The rise and fall of “self-interest”

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Drawing on Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Mandeville, and Rousseau, Faulhaber's 1977 article argues that self-absorbed cannot serve as foundation of society because individual perversities do not sum to common good. In Faulhaber's own words the transformation of water of 'self-interest' into a wine of public interest [is] a fake miracle. His concern is with choices to be made regarding interests of self, interests of nation, and interests of humankind. The key to these choices resides in self-respect in which a person understands that his/her own happiness and happiness of others are intertwined. Community, in other words, is formed not on foundation of through invisible hand that makes more of self than of others but on self-respect wherein disparate interests of self, nation, and humankind are reconciled by economic agents who exhibit a genuine regard for well-being of others in everyday economic affairs. Keywords: self-interest, self-respect, community, egoism, self-love, common good ********** All men were, are and will be self-interested. There is no choice in matter, and without choice there can be no question of morality of being self-interested. In effect we must admit that every man possesses interests, concerns, preoccupations, goals and so on. No man is without interests; even he who commits suicide can be presumed interested in being dead. Therefore, term self-interest is a redundancy. Interests are referred or belong to self, if not, to whom? In this sense, no one is altruistic or disinterested, egoist or selfish. The important questions then become--and these are matters of choice--what are and what should be self's interests, nation's interests, and, finally, mankind's interests? (1) I This error which is taproot of tree of modern problems is not a simple proposition. But without too much risk it can be compressed into a twin doctrine: (1) that interests are radically egoistic, and (2) that conflicts between such interests do not pose an unsolvable problem for social life, that is, they are able to be resolved into a public interest that can be qualified as good. The first, if not also second, of these antagonistic beliefs is not peculiar to modern era. It is a fundamental feature of Sophist, Epicurean and Skeptic views of man. Despite influence of Platonic and Aristotelian schools, an essentially selfish interpretation of may well have dominated classical world, but later influence of Christianity's doctrines and philosophical attachment to Aristotle forced notion of selfish interests underground. Yet even in medieval Christianity, teaching that men must do will of God does not automatically suppress, and probably stimulates, narrowest of motives for doing that will since self is rewarded with eternal happiness and punished with permanent suffering. The theologically correct motivation, love of God, and not a combination of infinite greed and fear, was by no means kept a secret; yet preaching, even up to very recent times, rarely eschewed efficiency of creating a carrot-stick syndrome in hearts and minds of faithful. No doubt, too, Christian (sic) art, especially painting, made a hellish contribution to men's imagination, though that art was not so successful in depicting heaven. (2) All of this suggests that Christianity had concentrated men's attention on self and tended, in effect, to produce egoists, however religious. It was self that was saved from eternal damnation, even though salvation was held to be worked out in Christian community. In Michelangelo's Last Judgment terrifying look of horror on face of man who is contemplating his condemnation may be due not so much to fear of pit but to awful realization that it is irrevocably happening to him. …