Editing Psychological egoism (section)

== Criticism ==

=== Circularity ===
Psychological egoism has been accused of being [[Begging the question|circular]]: "If a person willingly performs an act, that means he derives personal enjoyment from it; therefore, people only perform acts that give them personal enjoyment."  In particular, seemingly altruistic acts must be performed because people derive enjoyment from them and are therefore, in reality, egoistic.  This statement is circular because its conclusion is identical to its hypothesis: it assumes that people only perform acts that give them personal enjoyment, and concludes that people only perform acts that give them personal enjoyment.  This objection was tendered by [[William Hazlitt]]<ref>Hazlitt (1991).</ref> and [[Thomas Macaulay]]<ref>{{Cite web |url=http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Essay.php?recordID=1249 |title=Macaulay, "Mill on Government" ToC: The Online Library of Liberty |access-date=2006-10-20 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061231211353/http://oll.libertyfund.org/Home3/Essay.php?recordID=1249 |archive-date=2006-12-31 |url-status=dead }}</ref> in the 19th century, and has been restated many times since.  An earlier version of the same objection was made by [[Joseph Butler]] in the ''[[Fifteen Sermons]]''.

[[Joel Feinberg]], in his [[1958 in literature|1958]] paper "Psychological Egoism", embraces a similar critique by drawing attention to the [[infinite regress]] of psychological egoism.  He expounds it in the following cross-examination:

:"All men desire only satisfaction."

:"Satisfaction of what?"

:"Satisfaction of their desires."

:"Their desires for what?"

:"Their desires for satisfaction."

:"Satisfaction of what?"

:"Their desires."

:"For what?"

:"For satisfaction"—etc., ''[[ad infinitum]]''.<ref>[[Joel Feinberg|Feinberg, Joel]]. "Psychological Egoism." In ''Reason & Responsibility: Readings in Some Basic Problems of Philosophy'', edited by Joel Feinberg and [[Russ Shafer-Landau]], 520-532. [[California]]: [[The Thomson Corporation|Thomson Wadsworth]], [[2008 in literature|2008]].</ref>

=== Evolutionary argument ===
In their 1998 book, ''Unto Others'', Sober and Wilson detailed an evolutionary argument based on the likelihood for egoism to evolve under the pressures of [[natural selection]].<ref name=":0" /> Specifically, they focus on the human behavior of parental care. To set up their argument, they propose two potential psychological mechanisms for this. The hedonistic mechanism is based on a parent's ultimate desire for pleasure or the avoidance of pain and a belief that caring for its offspring will be instrumental to that. The altruistic mechanism is based on an altruistic ultimate desire to care for its offspring.

Sober and Wilson argue that when evaluating the likelihood of a given trait to evolve, three factors must be considered: availability, reliability and energetic efficiency. The genes for a given trait must first be ''available'' in the gene pool for selection. The trait must then ''reliably'' produce an increase in fitness for the organism. The trait must also operate with ''energetic efficiency'' to not limit the fitness of the organism. Sober and Wilson argue that there is neither reason to suppose that an altruistic mechanism should be any less available than a hedonistic one nor reason to suppose that the content of thoughts and desires (hedonistic vs. altruistic) should impact energetic efficiency. As availability and energetic efficiency are taken to be equivalent for both mechanisms it follows that the more reliable mechanism will then be the more likely mechanism.

For the hedonistic mechanism to produce the behavior of caring for offspring, the parent must believe that the caring behavior will produce pleasure or avoidance of pain for the parent. Sober and Wilson argue that the belief also must be true and constantly reinforced, or it would not be likely enough to persist. If the belief fails then the behavior is not produced. The altruistic mechanism does not rely on belief; therefore, they argue that it would be less likely to fail than the alternative, i.e. more reliable.

=== Equivocation ===
In philosopher [[Derek Parfit]]'s 2011 book ''[[On What Matters]]'', Volume 1, Parfit presents an argument against psychological egoism that centers around an apparent equivocation between different senses of the word "want":

:The word ''desire'' often refers to our sensual desires or appetites, or to our being attracted to something, by finding the thought of it appealing. I shall use ‘desire’ in a wider sense, which refers to any state of being motivated, or of wanting something to happen and being to some degree disposed to make it happen, if we can. The word ''want'' already has both these senses.

According to Parfit, the argument for psychological egoism fails, because it uses the word ''want'' first in the wide sense and then in the narrow sense. If I voluntarily gave up my life to save the lives of several strangers, my act would not be selfish, though I would be doing what in the wide sense I wanted to do.<ref>{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CaTCWUvNr_EC&q=psychological%20egoism|isbn=978-0-19-161346-3|title=On What Matters: Volume One|date=26 May 2011|publisher=OUP Oxford}}</ref>