“You’re scratching your own moral-seeming itches. You’re making yourself feel good. You’re paying down imagined debts that you think you owe, you’re being partial toward people around you. Ultimately, that is, your philanthropy is about you and how you feel and what you owe and what you symbolize. My philanthropy is about giving other people more of the lives they’d choose.”
“My giving is unintuitive, and it’s not always ‘feel-good,’ but it’s truly other-centered. Ultimately, I’ll take that trade.”
I think the Stirnerian counterargument would be that global utilitarianism wouldn’t spare me a red cent, because there are tons of people with higher priority than me, so basically you’re asking me to be altruist toward something that is overall egoist (or indistinguishable from egoist) toward me. Not saying I subscribe to this argument 100%, but what do you think of it?
Coming back to this idea again after a long time, I recently heard a funny argument against morality-based vegetarianism: no animal ever showed the slightest moral scruple against eating humans, so why is it wrong for us to eat animals? I go back and forth on whether this “Stirnerian view” makes sense or not.
If you follow other centered ethics, then the counterargument seems irrelevant.
The post is excellent at explaining the implications of other centered ethics, but it doesn’t seem intended to explain why I should adopt those ethics.
I think the Stirnerian counterargument would be that global utilitarianism wouldn’t spare me a red cent, because there are tons of people with higher priority than me, so basically you’re asking me to be altruist toward something that is overall egoist (or indistinguishable from egoist) toward me. Not saying I subscribe to this argument 100%, but what do you think of it?
Coming back to this idea again after a long time, I recently heard a funny argument against morality-based vegetarianism: no animal ever showed the slightest moral scruple against eating humans, so why is it wrong for us to eat animals? I go back and forth on whether this “Stirnerian view” makes sense or not.
If you follow other centered ethics, then the counterargument seems irrelevant.
The post is excellent at explaining the implications of other centered ethics, but it doesn’t seem intended to explain why I should adopt those ethics.
I agree with Peter’s comment.