Do Egoists Really Believe in Other Minds?

null, Luke Roelofs

If morality is objectively rational, then it seems like people who ignore morality should be making some sort of rational error. But it is difficult to identify what this supposed error is: it seems like an amoralist can be just as well-informed, consistent, and prudentially rational as anyone else. Explaining what rational failing immorality involves has thus been termed the “Holy Grail” of metaethics: enticing but elusive.

One approach to this elusive goal has been to link lack of concern for others with failure to accept their reality, so that consistent egoism amounts to solipsism. But this move faces an obvious objection: surely egoists must believe in other people, because manipulating and tormenting others presupposes such belief.

I argue that this obvious objection can be answered by appealing to the role of sympathetic imagination in appreciating the reality of others. Because imagination is central both for engaging with fiction and for understanding other minds, a subject may treat other people’s feelings like fictions without realizing they are doing so. Egoists might thus be unwitting fictionalists about other minds.