Psychological and Ethical Egoism
	The theory of ethical egoism argues that all persons should act only from the perspective of their own benefit or self-interest. Consequently, this theory can be viewed from three different perspectives: personal, individual, and universal (Hinman, 2006). Thus, the personal view would imply that a person should act to achieve his/her own benefit. The individualistic perspective would be the one implying that everyone should act to serve my self-interest. And the universal would be the one that requires all people to act in pursuit of their interests only. 
	In turn, the theory of psychological egoism claims that people always act out of the pursuit of their own self-interest. However, if psychological egoism were true, it would contradict most ethical theories demanding at least occasional altruism, which simply would not be possible. Let us examine the fallacy of psychological egoism. If all actions in the world resulted only from the persons’ pursuit of their individual wellbeing, then we would have to re-justify the motives of all actions appearing altruistic which would not always be possible.
		The theory of ethical egoism has a strong and a weak version. The strong implies that an action in pursuit of self-interest should be taken always. The weak version argues that such action should be taken in most, but not all, situations.
	There is an apparent difference between ethical and psychological egoism: while the former deals with the way a person or people should act, the latter implies that this is the universal way of action practiced by all. The theory of psychological egoism is purely descriptive and the theory of ethical egoism deals with moral questions of a fundamental principle on which a person should always act. 
	The motivation for the theory of psychological egoism is an idea that the fact of human inability to act differently is true. The motivation for the second theory is universal motive of self-interest pursuit that seems to dominate human nature. 
	The claim of psychological egoism has a fundamental ambiguity in it (Hinman, 2006). The question of whether humans act selfishly or in pursuit of self-interest, illustrates this primary uncertainty. Apparently, there is a critical difference between the concepts of selfishness and self-interest. Thus, the former is a claim about general motive and the latter deals with consequences of human actions. Adhering to one concept does not necessarily mean meeting the second. For instance, a person may act selfishly, or simply doing what he/she likes to do at the moment; but this action ultimately may not result in this person’s self-interest if it turns out to have damaging consequences to his/her wellbeing. On the other hand, there may not always be a clear distinction between the self-interest and selfishness, as the difference between the motive and the consequence of an action are easy to confuse.
Works cited:
Hinman, Lawrence M.(2006). Ethics Updates - Theories. Retrieved July 21, 2006, from University of San Diego Web site: http://ethics.sandiego.edu/theories/Egoism/index.asp