Described by Albert Camus in 1951 as the only great spirit of our time\u2018, Simone Weil was a philosopher, writer, teacher and social activist who dedicated the majority of her life to helping others. However, her altruistic nature progressed into an incessant need to share the suffering of others. As a result, Weil neglected her own health and died in 1943, aged just 34. <\/p>\n
Weil was a hugely admirable person, but in this project, I am going to put forward an argument in favour of the need for an egoistic moral structure to ensure the progression of society. <\/p>\n
After providing an account of Weil\u2018s life, highlighting her troubles and endeavours along the way, I will use Mill\u2018s Utilitarianism to demonstrate an altruistic account of morality. However, I will go on show the flaws in Mill\u2018s theory in order to illustrate why an altruistic structure to society is implausible. <\/p>\n
I will then assess Barbara Oakley\u2018s study, Pathological Altruism, to address her idea that altruistic acts can become harmful when taken to an unhealthy extreme. Many of Weil\u2018s characteristics match up to Oakley\u2018s studies, providing an understanding behind her eating and mental disorders. <\/p>\n
So next I will turn to Hobbes\u2018s account of morality, Rational Egoism, to see if that could provide a more comprehensive ethical structure. His recognition of individual\u2018s self-interest ensures the basis of a productive society, where people would look to employ their strengths in order to further themselves, which is something I feel Weil didn\u2018t fully achieve. <\/p>\n
However, there are also flaws to Hobbes\u2018s account, and so I will conclude by asserting that currently no entirely adequate moral-political exists. I will then look at Williams\u2018s interpretation of morality, as he suggests that comprehensive moral philosophy is empty and boring\u2018.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Barney Robinson, 2012, Stage 3<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8792,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[592,22,123],"tags":[284,285,607],"class_list":["post-2045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-592","category-abstracts","category-stage-3-abstracts","tag-altruism","tag-egoism","tag-weil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8792"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2045\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ncl.ac.uk\/philosophy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}