Let “weak ethical egoism” be the doctrine that it is wrong to count other people’s interests as having more weight than your own like interests, i.e. acting like a “martyr”. Let “strong ethical egoism” be the doctrine that it is wrong to count other people’s interests as having ANY weight in a case of conflict with your own like interests. Weak EE proceeds from a principle of impartiality in which your interests are not subordinated to the (like) interests of others, and it looks like plain common sense. But strong EE violates such an impartiality principle, and thus is plainly immoral.

Perhaps this “dispute” between Honderich and me has gone on too long already—has any worthwhile philosophy emerged from it?—but one thing stood out for me in the generally sensible and fair article by Patricia Cohen. Namely: Honderich speculates that the editors at the Philosophical Review might have been motivated to publish my review by their political opposition to his “moral defense of Palestinian terrorism against neo-Zionism”.

This strikes me as so far into the land of paranoid fantasy as to defy belief, unless it is merely a cynically insincere attempt to discredit the editors. As the chief editor points out, for one thing they didn’t even know about his political views on this subject. He might also have added that such a thing would be political blacklisting and hence against all standards of moral and intellectual decency. It is plainly ludicrous, as well as grossly insulting. But it is actually not much more ludicrous than Honderich’s strange attributions of ulterior motives to me (the business about the ex-girlfriend, for instance, is utter rubbish: for one thing, the woman in question was rather good looking). What also strikes me is that Honderich doesn’t try to accuse me of the same political motive that he so recklessly ventures in respect of the Philosophical Review editors. Why would he suggest such a thing for them and not for me?

The question is worth pondering (in so far anything in this “dispute” is worth pondering). I could wish the newspapers of the world would find other philosophical matters more newsworthy.