| Altruism | Concern for the interests of others. Extreme (ideal) altruism: concern for the interests of others while disregarding one's own interests. Moderate altruism (also known as Gold Rule altruism or reciprocal altruism); taking others' interests into account while being concerned for one's own interests as well.
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| Asceticism | Denying oneself physical pleasure a and indulgence.
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| Auto-icon | An image of oneself that consists of oneself. Bentham's term for his own planned future position as a stuffed corpse on display.
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| Communitarianism | A moral and political theory that the individual receives his or her identity from his or her community and can flourish only within the community. The theory is found in the ancient Greek tradition, but is also evident in traditional African tribal cultures. Modern communitarians mentioned in this book include Alasdair MacIntyre and Elizabeth Wolgast. In addition, Hillary Rodham Clinton has declared herself a communitarian with the publication of her book, It Takes a Village.
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| Consequentialism | A theory that focuses exclusively on the consequences of an action. Utilitarianism is the best known consequentialist theory, but ethical egoism also qualifies as an example of consequentialism.
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| Criterion | A test, rule, or measure for distinguishing between true and false, relevant and irrelevant. A standard for a correct judgment. Plural: criteria.
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| End justifies the means, The | The statement of a consequentialist: Only the consequences count, not how they are brought about.
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| Falsification, Principle of | the concept that a valid theory must test itself and allow for the possibility of situations in which the theory doesn't apply. In a sense, part of the verification process of a theory is being able to hypothetically falsify it.
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| Genetic fallacy, The | Assuming that something can be fully explained by pointing to its original/first condition.
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| Human condition, The | What it means to be a human being, usually in terms of inevitable facts: having physical and spiritual needs, being a social creature, and being subject to illness and aging.
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| Id | Freud's term for the unconscious, the part of the mind that the conscious self (the Ego) has no access to but that influences the Ego.
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| Objective | The kind of knowledge that is supported by evidence and that has independent existence apart from experience or thought.
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| Pleasure principle | Freud's term for the oldest layer of the human mind, which caters selfishly to our own pleasure. For most people it is superseded by the reality principle, at least most of the time.
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| Psychological egoism | The theory that everyone is selfish, self-interested.
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| Reification | See objectification.
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| Selfish gene | The twentieth-century theory that humans, as well as animals have a disposition that favors themselves (or humans), will sacrifice themselves so that their closely related relatives or offspring may survive.
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| Silver Rule, The | do not do to others what you would not like them to do to you. A negative version of the Golden Rule, do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
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| Social contract | A type of social theory, popular in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, that assumes humans in the early stages of society got together and agreed on terms for creating a society.
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| Universalizability | A maxium that is acceptable as a universal law.
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