Ethical Egoism: Two Types Of Egoism

With deontology the conclusion would remain the same as with the utilitarianism principle. Mosser explains, “The deontologist argues that we have a duty, or an obligation, to treat other people with respect; human beings have dignity, and we must take that dignity into consideration when dealing with them.”(Mosser, 2010, Ch1, Pg7) In letting a person choose to die with dignity, we show our respect to them during their final days. As long as the person is able to communicate that their wish is to have a doctor help end their life the deontologist would state that physician assisted suicide is an ethical practice.

However, there is immense criticism on the morality of the process, especially because the process denies a patient the right to natural death. The critics of the assisted suicide procedure argue that such a process devalues human life and tends to promote suicide as an alternative to personal suffering. By claiming that the procedure allows terminally ill patients to initiate dignity at death is flawed because the purpose of medical profession is to ensure a dignified life. According to the physicians’ code of ethics and the Hippocratic Oath, physicians are not allowed to do harm to their patients because their role is to allow a dignified health for members of the community. Consequently, legalization of Physician Assisted suicide that requires physicians to assist the patients to die is against their medical ethics. Quill, Cassel, & Meier (2010) provide that although the patients voluntarily ask the medical practitioners to assist in the process, the practitioners have a role to advise the patients against such a procedure. Besides, such a premise is bound to raise awareness of suicide as an alternative to suffering within the public domain, which may encourage such behavior among healthy members of the community that feel that they enjoy the freedom to make such a decision. On this basis, the negative moral implication of assisted suicide makes its legalization unworthy in the

There are two basic kinds of egoism, there is ethical egoism and there is psychological egoism. These two different forms of egoism are different because ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that what is moral is to be done in self-interest. This is different from psychological egoism which states specifically that people will only act in their own self-interest. Ethical egoism is broken up into two forms. There is act egoism and Rule egoism. Act egoism says

In today’s society, suicide, and more controversially, physician assisted suicide, is a hotly debated topic amongst both every day citizens and members of the medical community. The controversial nature of the subject opens up the conversation to scrutinizing the ethics involved. Who can draw the line between morality and immorality on such a delicate subject, between lessening the suffering of a loved one and murder? Is there a moral dissimilarity between letting someone die under your care and killing them? Assuming that PAS suicide is legal under certain circumstances, how stringent need be these circumstances? The patient must be terminally ill to qualify for voluntary physician-assisted suicide, but in the eyes of the non-terminal patients with no physical means to end their life, the ending of their pain through PAS may be worth their death; at what point is the medical staff disregarding a patient’s autonomy? Due to the variability of answers to these questions, the debate over physician-assisted suicide is far from over. However, real life occurrences happen every day outside the realm of debate and rhetoric, and decisions need to be made.

Deontological theories apply the principle of the fulfilment of the moral duties or obligations (Howarth, 1995). This theoretical view maintains that decisions should not be based on the promise of a better end state but should rather play a vital role in meeting our moral obligations. The theory of situational ethics maintains that every moral action is unique and as a result calls for the making of unique ethical decisions. Going by this theory, one could reason that the termination of human life is a moral issue which requires unique ethical decisions aimed at safeguarding life. This reasoning is against the practice of Physician Assisted Suicide because decisions to terminate life are not moral. Every action that must be taken must be

Thanks to modern developments in medical technology, people in advanced countries today live longer and stay healthy until they are relatively older. The technology, however, also allows some people to hasten their death and make it relatively pain-free. As a result, many patients suffering from unbearable pain of certain incurable illnesses from time to time ask their physicians to help them commit suicide. Any physician who is asked to do this is under an ethical dilemma. On the one hand, the physician is asked to help relieve one from pain and suffering. On the other hand, by helping a patient commit suicide the physician is assisting someone to commit murder even if it is the case of self-murder. This ethical case known as Physician-Assisted Suicide (PAS) is a controversial topic in the United States and elsewhere. Since it is an ethical issue, one way of resolving the dilemma is to evaluate the morality of PAS from the perspective of classical and other ethical theories. Among these are utilitarianism, deontology, virtue ethics, relativism, emotivism, and ethical egoism. With the exception of deontology, any of these theories can be used to justify PAS easily. Deontology is the only view that places strong moral limitations on the application of PAS. Deontology's most prominent proponent Immanuel Kant strongly opposed suicide. However, the core principles of deontology may justify physician-assisted suicide

