Is even the good that we do ultimately motivated by selfish reasons? Is there anything that really resembles altruism in human behaviors? The musician Madonna has made the rather skeptical statement that "You have never slept with anybody but yourself." Is all human action, at bottom, motivated by self concern?
Dawkins has famously advanced the claim that the genes that get passed on are the ones whose consequences serve their own interests (in The Selfish Gene). Are we really all about our own well-being and the reproduction of our genes down to the cellular level of our existence, or do we act at times out of a pure concern for another person without regard for ourselves?
I take the major claim of psychological egoism to be that the only motive that one ever has is one's own self-interest. One primary reason to reject psychological egoism is the possibility of multiple motives for the same action.
Traditionally, the argument against psychological egoism starts with a counter example of apparently benevolent behavior. For example, one might give the example of a boyscout helping a little old lady to cross a street. The psychological egoist the quickly points out that the boyscout probably felt proud of himself for helping the little old lady cross the street, which is supposed to show that the boyscout was actually motivated by selfishly wanting the good feeling of pride.
But we often acknowledge multiple motives for the same action. I teach medical ethics because I like teaching, because I like the subject matter, and because I need to do something to make money. So if I can have multiple motives for teaching, why can't the boyscout have multiple motives for helping the little old lady across the street? In that case, the boyscout could have one motive that was a self-interested desire to feel pride, but another motive of simply wanting to help the little old lady across the street. Then, self-interest would not be the only motive that one ever has, and psychological egoism would be false.
There are certainly still ways that the psychological egoist can push the point further, but this argument tends to undermine most of the reason that many people find psychological egoism plausible.
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