Stirnerian ethics

On 2024-08-28 I asked is it possible to have Stirnerian ethics. I'm still thinking about it.

[[WJEC-Religion-and-Ethics-Theme-1C-Ethical-Thought-Ethical-Egoism.pdf]]

Ethical egoism is an agent-focused ethic and rejects the notion of universal moral obligation.

hmm an agent-focused ethic, one can also say desire-focused ethic. I wonder if Lacan said anything about Stirner.

Stirner initially rejected psychological egoism because he argued that most self-interest is deluded and that the self is always slave to a ‘spook’ unless liberated.

yes! you ethics of egoism argues that one should act out of self-interest but it's also demands agent to stop being slave to 'spook'.

egoist ethics must give space for others to behave egoistically. egoist ethics believe harmony can only be achieved if everyone is able to pursue their own interest.

Stirner rejects any general obligation to keep promises as just another attempt to bind the individual. The egoist, he suggests, must embrace the heroism of the lie, and be willing to break even his own word “in order to determine himself instead of being determined”.

this shouldn't be confused with Machivellian lying which is performed to achieve one's goal in any means possible. lie in question here is a regression from the egoist's previous promises which he can do whenever he deems necessary. the lie here is for breaking the promises of yesterday:

egoistic love is possible. Stirner's der einzige is capable of love but only if it's a relation for both parties to manifest their autonomy

Egoistic love allows the individual to deny themself something in order to enhance the pleasure of another, but only because their own pleasure is enhanced as a result. The object of egoistic love, in other words, remains the individual themself. The egoist will not sacrifice their autonomy and interests to another, but rather loves only as long as “love makes me happy”.

egoist doesn't run away from community and/or solidarity. egoism doesn't require isolation. the singular being of an individual is an ever evolving thing and its arena is in symbolic order. one can never really reject the symbolic as it'd mean death of the individual.

From this perspective, singularity can never be fixed into a steady configuration of attributes, but rather communicates something about the volatility of the constant process of composing and recomposing a self that, by definition, characterizes the human predicament.That is, singularity is never something that the subject achieves once and for all, but an ongoing, ever-renewed, and always-precarious exploration of potentialities that is undertaken in relation to rapidly shape-shifting and capricious external influences as well as in relation to the equally unpredictable drive energies and unconscious directives that galvanize the subject’s psychic “destiny.” — Mari Ruti

without external influences, individual being can not go through this evolution and therefore can not really embody his singularity.

in the current age of pathological narcissism, egoism feels like an ethical alternative to narcissism. a narcist tries to trap people into his imaginary world while an egoist respects the other's singularity, its uniqueness, its undefinability. egoist believes the way to respect his own uniqueness is to respect others' too.

principles of egoist ethics:

1. refuse to cede on one's desire
2. everyone is an unique being like me and their uniqueness must be respected (where does this must come from?)
3. unique beings can choose to be in cooperation in societies which respect their singularity and autonomy. (which I believe it's in their best interest as a community is required for self to evolve: evolving vs growing)

it's really hard to talk about egoism without turning it into a spook. uniqueness of the individual is something can't be defined, can't be confined to