The Principle of Autonomy states that patients should have the dignity to be able to make decisions when it comes to their own treatment. (Taking Sides, p. 176). A physician must receive informed consent from their patient before they can move forward with any treatment plan. The Principle of Autonomy also goes on to say that if a doctor were to treat a patient without their consent, they would be treating the patients like an object instead of a human being. If a patient is unable to speak for him or herself then the doctor must perform actions that would be in the patient’s best interest, since the patient cannot make these decisions. (Taking Sides, p.176). Another ethical principle that can be discussed when talking about physician assisted suicide is the Principle of Nonmaleficence. The principle ensures that doctors avoid doing anything that may expose a patient to needless harm. Although this principle states that the physician cannot do anything harmful to the patient, there are certain treatments that can cause harm to patients, for example, surgery. This principle rules out any non-beneficial procedure

     The descriptive claim made by Psychological Egoists is that humans, by nature, are motivated only by self-interest. Any act, no matter how altruistic it may seem on the outside is actually only a disguise for a selfish desire such as recognition, avoiding guilt, reward or sense of personal ‘goodness’ or morality. For example, Mother Teresa is just using the poor for her own long-term spiritual gain. Being a universal claim, it could falter with a single counterexample. And being that I believe this claim to be bunk I will tell you why!

Autonomy, freedom from external control or influence or being independent, plays a large role in euthanasia. In J Donald Boudreau and Margaret A Somerville’s peer-reviewed journal, Euthanasia and assisted suicide: a physician’s and ethicist’s perspectives, they discuss different views. From a physician's standpoint, there is respect for self-determination and autonomy for the patient. It is the first principle in biomedical ethics known as the Georgetown Mantra. The Georgetown Mantra of Bioethics includes the principles of beneficence, non-maleficence, autonomy, and justice.

John, regardless of which consequential approach you choose is absolutely unethical and morally wrong in his choice to illegally spy on a female neighbor. Not only is the wrong on a mental level it is also against the law in all fifty states.

Psychological egoism is the view that everyone always acts selfishly. It describes human nature as being wholly self-centered and self-motivated. Psychological egoism is different from ethical egoism in their “direction of fit” to the world. Psychological ego-ism is a factual theory. It aims to fit the world. In the world is not how psychological ego-ism says it is because someone acts unselfishly, then something is wrong with psycho-logical egoism. In my opinion this argument is completely wrong and unsound.

There is a certain innate desire to help others, just as others will feel that same fulfillment for returning that aid. At the same time, however, there is also an inherent yearning to seek out one’s own best interest. This brings about a discussion regarding the difference between psychological egoism and ethical egoism. To understand the similarities and differences, one must first understand the two concepts including their natures, as well as their doctrines of motivation.

In philosophy, egoism is the theory that one’s self is, or should be, the motivation and the goals of one’s own action (Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy). In other words, people will act for their best interests rather than their employer’s organizational goals. Western Culture is an individualistic one, where people work for the “I” instead of the “we”. Using this reasoning, how is it possible to develop highly engaged workgroups whose goals are aligned with the mission of their organization? This I one of the questions TWK must answer for its future success. In day five of the temps story, Sarah number two makes the general view that all work is meaningless even through people were busy and this was a social failure. Her quote sums the situation perfectly “Everyone was busy, but no one was actually doing anything meaningful. Yes you were busy all day, but so what?” This quote alone shows there is a culture at the workplace where the employees do not gain

Descriptive egoism holds that for each individual, there is only one ultimate aim survival and the betterment of the sole individual based on their own hierarchical principles.

Psychological Egoism is an absolutist theory advocating that human being’s actions are ultimately motivated by their own self-benefit and self-fulfillment. In other words, the belief is that there is always an ulterior motive to any behavior one performs for another making such acts beneficial to the performer in one way or another. One argument for psychological egoism suggests that people just do what makes them feel good, thereby making all acts selfish. By taking a more in depth view into all aspects of psychological egoism, one can have a better insight and understanding of why someone may favor