Ethical egoism is the normative ethical position that moral agents ought to o what is in their own self-interest. It is important to distinguish this from psychological egoism, the claim that people can only act in their own interest. Psychological egoism is a claim about how people do act, not a claim about how they ought to act. Ethical egoism is distinct from rational egoism (which holds that it is rational to act in one's self-interest) and individualism, neither of which posit that acting in one's self-interest is necessary to act in a morally right way.