#20 - A discussion with Prof. Bernard Molyneux about selfishness and egoism

Part 1: An example of a selfish action and the meaning of “selfish.” Utilitarianism, Kantianism, egoism. Building a shed for grandma. The nature of ethics: Is ethics only other-regarding? Where do our ideas of “the good” and “the bad” come from? Becoming more long-range. Blaring one’s music. What kind of society do we want to live in? Guilt. Swiping money. Relativizing ethics/morality to something’s nature. Emergency (e.g., lifeboat) situations.

Part 2: Why prefer one’s own good/pleasure to that of others? Is any explanation needed or is the answer just obvious? Seeing oneself as special and as the center of the universe, and growing up ethically. Grounding ethics in phenomenology (i.e., experience or conscious states), e.g., pleasure/pain. A button-pressing thought experiment—autonomy and consent. Robert Nozick’s experience machine. Combining egoism and phenomenalism. Silly questions? A drug dropout. Grandfather in the mines. Metaphysical pleasure. What matters ethically: consequences or intentions? Grounding ethics in others’ phenomenology—or one’s own. Meaning. Ethics and human nature—the moral and the practical.