Sociobiology, human nature and psychological egoism

Abstract

It is commonly thought, at least in philosophical circles, that the thesis of psychological egoism—the view that all of human behavior can be understood in terms of causes, motives or reasons which concern the maximization of self-interest—is a conceptually muddled and untenable doctrine. This paper reviews and evaluates some of the arguments that have been made against psychological egoism. Then an attempt is made to formulate a viable version of psychological egoism which may prove to be of significant interest for both humanists and scientists. Recent empirical research on the biological and genetic bases of human social behavior is cited as illustrative of empirical evidence for a thesis of psychological egoism about human social and ethical behavior. The paper concludes with two claims about an empirically grounded version of psychological egoism: (1) that psychological egoism is (a) an intelligible hypothesis for explaining human behavior, (b) a testable hypothesis and (c) probably a false hypothesis, but that (2) a good deal of ethical and philosophical anxiety about this thesis is misplaced since the most viable versions of psychological egoism are compatible with most theories of morals and ethics.