A pre-emptive defense of moral egoism

Let us first establish a few things. We are trying to identify what is "right", and not what should be "right". Any attempts to answer the latter question would lead to a circular argument.

Moral egoism is a theory. There is no way you can prove that this is the best ever possible theory of ethical behaviour, and it is possible to disprove it by providing a counter example. Only one counter example is needed.

Here I make one assumption: A person would do something if and only if he thinks he is doing the "right" course of action. By making this assumption, theories of ethics become testable by observation. We can find out what is "right" by observing how people act.

In the next few paragraphs I shall establish that no objective theory of ethics is correct. Suppose there is a certain "ethical" way to live, and everyone agrees with it and obeys it and thus there is no need for enforcement. In this case, would there be any ethics? Everyone is simply doing what they would want to do, and whatever they do is considered ethical. There is no difference whether there is this ethical codes or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society.

Now let us suppose there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but no one obeys it. Everything that people do is "wrong". Because nobody would obey the "ethical" course of action, nobody would enforce it. Thus, everybody would just do what they want to do with no restrictions from that "ethical" code, but whatever they are doing, it is still "wrong". There is, again, no difference whether there is this ethical code or not. By Occam's razor, there are no ethics in this hypothetical society either.

Here let us suppose that there is this set of "ethical" way to live, but only half the population agrees with it and obeys it. This half of the population does whatever they want, unresticted by ethics. The other half of the population would also do whatever they want, because they think their course of action is the right course of action. Thus, both halves of the population would think that the other half of the population is "wrong", and would ry to impose it on the other, But what a minute, nothing would change if we consider the other side to be the side that obeys the "ethical" course of action. In this case, if we consider any side to be the "right" side, it makes no difference to whether the other side is "right". Having an objective set of ethical codes have no implications. Thus, by Occam's razor, there is no objective set of ethical codes.

In the following paragraphs, I shall establish that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.

From the point of view of a self, the only things that can affect a person's thoughts are his considerations at that point in time; the considerations of the future are made at that point in time, recalling the past occurs at that point in time of the decision making as well. Thus, the things that the decision maker cannot predict, or the things he forgot do not play a role in his decision of what is right or wrong. The outcome cannot possibly affect his decision as it is something of the future, and we can safely assume that events of the future cannot affect the past.

Since the outcome cannot affect whether a person does something or not, we can also state that the outcome cannot affect whether a person thinks something is right or not. Thus, we can conclude that no consequentialist theory of ethics is correct.

Although the above arguments don't prove that moral egoism is correct, they pretty much prove everything else incorrect.