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not withhold his only son from God, God blesses Abraham [11]. Earlier in Gene-
sis God condemns Cain for killing Abel [12]. How, then, can Abraham's sacrifice of
Isaac be considered good? To devout readers, the logic of God's command is irrel-
evant to this story. Abraham is a good person, a heroic model of faith, because he
demonstrated his obedience to the will of God.
In the divine command theory, moral guidelines are not the result of a logical
progression from a set of underlying principles, and this is a significant problem. While
you may choose to live your life so that your actions are aligned with God's will, the
divine command theory often fails to produce arguments that can persuade skeptical
listeners whose religious beliefs are different. Hence we conclude the divine command
theory is not a powerful weapon for ethical debate in a secular society, and we reject it
as a workable theory for the purposes of this topic.
In sharp contrast to the divine command theory, which promotes a concern for others
with scriptural injunctions such as “Love your neighbor as yourself,” ethical egoism is
the philosophy that each person should focus exclusively on his or her self-interest. In
other words, according to ethical egoism, the morally right action for a person to take
in a particular situation is the action that will provide that person with the maximum
long-term benefit.
This idea may sound familiar to you if you have read
The Fountainhead
or
Atlas
Shrugged
. The author of these novels, Ayn Rand, espoused a philosophy akin to ethical
egoism (although you should not view this section's description of ethical egoism as a
summary of her thinking). Rand's moral philosophy “holds man's life as the
standard
of
value—and
his own life
as the ethical
purpose
of every individual man” [13, p. 27]. With
respect to human relationships, she wrote, “The principle of
trade
is the only rational
ethical principle for all human relationships, personal and social, private and public,
spiritual and material” [13, p. 34].
Ethical egoism does not prohibit acting to help someone else, but assisting another
is the right thing to do if and only if it is in the helper's own long-term best interest.
Here's an example from the writings of Douglas Birsch [4]. Suppose I depend upon a
friend to give me a ride to work every day. If my friend's car breaks down and she doesn't
have $100 to fix it, I ought to loan her the money. Although I'm out $100 until she pays
me back, I'm better off giving her the loan because I'm still able to travel to work and
make money. If I don't lend her the money, I'll lose my income. Lending $100 to my
friend is the right thing to do because it provides me the maximum overall benefit.
1.
Ethical egoism is a practical moral philosophy.
We are naturally inclined to do what's best for ourselves because each of us has only
one life to live, and we want to make the best of it. Unlike other moral codes that
