Psychological egoism is *probably* false–the case of Wesley Autrey
Posted In: Celebrities, News, Random Lashing Out
Wesley Autrey is The Guy. He’s the dude that recently jumped down on the subway tracks to save that student who fell on them. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16469039/
Autrey claims that he’s not a hero, he refused medical attention after the event, and he went back to work immediately afterwards. He said that anyone should what he did.
Now, psychological egoism is the view that all actions are performed exclusively for oneself. Now, I’m not gonna give you a full treatise on this subject–but here’s a quick attack on the view. The defender of psychological egoism is going to tell you that Autrey was only concerned (consciously or not) to benefit only himself. The defender will say: “He knew he’d be famous, or he knew he’d get offered rewards, or he did it to feel good about himself…”
Blah blah blah. So far the evidence we have is against egoism. Autrey seems to be pretty altruistic to me, and he takes himself to be altruistic.
But the egoist is going to claim that Autrey is mistaken about his own motives and that the egoist knows better what Autrey’s motives were: exclusive self-benefit.
But what makes the egoist so sure that he knows what the real motives were? If Autrey can be mistaken about his mental states, so can the egoist. How the can the egoist know that he’s actually acting only for self-benefit?
But, if it is true the egoist always acts only for his self-benefit–that’s fine–but it won’t follow from that alone that Autrey did. How could one so easily generalize from one’s own case?
Now the egoist has more arguments, but I’ll stop here.
-MC Spanky McGee
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04 Jan 2007 MC Spanky McGee
I dabbled in psychological egoism…not in ‘Nam, of course, but I digress.
My immediate reaction is that the full extent of the egoism argument in a case like this is as follows: the only thing the egoists have on Mr. Autrey is that he didn’t want to be “that guy” who watched the kid die on the tracks. I’ll give you an example…I am NEVER jumping into a sesspool to save anyone. Why? I have no chance of saving them and no chance of surviving myself.
What’s a sesspool, you say? Check here. It’s a long article…but worth the read.
My egoism ends at the edge of the sesspool. Suicide missions are the ultimate egoist acts. Those people should be the targets of the folks who cry “egoism”…not Mr. Autrey.
If not wanting to be that guy makes him an egoist, then color me an egoist as well.
I’m sorry, but does “not wanting to be that guy” ever outweigh the very high possibility of DEATH? It seems to me that death is never in one’s best interest, except perhaps if one assumes there is an afterlife (as in the case of suicide bombers and the like). A psychological egoist acting rationally would have to conclude that throwing oneself on the tracks is a really bad idea. I agree with Spanky that the egoist could be as mistaken about Autrey’s motives as he might be. And I think we can probably agree that even though we might sometimes be mistaken about our own motives, we tend to at least have better access to them than other people.Oh, and isn’t it ‘cesspool’?
I thought it was implied, but I’ll go ahead and agree that “not wanting to be that guy” is a weaker interest than “not wanting to die.”
As for the spelling, I believe it can go either way, but “cesspool” is probably more common (or perhaps more correct).