Ethical Egoism - History

History

Ethical egoism, as a category of moral philosophies, was introduced by the philosopher Henry Sidgwick in his The Methods of Ethics, written in 1874. Sidgwick compared egoism to the philosophy of utilitarianism, writing that whereas utilitarianism sought to maximize overall pleasure, egoism focused only on maximizing individual pleasure.

Since the introduction of the term, ethical egoism has been retroactively applied to philosophers before Sidgwick. The philosophy of Yang Zhu (4th century BCE), Yangism, is considered to be egoist. Yangism views wei wo, or "everything for myself", as the only virtue necessary for self-cultivation. Although ancient Greek philosophers believed in individual virtue ethics, philosophers like "Plato, Aristotle, and the Stoics not accept the formal principle that whatever the good is, we should seek only our own good, or prefer it to the good of others." The beliefs of the Cyrenaics, however, have been referred to as a "form of egoistic hedonism," unlike the hedonistic virtue ethics of the Epicureans.