 The Glaucon tells us that we should pursue our own interests first. Now while he doesn't talk about it very much, there's something of a hidden presumption in there. And the hidden presumption is that there will always be a point where you're going to have to compete with somebody else for your interests, at the very least. Or that in order to pursue your own interests, in order to have what is best for you, you are going to have to somehow prevent somebody else from having their own interests fulfilled. So let me ask you, is this true? Is it the case that you're always going to have to pursue your own interests first? You can never ever allow for somebody else's interests to be fulfilled. Or let me ask the question a different way. Is it the case that if your interests are fulfilled, then somebody else's interests are not? Is it always going to be something like a competition? Is it always the case that at most one person or one group of people's interests are fulfilled and everybody else misses out? And then here's a question that Glaucon hasn't asked. If we really haven't investigated up to this point, what is in your interests? What is it that's beneficial to you? What is it that's actually good for you? I'm sure in asking the question, what's good for you? Some ready examples come to mind, or at least some popular ones come up first. We most often think of money. After all, without money we can't get a lot of the things that we need. Or we think that if something is good for us, then we can at least acquire it with money. We can sometimes think about a car. Cars seem to be good for us. We need to have cars to run around our society quite a lot. It's often thought that maybe money can't buy happiness, but it sure doesn't hurt. And if money can't buy happiness, they can buy us what can make us happy. So money does look like the kind of thing that is good for us. And yes, there is quite a lot of competition for money. There's a finite supply and not everybody is going to get as much as they want. Sometimes not everybody is going to get as much as they need. So in asking this question about whether you are going to have to put your interest first and whether there really just is this competition over what's in your interest. We often think of money. Yeah, sure. The first thing, the first inch you reach, most often is going to be, well, yeah. You have to pursue your own interest first because there's a competition, a finite amount of what's actually in your interest. But is everything that's in your interest a matter of competition? Well, think about some of these things that are very good for you, but it's not a matter of competition. And in fact, if you look out for yourself only, you're going to be missing out. Personal relationships are not a matter of competition. You can't just simply look out for yourself first and expect to stay in that personal relationship. And personal relationships are one of these things that, well, without them, life tends to be rather empty. There might be an ongoing debate about whether you absolutely need personal relationships. Okay, I mean, that's interesting. There are very few successful hermits out in the world. But personal relationships are one of those things that tends to bring life more meaning, not less. That tends to make life more fulfilling, not less. And you can't do this by being in competition, by placing only your interest first. There's a number of times where if you are looking out only for yourself, you're not going to have a good time. It's not going to be good for you. Have you ever gone to a wedding where you didn't care about the people getting married? It's not a lot of fun. You might show up if you don't care about them. You might show up and wonder why your food isn't as you like it, or whether you're wondering why there are people there who you don't like. Well, that will be a terrible time. On the other hand, if you're there to celebrate the bride and groom, which is not for you, but for them, you're going to have a good time. That's why you go to a wedding to celebrate the wedding itself, which is not about you. And that's just an example dealing with celebrating a personal relationship. How about being involved in one? I mean, imagine a date where our glau golem goes out and meets somebody. And during the process of this date, glau golem begins to explain to his date that he's the one who's important. He's the one that his interests need to be met. He's the one that needs to be focused on in the relationship. I imagine his date would not be impressed. And I imagine shortly thereafter, he will be by himself. One of you might say that glau golem has the ring and it's going to get away with it. Well, the ring only guarantees that you're not going to suffer any kind of repercussions for that sort of behavior. But I can pretty much promise you that in a healthy relationship, if only one person's needs are being met, well, you can be by yourself. What would it be like for two ethical egoists to be in a relationship? Imagine our glau golem finds his glau galina. Glau galina also has a ring and is able to escape the consequences of justice, just like glau golem. And they both have a ring. Each of them puts it on and they don't have to worry about suffering the consequences. They can each pursue only their own interests first. What would that be like? Two people not suffering the consequences of their actions still in a relationship? There would definitely be some hurt feelings. One person's needs not being met. The other person's needs not being met. They'll likely be fighting over who's going to be the important one. And imagine even in this scenario, glau golem is going to be by himself. Well, enough of fantasy or fantastical scenarios. What about a real life example of somebody being involved with an ethical egoist? I mean, suppose we have this nice young couple walking down the street and further suppose that the young man is distracted. It would be perfectly natural if the young man's romantic partner was less than enthusiastic about such a distraction. And she says, hey, what do you think you're doing? And he says, hey, relax, it's not like I'm going to leave you. After all, I've already put a lot of time and effort into this relationship. I really don't want to spend any more. That would be contrary to my interests. I think she or anyone who heard such a thing would be less than thrilled with such an explanation. I mean, you simply can't engage in such behavior and expect to stay in a relationship. I mean, suppose the ethical egoist and the ethical egoist was sufficiently intelligent would realize that couldn't say things like this and would probably resort to some other kind of story or some other kind of lie. I mean, I suppose in a similar scenario with our distracted young man and at the confrontation of his romantic partner, he might just simply make up a story. At her confrontation, at his behavior, he could just simply say, well, you know, I was trying to look at that dress. After all, I think that looked really great on you and I was thinking of getting in for your anniversary present. I mean, maybe somebody gets away with this once or twice, but it's certainly not going to work in the long run and even if you are able to pull it off in the long run, this is very antithetical to being in an intimate personal relationship. The very purpose of being in a personal relationship is to be vulnerable with somebody else and to be accepted by that other person. If you constantly have to lie to cover up who you are, well, there's really no real difference between that and being by yourself. I mean, imagine how this is supposed to work in other sorts of scenarios. Suppose we have a child and his father. Yeah, kid comes in and says, Dad, we don't have any cereal. That's okay, son. Why is that okay? Because I already ate. Okay, so that was a bit of a joke. But imagine the scenario is slightly different. Dad, we ran out of food. That's terrible news, son. So you're going to go get us some food? Yes, I am. Right away. After all, I wouldn't want to look bad in front of the neighbors. I mean, so far are these examples of a dealing with personal relationships. And yeah, you probably can't get away with being an ethical egoist in personal relationships. And this isn't a matter of being clever or never having to suffer the consequences according to justice. It just means that in a personal relationship, ethical egoism, only looking out for your own interest, destroys personal relationships. It doesn't foster them. We haven't talked too much about impersonal ones. These relationships where you engage in and live with other members of your society. I mean, you might think that in impersonal relationships, you don't need to worry about looking out for your own interest. Those impersonal relationships can survive, even if you're only looking out for yourself. I mean, maybe that's true. Maybe it isn't. But there's at least reason to think that there's going to be problems caused if you only look out for yourself in society, that eventually society is going to suffer because of your actions. And if society suffers because of your actions, that suffering, whether it's brought about by the authorities or not, is going to come back to get you. Well, Glaucon presumes that you're always, always, always going to have to choose your interests first in order for you to fulfill your interest. When it comes to a choice between you and somebody else, you're going to have to choose yours first. But we've seen at the very least with the example of personal relationships, that's simply not true. If you choose yourself first only in personal relationships, that destroys personal relationships. And that brings a lot of loss to your own life. That's an interesting question, whether the same is true with impersonal ones. But maybe we should check that out some of the time.