Comment on Book Recommendations

Wed, 11 Aug 2010 20:29:45 GMT

"good selfishly" is at least an oxymoron, though I would consider it a contradiction in terms.

Drescher makes a good point on this issue in Good and Real, in distinguishing selfish from self-interested acts: the latter are those that consider acausal entailments, while the former only consider causal entailments. Going back to my Parfit's Hitchhiker point, someone who reasons that "hitchhikers should pay" is acting in furtherance of their own interests, but not selfishly.

(Note, importantly, that his reasoning does not depend on whether, at the moment you decide to pay, you are causing future benefits to flow to yourself.)

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