Butler makes the profoundly true remark that there is far too little self-love in the world; what we need is not less self-love but more benevolence. Self-love is continually overcome by particular impulses like pride, envy, anger, etc., and this is disastrous both to the happiness of the individual and to the welfare of society at large. Self-love is not indeed an adequate principle of action. But it is at least rational and coherent so far as it goes; and, if people really acted on it consistently, taking due account of the pleasures of sympathy and gratitude, and weighing them against those of pride, anger, and lust, their external actions would not differ greatly from those which benevolence would dictate. This seems to me to be perfectly true. Those actions which are most disastrous to others are nearly always such as no person who was clear-sightedly aiming at the maximum amount of happiness for himself would dream of doing. We have an almost perfect example of Butler's contention in the action of France towards Germany since the war of 1914 to 1918. It has been admirably adapted to producing the maximum inconvenience for both parties, and, if the French had acted simply from enlightened self-interest instead of malice and blind fear, they and all other nations would now be far better off.
(C. D. Broad, Five Types of Ethical Theory [London and Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1930], 62-3 [italics in original])
Note from KBJ: I believe that ethical egoism, properly understood and applied, produces the same results (or very nearly the same results) as commonsense morality. That will come as a shock to philosophers, but that's because they don't take ethical egoism seriously.
Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D. 