Adding Injury to Insult

Let's address the first argument for ethical egoism as it pertains to the software industry. If you can recall from above, the first argument implied that we would insult, invade the privacy of, and injure individuals by looking out for their interests, rather than our own.

Are we really doing that when we ask people for comments? Are we really doing that when we freely distribute the source code? When we encourage individuals to look through the source code and contribute patches that change the software to better suit their needs?

A more inherent problem with this line of reasoning, though, is in the basic argument. Even though we are acting like egoists, we are actually displaying beneficent motives. The argument states that it's in everyone's best interest if we just but out.