Joel Feinberg Arguments Against the Theory of Philosophical Egoism

Feinberg states that psychological egoism contains a tautology touching upon the idea that every person's motives of doing something are only for his best benefit, and therefore they are purely selfish. He believes that the only question which needs to be proved is that every action is accompanied by a quite particular motive - the selfish one. His reasoning is that we must look not at the origin of the motive, but at its aim. This is where a controversy is hidden, however. A motive directed towards someone can be selfish too. This can be easily seen if the third level of psychological egoism is taken as an example. A person can act good for the benefit of the other people, and still be prompted by the wish to gain the ultimate pleasure from acting in the "right" way. So, a person can be even other-directed, but still possess “selfish" motives. What should be kept in mind is that this is not some «bad" thing, it is just the way we all were made. And this design is what makes the world go around.
One more Feinberg’s argument is that if we are always looking for fulfillment of our own best interests (pleasures), then why their fulfillment sometimes leaves us quite dissatisfied? The thing is that we are often quite misguided in our chase for happiness. Let’s refer to an example: some people believe that carnal pleasures will give us the ultimate pleasure, and thus, they spend much time and affords in implementation of carnal desires. This causes what Feinberg calls the "paradox of hedonism» stating that an extraordinary desire to get happy is the surest way to prevent achieving this. This phenomenon just shows that humans are often do not know exactly what can give them the greatest pleasure. In the three-level theory of psychological egoism, the greatest degree of happiness results from doing the "right" thing, although what is "right" is not defined, it just should be associated with some form of beneficence. So, the paradox is the following: when people stop looking for their own pleasure, either carnal or intellectual, but concentrate on helping the others – they find the ultimate pleasure.