Utilitarianism, Ethical Egoism, and Moral Relativism
Tom Gardner

Ethics is a branch of philosophy that attempts to answer the questions; what’s right? What’s wrong? And why? Moral relativism is an ethics position that essentially states that people have disagreeing moral beliefs and therefore you must but tolerant of other's morals. This position leads to the problematic realization that if this is the case there can be no objective moral truths nor can there be any universal principles. Act utilitarianism and ethical egoism are two different ethics theories that attempt to respond to this challenge of moral relativism in different ways.
Ethical egoism attempts to respond to the challenge of moral relativism by justifying that there is a universal principle for what actions are right and what are wrong. It is a form of consequentialism, which means it looks solely at the consequences of action to see if it is right or wrong. The defining sentence of egoism is as follows, “What's good for you is right and what's bad for you is wrong.” This phrase can be interpreted in a number of ways, the most popular one being: every person should act in their own self-interest. This means that when deciding on whether an action is good, any effect on others (mental or physical) by said action has no merit. An egoist that is measuring or justifying an action's goodness is only examining the possible positive or negative effects this action will have on him.
The majority of the justification arguments for ethical egoism stems from both psychological egoism and rational egoism. Psychological egoism is the belief that all people, whether they believe so or not, always seek their own self-interest in actions and this behavior is unavoidable because it is human nature. Rational egoism is the similar belief that it is rational to do something in one's self interest and therefore irrational to do something against their self-interest.
Three good arguments for the justification of ethical egoism are the human nature, self-knowledge, and intrusion arguments. The human nature argument is just psychological egoism. It argues that humans naturally operate by means of self-interest so why fight it. Ethical egoism will serve as a more intelligent way to support the natural order of things. The self-knowledge argument states that because we have a better knowledge of ourselves then that of others, we are better qualified in doing good actions for ourselves rather than for others. An example of this argument is the fact that a person has better odds of buying a good gift for themselves compared to buying a good gift for another. The intrusion argument simply argues that you have no right to bud into other people’s business and whether you think it is good or not you are simply over stepping your bounds.
The ethics theory utilitarianism, like egoism, is also a form of consequentialism. Yet it attempts to answer the challenge of moral relativism, through consequentialism, in a very different way. Utilitarianism looks at the amount of pleasure present and pain absent in a consequence, also known as its utility. The fundamental rule of utilitarianism is the, “Greatest Happiness Principle.” This principle states that actions are right in proportion to which they create the greatest happiness for most people. So adverse to ethical egoism, this theory gives more merit to the collected effect of action on all (others & the do-err) compared to just the effect on the do-err.
When a utilitarian is deciding on whether an action is good they are calculating the utility (pleasure present & pain absent) of the action, for all, and comparing it to the utility of other possible actions that could be taken at that time. The utility of an action is calculated by examining a number of aspects related to the pleasure involved and it is measured in hedons, a unit of pleasure. These aspects of calculation are the pleasures intensity, duration, closeness to action, purity, certainty, extent of affected people, and multitude of kinds of pleasure produced.
Utilitarianism is justified on a number of beliefs/arguments, the first being that all people only desire happiness, which is just another word for pleasure. In this belief the desire for things like money, virtue, and friends are actual just a means to an end, which is happiness. Utilitarianism is also based on the argument that the feelings of pain and pleasure are in facts natures guide to what ought to be. Finally, utilitarianism is based on the belief that by keeping the happiness of the community in mind you are in fact acting in the best interest of your own happiness. In this belief the community is seen as a fictional body that is made up of the sum of individual interests within that body. The best way to increase the body’s happiness is to increase the majority of individual happiness’s and transversely the happier the body gets the more likely the increase of the individuals happiness will happen.
Ethical egoism and utilitarianism are similar in that they are both trying to solve the same challenge of moral relativism. Both theories are attempting to solve the problem of not having a universal standard that constitutes what actions are right and what are wrong. They are also similar in that they both use consequentialism as a means to create a universal standard. The main difference between the two theories is the merit they place on the parties affected by the consequence. Ethical egoism puts a higher value on the consequences' effects on the person doing the action and almost disregards the effects on others. This means an egoist could murder someone if it proved beneficial (i.e. not getting caught and gaining something of worth). Utilitarianism on the other hand puts a higher value on the consequences' effect on the community majority rather than the individual. This means that a utilitarian could justify the existence of slavery it created more pleasure in the majority than pain. Another argument could be made that ethical egoism is based on rewarding the value of completing ones desires while utilitarianism is based on rewarding the creation of happiness. This over course can be refuted by the idea that receiving desired things is simply a means to creating happiness.
So which theory is superior? Both seem to be well justified and yet both, it seems, contain major flaws, like in my examples of the justification of slavery or murder. When comparing theories it is often best to compare the merit of their counter arguments rather than the theories themselves. The first of three major arguments against ethical egoism is that it leads to immorality. Many philosophers object that because it allows for any action to be justified it promotes humans in weak moments to be immoral. The second major argument is that an individual cannot truly objectively decide what is beneficial to them. For instance a person who is emotionally distraught might think it beneficial to sleep all day and eat gallons of ice cream when in actuality these actions are disadvantageous. The last major argument questions the justification of the importance of the individual. This argument asks what qualifies the individual as more important than the majority.
The first of three major arguments against utilitarianism is that it ignores the individual’s natural rights. An example is a person's right to life, which can be trumped in utilitarianism if there person's death creates more happiness then pain. The second argument points out that the measuring or pleasure is near impossible. How can one quantitatively measure something so abysmal? The final argument is that of the problem of scope affected. This argument is encapsulated by the example of a butterflies wing flapped causing a tornado miles away and brings forth the idea of it being truly impossible to see the full scope of things affected by a certain occurrence.
In the end ethical egoism, because of its allowance of each person to essentially justify all of their actions as good, can be seen as a blurry descendant of moral relativism and for that reason does not solve the original problem. It is for that reason that utilitarianism is the superior theory, in that it solves the challenges of moral relativism.