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Single Idea 20248

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism ]

Full Idea

Whatever they say about their 'egotism', people nevertheless do nothing their whole life long for their ego, but instead for the phantom ego that has formed in the heads around them and been communicated to them.

Gist of Idea

People do nothing for their real ego, but only for a phantom ego created by other people

Source

Friedrich Nietzsche (Dawn (Daybreak) [1881], 105)

Book Ref

Nietzsche,Friedrich: 'Dawn (Daybreak) (v 5)', ed/tr. Smith, Brittain [Stanford 2011], p.72

A Reaction

Nietzsche has a vision of true devotion to the ego as healthy, and so (I would say) does Aristotle, though the two might disagree about the details. I want to live among people who work on themselves, not those who always sacrifice themselves.

The 26 ideas with the same theme [view that people should put themselves first]:

2166 We should behave well even if invisible, for the health of the mind [Plato]
1636 Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato]
3025 For a Cyrenaic no one is of equal importance to himself [Aristippus young, by Diog. Laertius]
88 Nobody would choose all the good things in world, if the price was loss of identity [Aristotle]
91 A man is his own best friend; therefore he ought to love himself best [Aristotle]
5856 Self-interest is a relative good, but nobility an absolute good [Aristotle]
3031 The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius]
1769 Cynics believe that when a man wishes for nothing he is like the gods [Diog. Laertius]
4851 Reason demands nothing contrary to nature, and so it demands self-love [Spinoza]
17220 Self-satisfaction is the highest thing for which we can hope [Spinoza]
6235 Self-interest is not intrinsically good, but its absence is evil, as public good needs it [Shaftesbury]
3929 No moral theory is of any use if it doesn't serve the interests of the individual concerned [Hume]
23059 Self-interest is not rational, if the self is just a succession of memories and behaviour [Sidgwick, by Gray]
2885 The noble soul has reverence for itself [Nietzsche]
20248 People do nothing for their real ego, but only for a phantom ego created by other people [Nietzsche]
3259 Nietzsche rejects impersonal morality, and asserts the idea of living well [Nietzsche, by Nagel]
4409 Only the decline of aristocratic morality led to concerns about "egoism" [Nietzsche]
18327 A wholly altruistic morality, with no egoism, is a thoroughly bad thing [Nietzsche]
4517 Egoism is inescapable, and when it grows weak, the power of love also grows weak [Nietzsche]
4518 The question about egoism is: what kind of ego? since not all egos are equal [Nietzsche]
4519 The ego is only a fiction, and doesn't exist at all [Nietzsche]
23865 Morality would improve if people could pursue private interests [Weil]
23695 Good actions can never be justified by the good they brings to their agent [Foot]
9241 Loving oneself is not a failing, but is essential to a successful life [Frankfurt]
6704 Egoism submits to desires, but cannot help form them [Graham]
9761 Personal concern for one's own self widens out into concern for the impersonal [Korsgaard]