5.3.6. THE FUNDAMENTAL CONTRADICTION OF EGOISM
G.E. Moore identified the following as the fundamental contradiction of egoism (Principia Ethica, section 59): The egoist says that each person ought rationally to hold, "My own happiness is the sole good": "What egoism holds, therefore, is that each man's happiness is the sole good - that a number of different things are each of them the only good thing there is - an absolute contradiction!" (emphasis Moore's).
This is a criticism that still seems to me, as it did when I first read it, exactly on the mark. Let's look at it more closely, though. The ethical egoist is one who believes that he ought to aim only at promoting his own happiness (it does not matter if we substitute "interests" or anything else for "happiness"). Certainly, then, he thinks that it is good that he should be happy. What does he think everyone else should do?
He might maintain, "Everyone else also ought to serve my interests," but this would be implausible. Then he would have to answer "What's so special about you?" Unless he thinks he himself has some kind of special status, some characteristics that no one else in the world has, he must grant that, if his happiness is good, the happiness of others is also good.
Therefore, to maintain the plausibility of his theory, the egoist has to say that everyone's happiness is good, and that each person ought to aim at that person's own happiness. But if other people's happiness is also good, then the egoist must be hard put to explain why he does not aim at it in the same way he aims at his own. In other words, how can he justify acting as if his own happiness were the only good thing there is, given that he grants that every other person's happiness is good in just the same way that his own happiness is?
These types of arguments usually come from people who do not try to understand the philosophy itself, or try to bend the meaning of what is said into contradictions. These arguments usually contain the phrase 'what they seem to be saying', and when you see that phrase you can throw the entire discussion out the door. They have no real understanding. Reading through most of these postings against Objectivism, I usually can stop the argument in the first paragraph simply because someone has tried to equate two things that are not the same.
This blurb here is easily answered by two things. One, you can not equate self interest with happiness, they are two separate things. Happiness is usually obtained by accomplishing one's interests. Second, what one person's self interests are, will not be the same as everyone's self interests. You can not satisify everyone's self interest, nor should you try, unless that is where your self interests lie. All you can do, all you should do, is make sure that your pursuit of self interest does not infringe upon someone else's rights. If everyone followed this than a large majority would eventually obtain their self interest goals, and then maybe, most would find happiness.
The objectivist dislike of collectivism and altruism is what most people can not get past, that church indoctrination of having an obligation or duty to help everyone and to protect the weak and less fortunate, etc, and it promotes personal responsibility which most people do not like.
