PHIL 200 Lecture Notes - Lecture 2: Psychological Egoism
Document Summary
Person wants cat to be well-cared for no matter what even if that person is dead: the no matter what makes this desire categorical. (things we want even if we are not around to enjoy them) Evidence for categorical desires: people sometimes die to accomplish the things that they want. ( rational suicide ) Introspection: think about your own desires and see that you have some categorical ones. Happiness requires that some of one"s desires be fully categorical, and one"s existence itself wanted as something necessary to pursue desires. Translation: being happy/loving one"s life means: caring about things in the world: wanting to exist so that we can be involved with them (the things we care about) Williams concludes about the value of life: worse to die earlier than later death is a bad thing ( an evil ) a longer life is greater than a shorter life.
