Psychological egoism entails the tendency of people to act, speak, or perceive things motivated by self or personal beliefs. The theory of egoism underlines oneself as the motivation of his or her actions and perspectives (Audi 265). In a discussion with a psychological egoist, one gets the feeling that the egoist struggles to defend his or her actions irrespective of whether he or she is right actions or not. On my way to the ethics class, I encountered into a psychological egoist and initiated a discussion with him on ethics and their roles in society. Some of the arguments raised by the egoist were legit. However, many arguments conformed to personal life and not the accepted code of ethics. This paper outlines the dialogue between the psychological egoist and me. The dialogue aims at proving the negatives of psychological egoism. For the purposes of confidentiality, I refer to the interviewed egoist as Mr. X.
Me: not at all, I am easy. The ethics class starts at 11.00 am, which means I am far ahead of time.
Me: I find the ethics class the most interesting because we learn about the basic behavior expected of us in the corporate world and society. We have the best instructors in the institution and the ethical theories are real and practical. What is your perception about the course?
Me: The ethical standards of organizations and institutions differ from one institution to another, and you cannot dictate the rules in all organizations. Ethical standards guide the professional life of an employee hence as an employee in any organization. It remains your obligation to adhere to the ethical standards in the organization.
Me: Why do you say so?
Me: The essence of ethical standards in business is to govern the relationships in the business. For example, financial ethics requires that one submit the financial records in the formats and periods designed by a business. The essence of such standards does increases productivity and makes the decision making process of the management easier as they can refer to the financial information with ease.
Me: I think you are deviating from the initial aim of the ethical theories with your theory of productivity. No business wants unproductive employees. Productivity matched with the right ethical standards in any business lead to a highly marketable employee. In the human resources, for example, ethical standards require that they hire with fair consideration of all applicants. Would you suggest that they stop looking at your qualifications for the job and hire you because they think you are productive? That will comprise an unethical act. They should not discriminate against any employee as long as the employee qualifies.
Me: I am sure you interpret ethics as bondage rules. They are not such rules. Evaluating them from both the employee and employer points of view gives a broad picture of their essence in business. (Bell rings and students start moving to the class to begin the lecture. This ends our conversation, which we agree to continue after the class)
The conversation between Mr. X and me shows that psychological egoism derails the essence of mature discussions as it hampers the generation of ideas in a conversation. The discussion revolves around the same thing with the egoist remaining firm in his personal defense. Psychological egoism is a bad way of thinking and reasoning especially in discussions aimed at attaining a common point between two people (Moseley 35). In the discussion, Mr. X maintained that businesses should focus on productivity and ignore all the unethical activities by the employees. In essence, he suggested that even when the employees disobey all standards of behavior that they need to follow, businesses must ignore them as long as they are productive. This belief does not help the business as it ultimately leads to loss of the market value of the business.
Works Cited
Audi, Robert. "Objectivity Without Egoism: Toward Balance in Business Ethics." Academy Of Management Learning & Education 8.2 (2009): 263-274.
Moseley, Alexander. Egoism: Internet encyclopedia of philosophy. A peer reviewed academic resource. United Kingdom. IEP.n.d. Retrieved from: http://www.iep.utm.edu/
