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    Carmelics

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    Home/Original/inverse
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    Inverse View

    It is not the case that If psychological egoism is true, it must be supported by empirical observation of human behavior rather than by a priori reasoning.

    ?Set your confidence on the premises below to see your aggregate.

    Reasons For

    2 perspectives
    Reason for 1 of 2
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    • 1.Conceptual claims about the structure of motivation are established by logical analysis, not empirical observation.
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    • 2.Psychological egoism, as advanced by Hobbes, is a thesis about the necessary form of desire—that all desires are self-referential by definition.
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    • 3.A definitionally necessary claim cannot be falsified by empirical counterexamples, making appeals to observation irrelevant to its justification.
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    Reason for 2 of 2
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    • 1.Empirical observation of behavior underdetermines motivational claims, since any altruistic act can be redescribed as satisfying a self-directed desire for satisfaction.
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    • 2.Batson's empathy-altruism hypothesis shows that purely behavioral data cannot adjudicate between egoistic and altruistic interpretations without prior theoretical commitments.
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    • 3.Therefore, the theoretical framework used to interpret observations must be established through conceptual rather than purely empirical means.
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    Reasons Against

    1 perspective
    Reason against
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    • 1.The a priori argument for psychological egoism fails.
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    • 2.The remaining way to establish psychological egoism is through close empirical observation of actual cases where people act solely for their own sake.
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