Definitions
Ethical egoism has been variously defined as the view that "each and every man ought to look out for himself alone, ''1 "everyone ought to concern himself with his own welfare alone, ''2 "my sole duty is to promote my own interests exclusively, ''3 and "everyone ought exclusively to pursue his own interests. ''4 In these formulations, ethical egoism advocates the exclusive pursuit of one's own interests.
It is generally acknowledged that the 'exclusive' pursuit of one's interests need not be interpreted to mean performing only that course of action which would result in benefiting the egoist solely. That is, given two courses of action, both of which may benefit the egoist, but one of which will benefit another person as well, the egoist is not claiming that he ought to perform that action which would benefit himself alone. Instead, what he does is determined by whether it would, all things considered, be in his overall interest to perform one action instead of another. This does not preclude him from doing things which would benefit another, so long as it is in his overall interest to do so.
But, although there is no necessary incompatibility between the egoist's interests and others', perhaps an inevitable consequence of this exclusive concentration on the pursuit of self-interest must be a disregard for the interests of others -at least when a clash of interests occurs, and the egoist can afford, without undue harm to himself, to do so. Some definitions of ethical egoism stress this point. From these definitions a disregard for the interests of others seems a defining characteristic of ethical egoism: "Universal egoism maintains that everyone (includingthe speaker) ought to look after his own interests and to disregard those of other people except in * I thank Peter Winch and Robert Stecker for their critical comments on an earlier version of this paper.