Tutorial # 4 Why Be Moral? On Egoism. Discussion Questions

In light of the readings you have done, try to think about this questions.
The materials I have just uploaded are not compulsory, but highly recommended (and brief anyway).

• Does one always act with the exclusive intention of promoting one's own best
  interests?
• What is one’s own interest? Pleasure? Avoiding pain? Something else?
• Is it possible that one does not actually know what his or her best interest is?
• David Hume writes: "Love between the sexes begets a complacency and good-will, very distinct from the gratification of an appetite. Tenderness to their offspring, in all sensible beings, is commonly able alone to counter-balance the strongest motives of self-love, and has no manner of dependance on that affection. What interest can a fond mother have in view, who loses her health by assiduous attendance on her sick child, and afterwards languishes and dies of grief, when freed, by its death, from the slavery of that attendance?" (An Enquiry Concerning The Principles Of Morals - Appendix II. Of Self-love, 1751).
  How could one argue that this mother’s intention is egoistic? Think about Stirner's argument.
• What would you reply to someone who argued that the Saints are egoists, since their acts are solely motivated by the expectation of a reward in a prospective after-life?
• Is egoism a fundamental feature of our psychology?
• What are the emotions underlying self-interest? How do they facilitate (or impede) our egoism?
• To what extent egoism is “innate”? To what extent is “learned”?
• Would egoists have an advantage in evolutionary terms (in terms of survival and reproduction)?
• What is in your opinion the best argument for (or against) psychological egoism? Why?
• Even if we are egoist, would it follow that we ought to be?
• Does rationality require anything other than that we pursue our own interests?
• Do we have a duty to help others?
• What are the differences between psyhological, ethical, and rational egoism?
  

The entry in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/egoism/ by Robert Shaver is a good background to sort out differences between psychological, ethical, and rational egoism.