Abstract
Suppose that you and I do not know each other. As you drive home one evening, you see me standing by the roadside looking at a car with a gloomy expression on my face. You realize that something is wrong with my car. Perhaps you can help me; at all events you can give me a lift. But you are tired and hungry and want to get home as quickly as possible; stopping to help me will delay you. Having reflected on the situation for some moments you choose to stop.
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Notes
This is not to say that Butler was himself an ethical egoist. For Butler’s ethical views, see 1.6.
Ronald Dworkin, Taking Rights Seriously, p. 234 ff.
H. Sidgwick, The Methods of Ethics, p. 44 f.; CD. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory, p. 66 f.
See, e.g., J.J.C Smart, ‘An Outline of a System of Utilitarian Ethics’, p. 20 ff.
My distinction between subjective and objective preferences is related to the wellknown distinction-originally proposed by Russell and Whitehead and further elaborated by Quine-between referentially opaque and referentially transparent contexts. See, e.g., W.V.O. Quine, Word and Object, p. 141 ff. (This was pointed out to me by Sven Daniels-son.)
See, e.g., CD. Broad, ‘Egoism as a Theory of Human Motives’.
In ‘Later Selves and Moral Principles’, Parfit discusses what his view of personal identity implies concerning desert, commitment, and distributive justice.
Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Part III, Sect. Ill, p. 127.
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© 1988 Kluwer Academic Publishers
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Österberg, J. (1988). The Interpretation of Strong Egoism. In: Self and Others. Synthese Library, vol 196. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2879-4_4
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