Philosophy

Standard level
Paper 1
May 2016

Optional theme 3: Ethics

7. To what extent do you agree with the claim that ethics is more about self-interest than
about the interests of others?

Many people nowadays claim that even at our best, we always have ourselves in mind and
usually put ourselves first. Everything we do, whether kind or brave, is ultimately done for
our advantage. In some instances, the personal gain is plain to see, such as when we
receive public acclaim or admiration. However, it's not as evident in other situations. The
concerns about self-interest and the interests of others in ethics will be further examined in
this essay, with references to Utilitarianism, Jeremy Bentham’s Utilitarianism in particular,
and Kantian ethics. My initial standpoint is that ethics is more about the interest of others
than self-interest.

Bentham’s moral theory develops around hedonistic thinking. According to him, the only
thing that determines the value of life, action, or any event depends on the overall amount of
happiness in that particular situation. This means that he was a hedonistic utilitarian,
proposing that the action should be judged right or wrong based on the extent it increases
human-well being or utility. The principle of utility underpins the central idea of Bentham’s
theory, proposing that the measurement of right and wrong action is extant to which that
action produces good for the greatest number of people. For action to be morally right, it
should promote the greatest pleasure for the greatest number of people.

Apart from being hedonistic, Bentham’s utilitarianism is also consequentialist, relativist,

It is consequentialist because the moral value of an action is determined by the

The relativistic aspect of the theory means that whether an action was right or wrong
is determined by the given situation in which that action took place. The morality of
an action is entirely relative to that particular situation.

Bentham’s theory is maximizing because it requires that the greatest amount of

Finally, the theory is impartial because the theory does not give special preferences
regarding people's gender, race, social status, etc. It takes equal consideration of the
interests of all the people who are connected to the action which is being judged as
morally right or wrong.
Let's consider one example to have a clearer picture of the connections between self-
interest and Bentham’s utilitarianism. Suppose that a class with a few students is having a
test and that only one person understands all the lessons. Other students are not so sure of
themselves, so they ask the one who knows everything to help them with preparation, and
that person accepts. At a first glance, it seems that the person helping is doing that only
because of the interest of others. However, that person may be expecting help when they
need it, they maybe want to be perceived as someone willing to help, etc, meaning that there
would be a great interest if that is the case.

If we were to apply Bentham’s theory, the first thing to notice is that the consequences are
the only thing that matter to judge an action, and not whether someone does it because of
their self-interest. If the person accepts to help others, that action is morally right because it
brings overall happiness to everyone included in the situation. Because of this, we may
conclude that it seems like Bentham’s ethical theory of utilitarianism is focused more on the
interest of others than on self-interest.

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher whose ethics evolved around the fact that
actions are right or wrong regardless of someone's feelings and the consequences of that
action. Since the consequences are not taken into account when determining whether an
action is right or wrong, Kant’s theory is deontological rather than teleological.

Some key terms and ideas of Kantian ethics are duty and goodwill.
The notion of duty represents the things that we recognize as being required without the
feeling of what we want to do. Good will represents the thing that makes us do things despite
the strong desire to do what we want to. Every action done despite conflicting desires is due
to good will.

It is necessary to distinguish between the class of acts carried out for the sake of duty and
the class of actions in accordance with duty.
Only actions carried out for the sake of duty, according to Kant, have moral value. He seems
to be saying that the moral value of activity increases with one's disinclination to perform it
out of obligation. If a person acts out of inclination, such action lacks moral value.

Kant refers to perfect duties as necessary obligations that we ought to be able to will for
everyone. He emphasizes the need of treating people as individuals and refraining from
abusing them.
Imperfect duty is an easier obligation that no sane person could will. We have an imperfect
duty to aid others for their good, not just for our own, rather than to be egoists.

Categorical Imperatives are another thing that should be taken into account when judging
the morality of action from a Kantian point of view since the imperatives represent its main
idea. They represent moral laws that all persons must follow. Kant proposes three of them,
but in this essay, I will focus only on the first and the second one since I believe that using
those is enough to judge a certain action. The first one is represented by the idea of acting
according to the maxim that we would wish to become a universal law. The maxim is a
general principle upon which we act. The second categorical imperative includes honoring
the worth and dignity of every rational being when we act. According to this, you should
always treat people not only as an end and never merely as a means. Simply put, rather
than treating individuals like objects, we ought to value and respect each individual.

Considering the following example may help us in connecting Kant’s ethics theory to the self-
interest and interest of others. Suppose you are hiding a chocolate bar so you don’t want
your siblings to find it out and potentially eat it, but you want to keep it for yourself. By
applying Kantian ethics to this example, not only that the person hiding the chocolate bar not
acting according to duty, but is performing the act without good will.
If we were to apply categorical imperative number one, it certainly shows that we wouldn’t
want a maxim, which is to hide a chocolate bar from siblings, to be aauniversal law because
it would mean that our siblings would hide bars from ourselves too.
The second categorical imperative proposes that if we do hide chocolate bars, we are not
considering the fact that our siblings are rational beings who may take into account our
wishes of wanting the chocolate only for ourselves or even consider sharing it. To hide a
chocolate bar is morally wrong.

Thus, we can conclude that when judging a certain action by using Kantian ethics, we must
not be selfish and act according to our desires, but we should also take into account other
peoples’ wishes and the consequences that the action would universally cause.

To conclude, although sometimes the situations which are judged may be at first seen and
perceived to deal more with self-interest than the interest of others, the Kantian ethics and
Bentham’s utilitarian theory applied to the examples described, show that self-interest and
will are often dismissed, not taken into account when considering that one action is morally
right. Therefore, it seems that ethics is more focused on the interest of others and overall
satisfaction rather than onewantings.