Are you a Psychological or Ethical Egoist? Who knows.

Ethical Egoism says everyone should act in their own self-interest as psychological egoism says everyone does act in their own self-interest.

Psychological Egoism becomes quite difficult to comprehend because it implies that the theory itself is not a theory but it is in fact hard-wired into a humans psyche. A psychological egoist would say that humans are always looking out for themselves in one way or another, but unfortunately, it does not describe whether it is a good way to behave.

An ethical egoist, on the other hand, would say that everyone ought to look out for themselves. Ethical egoism says you should look after yourself, and if you do not do that, you are really just wasting your own time. This theory contrasts with the psychological theory because it's showing us that there is a way we should behave, as opposed to the way we do behave.

It is really difficult to have an opinion about what I believe to be the better theory of the two because it’s pretty deep to think about. Initially, if I had to pick quickly in which theory I believe would be more like me is ethical egoism. Most times, I have an internal argument about what would be better for me and why, but it does not mean that I choose that side of my argument. Sometimes people truly do things for others, simply because they can. I do not believe that if I do nice things for people that I will be, for example, accepted into heaven, that I will have good karma, or that others will do nice things for me.

On the other hand, could I be a psychological egoist? Doing things for others, makes me feel wonderful when another person is happy because of it. I am in love with giving, and never expecting anything in return. That could make me a psychological egoist because of the feeling I get by giving makes me happy every time, so technically I am thinking of myself. On the other side of things, it could just make me obsessed with an action, or maybe just weird.

Overall, I guess there really isn't a way for me to find out what I truly believe, in the cases of ethical and psychological egoism. I do know that psychological egoism, the theory itself, is ‘selfish’. It does not allow any room for a person to make a decision for any other ulterior motive or that other motives for making their decisions do not even exist. A theory exists on the fact that something can be proven wrong when a psychological egoist says there is absolutely no room for it to be wrong. Well now that I have learned more about the theory, it almost sounds like a theory used to make excuses. This theory could allow a psychologist to say that “Jerry”, a “serial killer”, only brutally murdered twenty people because it is hard-wired into his brain to allow him to do such things. He was acting in his own self-interest, right? That is really scary that a psychological theorist would back that up, and there is no way that it is wrong either. Thus far, I wouldn’t be surprised if certain political leaders take luxurious bubble baths in this theory to back up some of their wrongdoings.

In conclusion, ethical egoism makes more sense to me, solely because it leaves you that choice in saying why you chose to do what you did and to who was it done. Humans, so far, have been proven to be the most intelligent beings who have been indulging in the act of choosing for centuries.

Why do we choose what we choose? Only we would know that answer because only we would know why we did what we did.