Your Egoism Paper


 

 

The assigned authors and readings are:

 


Sandra LaFave "Psychological Egoism and Ethical Egoism"
James Rachels JR Chapters 5 and 6
Sandra LaFave Are All Voluntary Acts Selfish?
Plato "The Ring of Gyges" (SS)
Sandra LaFave Plato's Philosophy as a Reply to Glaucon's Challenge
Feodor Dostoevsky "Why Not Murder?" (SS)
Ayn Rand "The Virtue of Selfishness" (SS)
Louis Pojman "Egoism, Self-Interest, and Altruism" (SS)
Harry Browne "The Unselfishness Trap" (SS)
Author Unknown 12 Ways to Be Perfectly Miserable

 

In broad outline, your paper should explain the arguments for and against both psychological egoism and ethical egoism. You have to explain the arguments in your own words, without excessive quoting or close paraphrasing. Since you have now had significant practice in argument analysis, I will leave it to you to extract the relevant arguments and counterarguments from the readings.

 

You may think you understand the arguments perfectly; but writing them out in plain language without excessive quoting or close paraphrasing is another story entirely. Your job is to make the arguments understandable to a bright ten-year-old.

 

 

 

Sample papers

 

One sample graded paper on egoism is online.

 

 

 

 

 



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