Question

According to hobbes how does psychology egoism differ from altruism?

Answer 1

Egoism refers to the quality of being excessively self centered. Psychological egoism advocates that all human actions are being motivated by selfish desires.According to Hobbes everyone as a matter of fact aims for his or her own personal good whenever a person performs his or her any preferred course of action.Psychological egoism mainly shows people's basic motivation for any action. It provides a basic reason or cause for an action to take place. According to Hobbes theory of psychological egoism regardless of whether a person is consciously aware of his or her actions or not, even those actions are motivated by one's own self-interest. But Hobbes does not claim that everybody succeeds in achieving their own self-interest. Altruism on the other hand refers to the quality of being completely selfless. Altruism advocates that we should sacrifice our own interest for the benefit of others. Hobbes gives us an interesting point about human nature why people sometimes perform good deeds. According to Hobbes people perform good deeds not because they are actually trying to help someone but because it makes them feel good by performing noble deeds. For example many people donates money to the poor because it makes them feel good to do so rather than to benefit the person receiving the money. A number of factors responsible for interplay between egoism & altruism. Egoism can be defined as extreme self-centeredness whereas altruism can be defined as selflessness. This two can be considered as two major extremes of human quality.