I hate to do this, because I hate it when other people do it, but here’s a little excerpt from an article which addresses egoism. I think it’s a particuar kind of egoism that this guy is against. He talks about the difference between having like desires, and having agreement is desires and how one leads to chaos, and the other to harmony.
He also distinguishes desire de dicto and de se, one being a desire for a certain set of propositions to hold in the actual world, and the other the desire to feel the way that you desire to feel about the propositions which do, or might hold. )at least that’s my half-assed version of what he says)
There’s too much to say about this for me to get into it all right now, and before I waste alot of time, I’d like to see anyone else is interesed in, or up for this conversation.
Here goes…
When we acknowledge desires a’e se, we must distinguish two
senses of ‘desiring the same thing’. If Jack Sprat and his wife
both prefer fat meat, they desire alike. They are psychological
duplicates, on this matter at least. But they do not agree in their
desires, because no possible arrangement could satisfy them
both. Whereas if Jack prefers the fat and his wife prefers the lean,
then they differ psychologically, they do not desire alike. But
they do agree, because if he eats no fat and she eats no lean, that
would satisfy them both. In general, they desire alike iff they
desire de se to have exactly the same properties and they desire de
dicto that exactly the same propositions hold. They agree in
desires iff exactly the same world would satisfy the desires of
both; and a world that satisfies someone’s desires is one wherein
he has all the properties that he desires de se and wherein all the
propositions hold that he desires de dicto. Agreement in desire
makes for harmony; desiring alike may well make for strife.
As we can desire de dicto or de se, so we can desire to desire de
dicto or de se. If desiring to desire is valuing, and if values are what
we are disposed to value, then we must distinguish values de dicto
and de se. A value de dicto is a proposition such that we are
disposed to desire to desire de dicto that it hold. A value de se is a
property such that we are disposed to desire to desire de se to have
it.
It is essential to distinguish. Consider egoism: roughly, the
thesis that one’s own happiness is the only value. Egoism is
meant to be general. It is not the thesis that the happiness of a
certain special person, say Thrasymachus, is the only value.
Egoism de dicto says that for each person X, the proposition that
X is happy is the only value. That is inconsistent, as Moore
observed.'" It says that there are as many different values as
there are people, and each of them is the only value. Egoism de se
says that the property of happiness-in other words, the
egocentric proposition that one is happy-is the only value.
Moore did not confute that. He ignored it. False and ugly
though it be, egoism dese is at least a consistent doctrine. What it
alleges to be the only value would indeed be just one value de se,
not a multitude of values de dicto."
Insofar as values are de se, the wholehearted pursuit by
everyone of the same genuine value will not necessarily result in
harmony. All might value alike, valuing de se the same
properties and valuing de dicto the same propositions. Insofar as
they succeed in desiring as they desire to desire, they will desire
alike. But that does not ensure that they will agree in desire. If
egoism de se were true, and if happiness could best be pursued by
doing others down and winning extra shares, then the pursuit by
all of the very same single value would be the war of all against
all.
Because egoism is false and ugly, we might be glad of a
theoretical framework that allowed us to confute it apriori. And
some of us might welcome a framework that promises us
harmony, if only we can all manage to pursue the same genuine
values. Was it right, then, to make a place for values de se?
Should we have stipulated, instead, that something we are
disposed to desire to desire shall count as a value only when
it is a proposition that we are disposed to desire to desire de
dicto?
NO. Probably it is already wrong to reject egoism apriori but,
be that as it may, there are other doctrines of value de se, more
plausible and more attractive. Self-improvement and self sacrifice
are no less egocentric than self-aggrandizement and self-indulgence.
Surely we should make a place for putative
values de se of altruism, of honour, and of loyalty to family,
friends, and country. We may entertain the substantive thesis
that none of these putative values de se is genuine, and that all
genuine values are de dicto. But even if we believed this
-myself, I think it wildly unlikely-we should not beg the
question in its favour by building it into our theoretical
framework.
What conditions are ‘ideal’? If someone has little notion what it
would be like to live as a free spirit unbound by law, custom,
loyalty, or love; or what a world of complete harmony and
constant agreement would be like; then whether or not he
blindly values these things must have little to do with whether or
not they are truly values. What he lacks is imaginative
acquaintance. If only he would think harder, and imagine
vividly and thoroughly how it would be if these putative values
were realised (and perhaps also how it would be if they were
not) that would make his valuing a more reliable indicator of
genuine value. And if he could gain the fullest imaginative
acquaintance that is humanly possible,then, I suggest, his
valuing would be an infallible indicator. Something is a value iff
we are disposed, under conditions of the fullest possible
imaginative acquaintance, to value it.
I think he wants to say that value is something that’s constructed by people. And the only reliable way of measuring things we construct is de dicto or by stipulation. He stops short of saying that and hopefully suggests that we might all just imagine what the world might be like if we all could manage to stipulate those things intuitivley w/ out the need for or the limitations of a strictly descriptive system.
I personally don’t think it’s possible. People will never agree. Too much egoism, not enough knowledge de dicto.