its concomitant a greatly moderated egoism. For asserting the due claims of self, is, by implication, drawing a limit beyond which the claims are undue; and is, by consequence, bringing into greater clearness the claims of others.
Herbert Spencer, The Data of Ethics
a chapter is titled for it; names the idea; opens on it
that the egoism of individuals, groups or masses has been at all times the lever of the "historical movements": and yet they are in no way disturbed by the discovery, but proclaim that "egoism shall be our god." With this new faith in their hearts, they begin quite intentionally to build future history on egoism: though it must be a clever egoism, one that allows of some limitation, that it may stand firmer; one…
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Thoughts Out of Season, Part II
names the idea; author linked in the graph; opens on it
Philosophers who discussed Egoism
- Max Stirner
- Thomas Carlyle
- The Ego and Its Own
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
- Tibor Machan
- Baruch Spinoza
- Philipp Mainländer
Related ideas
- French language
- Friedrich Nietzsche
- Fascism
- Max Stirner
- Auguste Comte
- Philosophy
- The Ego and Its Own
- Opposite
- Individualist anarchism
- Internet Archive
- Latin
- Modernity
- Sociology
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Anattā
- Encyclopedia.com
- Nihilism
- Obligation
- Psychology
- Psychological egoism
- -ism
- Post-structuralism
- Stanford University
- Open individualism
Place in the tradition
Part of Consequentialism.