I oppose the belief of psychological egoism

On September 11, 2001 an Islamic terrorist group called Al-Qaeda hijacked 4 airplanes with the intentions of attacking major buildings. They successfully attacked the Twin Towers in New York City, and the Pentagon in Virginia. They attempted to attack Washington, D.C. but ending up crashing into a field in Pennsylvania after the passengers on the plane tried to overcome the hijackers. In the attack of the Twin Towers, 343 firefighters and 72 law enforcement officers died trying to rescue civilians. These people risked their own lives to save other people. Some may say they were just doing their job, but is any job worth your own life? I truly believe most of these people were selfless. Many didn’t know if they would die or not but they went in there to at least try and save people.

        Many philosophers question if this action is truly unselfish. They believe the theory of ethical egoism and psychological egoism. Ethical egoism is the theory that people ought to do what is in their own self-interest. It’s the idea that people only do things they believe they ought to because it will reflect on themselves. For example, in this situation ethical egoism would mean these firefighters and law enforcement officers risked their lives because it was morally the right thing to do and it would look good when reflected back upon them, but not because they were being kind and truly wanted to give up their lives to save someone else's. I partially disagree with this theory because many people do things in life because they truly are selfless and care about other people. I do however believe that some people could have done this because they believe it’s morally the right thing to do  and in the end if they didn’t do it, they could have been frowned upon.

When it comes to the people that risked their lives saving others in the attacks I believe most of them truly were self-sacrificing. You have a lot on the line that you’re risking to just casually be doing what’s morally right for the sake of looking like a good person. These people were risking their lives. I wouldn’t risk my life just because it’d make me look like a good person, I would personally do it because in that instance losing my life could have saved many of other people's lives. My family would have dealt with grief and hardship, but I could have just prevented multiple families from dealing with the same thing. This is why I truly believe many of these firefighters and law enforcement officers were selfless and good people.

When it comes to philosophers believing this was because of psychological egoism, I completely disagree. Psychological egoism is the theory that people are always motivated by self-interest. It’s the claim that people will only do something kind for others if it’ll benefit them. These people will only do something if there’s something they will gain off of it or if they’ll be rewarded from it. I completely disagree with this theory in the situation of the Twin Towers burning down. In general, I don’t believe nearly any of the firefighters or law enforcement officers were risking their lives for their own good. What would you gain in this situation if you end up dying? Also, what benefit could be worth your own life? There could have been a couple of people that may have thought doing this would make them look good and make people proud of them but in general nobody thinks about what’s in it for them when deciding to save somebody’s life while risking their own. They don’t usually have time to think about something like that either. This was a do or don’t situation that they decided to participate in within seconds. Referring to what I stated above, I believe they did these acts of selflessness because they cared about saving these people's lives, not because it would benefit themselves.

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