{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20301"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/20301","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Egoism: Arguments for and against it from western philosophy","abstract":"Egoism is the doctrine that one ought to act only for self-interested reasons. I shall be concerned with the presupposition of egoism: acting only for self-interested reasons is in one's long-term interest. I shall be concerned with this presupposition's truth with respect only to cases in which one's interests conflict with those of others. So I shall be concerned with this affiliated egoistic doctrine (call it the 'doctrine of advantage'); in cases of conflict between one's interests and those of others, acting only for self-interested reasons tends to be in one's long-term interest. With respect to conflict of interests' cases, I refer to one's best all-things-considered interests at the time. However, no one or few people know accurately their actual, all-things-considered, long-term interests and perhaps few their all-things-considered immediate interests. Also, by 'advantage', I refer both to the acquisition of Moorean-type intrinsic goods and common naturalistic goods like wealth, power, pleasure, etc. By 'naturalistic goods', I mean some human ends considered valuable by reasons reducible to natural selection and, possibly, social conventions. I also assume that conflicts of interests occur regularly throughout everyone's lifetime, owing to different human needs and wants, scarcity of resources, etc.","abstract_html":"Egoism is the doctrine that one ought to act only for self-interested reasons. I shall be concerned with the presupposition of egoism: acting only for self-interested reasons is in one's long-term interest. I shall be concerned with this presupposition's truth with respect only to cases in which one's interests conflict with those of others. So I shall be concerned with this affiliated egoistic doctrine (call it the 'doctrine of advantage'); in cases of conflict between one's interests and those of others, acting only for self-interested reasons tends to be in one's long-term interest. With respect to conflict of interests' cases, I refer to one's best all-things-considered interests at the time. However, no one or few people know accurately their actual, all-things-considered, long-term interests and perhaps few their all-things-considered immediate interests. Also, by 'advantage', I refer both to the acquisition of Moorean-type intrinsic goods and common naturalistic goods like wealth, power, pleasure, etc. By 'naturalistic goods', I mean some human ends considered valuable by reasons reducible to natural selection and, possibly, social conventions. I also assume that conflicts of interests occur regularly throughout everyone's lifetime, owing to different human needs and wants, scarcity of resources, etc.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Blackwood, Dennis Michael"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"Ph.D.","degree_level":"Dissertation","degree_discipline":"Philosophy","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Wengert, Robert G."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2011,"date_issued":"2011-05-07T12:35:20Z","date_published":"2011-05-07T12:35:20Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:15Z","subjects":["Philosophy"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":["Copyright 1995 Blackwood, Dennis Michael"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9522081","(UMI)AAI9522081"],"render_values":[{"text":"AAI9522081","href":null,"code":true},{"text":"(UMI)AAI9522081","href":null,"code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20301","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Wengert, Robert G."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Blackwood, Dennis Michael"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2011-05-07T12:35:20Z","10000-01-01","1995"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Philosophy"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Dissertation"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["Ph.D."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Philosophy"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 1995 Blackwood, Dennis Michael"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["AAI9522081","(UMI)AAI9522081","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20301"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Egoism is the doctrine that one ought to act only for self-interested reasons. I shall be concerned with the presupposition of egoism: acting only for self-interested reasons is in one's long-term interest. I shall be concerned with this presupposition's truth with respect only to cases in which one's interests conflict with those of others. So I shall be concerned with this affiliated egoistic doctrine (call it the 'doctrine of advantage'); in cases of conflict between one's interests and those of others, acting only for self-interested reasons tends to be in one's long-term interest. With respect to conflict of interests' cases, I refer to one's best all-things-considered interests at the time. However, no one or few people know accurately their actual, all-things-considered, long-term interests and perhaps few their all-things-considered immediate interests. Also, by 'advantage', I refer both to the acquisition of Moorean-type intrinsic goods and common naturalistic goods like wealth, power, pleasure, etc. By 'naturalistic goods', I mean some human ends considered valuable by reasons reducible to natural selection and, possibly, social conventions. I also assume that conflicts of interests occur regularly throughout everyone's lifetime, owing to different human needs and wants, scarcity of resources, etc.","I shall have two tasks in this dissertation: (1) to detail and explain chronologically the main arguments for and against egoism and, specifically, the doctrine of advantage from the Western tradition until and including the eighteenth century discussions; (2) to classify these arguments. I shall not concern myself with theological arguments concerning the rewards and punishments in the hereafter. I shall only be concerned with arguments with respect to earthly types of advantages and disadvantages.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:35:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9522081.pdf: 11180257 bytes, checksum: deef5e656848728c79b5e3d8a29a2903 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1995","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:42:58Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:18:45-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Egoism: Arguments for and against it from western philosophy"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Wengert, Robert G."],"dc:creator":["Blackwood, Dennis Michael"],"dc:date":["2011-05-07T12:35:20Z","10000-01-01","1995"],"dc:description":["Egoism is the doctrine that one ought to act only for self-interested reasons. I shall be concerned with the presupposition of egoism: acting only for self-interested reasons is in one's long-term interest. I shall be concerned with this presupposition's truth with respect only to cases in which one's interests conflict with those of others. So I shall be concerned with this affiliated egoistic doctrine (call it the 'doctrine of advantage'); in cases of conflict between one's interests and those of others, acting only for self-interested reasons tends to be in one's long-term interest. With respect to conflict of interests' cases, I refer to one's best all-things-considered interests at the time. However, no one or few people know accurately their actual, all-things-considered, long-term interests and perhaps few their all-things-considered immediate interests. Also, by 'advantage', I refer both to the acquisition of Moorean-type intrinsic goods and common naturalistic goods like wealth, power, pleasure, etc. By 'naturalistic goods', I mean some human ends considered valuable by reasons reducible to natural selection and, possibly, social conventions. I also assume that conflicts of interests occur regularly throughout everyone's lifetime, owing to different human needs and wants, scarcity of resources, etc.","I shall have two tasks in this dissertation: (1) to detail and explain chronologically the main arguments for and against egoism and, specifically, the doctrine of advantage from the Western tradition until and including the eighteenth century discussions; (2) to classify these arguments. I shall not concern myself with theological arguments concerning the rewards and punishments in the hereafter. I shall only be concerned with arguments with respect to earthly types of advantages and disadvantages.","Made available in DSpace on 2011-05-07T12:35:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license.txt: 4922 bytes, checksum: 910b249b4beec47e7ab768910c8f966f (MD5) 9522081.pdf: 11180257 bytes, checksum: deef5e656848728c79b5e3d8a29a2903 (MD5) Previous issue date: 1995","Item marked as restricted to the 'UIUC Users [automated]' Group (id=2) by Howard Ding (hding2@illinois.edu) on 2011-05-07T14:42:58Z Item is restricted indefinitely.","Restriction data tranferred 2014-07-01T11:18:45-05:00 Original Data Group with Access UIUC Users [automated] Release Date: none Reason: ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","ETDs are only available to UIUC Users without author permission","U of I Only"],"dc:identifier":["AAI9522081","(UMI)AAI9522081","http://hdl.handle.net/2142/20301"],"dc:language":["eng"],"dc:rights":["Copyright 1995 Blackwood, Dennis Michael"],"dc:subject":["Philosophy"],"dc:title":["Egoism: Arguments for and against it from western philosophy"],"dc:type":["text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Philosophy"],"thesis:degree_level":["Dissertation"],"thesis:degree_name":["Ph.D."],"thesis:institution_name":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:15Z"}