Moral Egoism

Abstract Moral egoism is the psychological tendency to view one’s beliefs, attitudes, and actions as morally right and good, regardless of their content. It involves cognitive dissonance, because when our actions contradict our views of ourselves as good persons we invoke self-justifications to exonerate ourselves and blame others. Moral egoism also involves social comparisons, because we have a tendency to view ourselves as better than others, including in the moral arena. Research on aspects of individual moral egoism is almost exclusively on Western participants and assumes a positive self-concept that is not normative in the rest of the world, nor has it been through human history. In fact, in most cultures across history and throughout the world today children have been discouraged from thinking positively about themselves and instead are socialized to tie their self-image to the well-being of the groups that are part of their social identity: family, village, ethnic group, religion, nation, and so on. In this way individual moral egoism is transmuted to group moral egoism: you are wrong and bad, but you are part of us, and we are right and good. The moral egoism of groups allows even violent actions against outgroups, including war and genocide, to be justified as natural, normal, and necessary. Group moral egoism may seem to be humanity’s curse, as it has frequently inspired intergroup conflict and violence, but it appears to be waning in the current era as individualism—and, by implication, individual moral egoism—rises worldwide.