Does one have a "responsibility to others"?

[epistemologue]

Do I believe that "one has a responsibility to others"?

Well let me lay out a chain of ideas explaining how I would agree with that statement, and how I would disagree with that statement.

First, how I would agree with that statement. Being an egoist, my terminal value is *my own* happiness. However, as a person it is very natural for others' happiness to be an instrumental value for acheiving my own happiness. I would even go so far as to say having a good society is an instrumental value to my own happiness. As an egoist, my only "responsibility" is ultimately for my own happiness, but by means of these instrumental values I have in others, there is certainly some derived responsibility I have to others, and even to society.

Now how I would disagree with that statement. As an egoist, I do not believe that another's need, as such, is a valid claim on me. For example, if there is someone who chooses to live non-productively by mooching or stealing from others (i.e. providing no value to myself, nor to society for that matter), I would not feel responsible for maintaining that kind of life for someone at my expense. Even if you're a collectivist utilitarian it seems to be irrational to keep feeding a non-productive person by means of taking value from a productive person. Now as a caveat, suppose there is some charitable organization that was capable of rehabilitating people like this. Depending on the efficacy of that kind of philanthropy, I may weigh it to be in my favor (and thus view it as a responsibility) to donate some amount to that charity to help people like this recover.

I think that the calculations from a utilitarian egoist and the calculations from a utilitarian collectivist often come out with a similar result.

[dream_weaver]

It sounds like the answer lies in your explanation.

The "responsibility to others" is instrumental in achieving your own happiness. By recognizing that aiding someone to be a mooch or thief is not in your interest, you are establishing the criteria by which you choose individuals or groups to be philanthropic toward.