PHL201H1 Lecture 16: Broad: Classes of Egoistic Desires
Document Summary
Broad: the main question: seems obvious that both self-regarding desires and self-referential desires are egoistic, all involve you some how. Ex: let"s say one of your parents gets ill and you were genuinely distressed because you care about their wellbeing, but imagine a person who reacted differently: If want to be seen as honest person and value, then seems on some level that you have to think honesty itself is valuable. I have cats, so donate to cat charities. I don"t donate to dog charities because i don"t have dog: don"t donate to york because i went to u of t. If he does have an egoistic motive stimulus then egoism wins. It"s impossible to show that no one could ever be motivated by other regarding motivation that wasn"t self-referential. Broad: the general lesson: example shows that sometimes people can be motivated without egoism.
