Self-love

1. I think two really good thoughts that I have not seen before are (i) how we are biased towards egoism because we don't want to appear to be posturing and (ii) how, when I adopt a hermeneutics of suspicion, I feel that that is a bold, strong intellectual move on my part. But as you point out, really, it's a cop-out in the sense that it is a way of supporting very strong positions (positions so strong that they need a hermeneutics of suspicion)

2) I wasn't too aware of La Rochefoucauld, and I see now that he pre-dates Rousseau, which I didn't realize. So this quotation from Rousseau may be derived from LR, but nonetheless, it is stated so well that it is still my favorite quote regarding egoism.

From [my father’s behavior,] I have derived an important moral principle, perhaps the only one of any real practical use, which is that we should avoid situations that bring our duty into conflict with our interests … since I am certain that in such situations, … we will sooner or later weaken, without noticing it, and become unjust and wicked in deed without having ceased to be just and good in spirit” Confessions

3) Your example of helping someone cross the street is a good one for discussing. I think, in addition, that I disagree with you, so it might be good to talk through. You have the egoist saying,

"Sure, but if the person achieves their aim of getting the stranger across the street, then they got what they wanted, didn’t they? That’s why they did what they did. And that shows that the person did it to satisfy their own aims, and hence that the project was all along an egoistic one, to gratify their own self-interest."

Then you point out that everything after "hence" is a non sequitur.

I think, however, there is a way of saving this position, essentially by softening the part after "hence."

I would put it thus: "If people are purposive, (i.e., they do things for reasons), then, ultimately, everything they do is because that's what they wanted. When a person helps someone across the road, they are comparing two worlds:

(a) the world in which they do not help and

(b) in which they do help.

To help the person cross the road is to say that the person preferred world b to world a."

I am currently thinking you don't put a counter argument to this in your paper. And I think it does present a way in which it is incoherent to think that some behavior is not ultimately selfish.

So what is wrong with that argument? Someone might claim it is empty, tautological. But I think it does have edge. But the reason it has an edge is not that egoism is wrong. Rather, it puts the philosophical stress on whether human action is really purposive.

4) For normative egoism, this gets into neoliberalism, doesn't it? Casually: after the fall of the Soviet Union, it seems there was a feeling that egoists were vindicated. Humans tried the experiment of "from each according to ability, to each according to need." And it was a complete failure. Adam Smith was right: "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." Therefore, I am licensed to be selfish, to pursue my own interest. Not only am I licensed, that is the best thing I can do for the good of the hive. By being selfish, I am being altruistic. George Gilder tells us that we can measure how much a person contributes to society by that person's income.

Neoclassical economics is assumed to be correct, and markets are and should be left to laissez faire. Robert Heilbroner called it "consumer sovereignty."

5) There is, of course, a lot to talk about on the issue of whether you really would be helping a person if you furthered the things they care about. Many people find it empty to get what they want. Some do revel in winning, but it seems like a performance. Bill Bradley famously said that "the taste of defeat has a richness of experience all its own." (How boring would a life be which was simply a string of successes). Lacan says that what humans desire is desire. (The goal is not to get what you strive for, but to have things you are striving for). And perhaps the best example, does Swann really want to know whether Forcheville was there? Would it really be better for the narrator if all his questions were answered (about whether Albertine slept with women, or who was walking with Gilberte that day)? Freud, Lacan (and Lear) would all say that there is a sense that what is really exquisite and poignant for Swann, the Narrator and St. Loup is the pleasure in pain. They are not attracted to women where they would not feel this "pain," this jouissance.