Self Interest
James B. Wilbur
Is the motivational element in human action that relates any interest to the self to whom the interest belongs. With regard to the object of a self’s interest, however, the phrase is ambiguous. It may refer to whatever any self may be interested in or it may mean that people are interested only in themselves. The former is nicely expressed in the couplet ‘‘the world is so full of a number of things, I am sure we should all be as happy as kings,’’ and the latter expresses the doctrine of egoism, commonly known as selfishness (see egoism, psychological egoism, and ethical egoism).
Historically, actions arising from desire or passion as sources of interest were well under stood in both the ancient (Plato, Republic, 434–40; Phaedrus, 248–57) and medieval (Dante, Inferno) worlds. But it was not until the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with their this worldliness and their emphasis upon the individual, coupled with the attempt to develop a science of man suggested by and modeled upon Newtonian mechanics, that self interest and egoism became the measure of human motion. The specification of such self interest varied widely: self preservation in Hobbes; raising the power of one’s being in Spinoza; acquiring pleasure and avoiding pain in Locke and early Utilitarians, such as Bentham; the aesthetic feeling in free, creative activity in Shaftsbury; the greatest happiness for the greatest number in J. S. Mill; and competitive success in the free market system of Adam Smith. This emphasis upon ‘‘interest in the self’’ has tended to make the narrow understanding of the phrase dominant in our tradition almost to the exclusion of any ‘‘social interests’’ a self may have. At the same time, such a selfish ethic was considered to be no ethic at all because of its lack of any ‘‘other regarding’’ interests. Attempts have been made to modify the ‘‘selfish’’ aspect through the use of an ‘‘enlightened self interest’’ that counselled consideration for others, but this merely uses others as instruments for the ends of self and is morally objectionable. It won’t do unless the others are treated as ends in themselves and then the object of interest is no longer the self. Thus, the narrow meaning has come to express basic human concern coupled with a sense of moral disapproval to such a degree that the mere presence of self interest in any activity tends to poison whatever other regarding interests may be involved in that activity. On these grounds, since every interest belongs to a self, it would be next to impossible for purely altruistic activity to occur (Broad, 1949) (see altruism and benevolence). An adequate conception of ‘‘self interest’’ must be found in order to protect the moral value of individualism.
Considered in itself, ‘‘self interest,’’ whether of the self regarding or other regarding variety, is a type of activity founded upon the capacity of our consciousness to be aware that we are aware, to have ends and purposes as objects for our selves, be they of ourselves or of something else. Within the context of management and considering the vast power corporations exercise in communities, the question becomes: How can we be reasonably sure that such power will be exercised in the public interest? (Silk and Vogel, 1976: 128–9). As long as the distinction between ownership and management was not recognized (Berle and Means, 1934: 348) the problem was not difficult: owners could be held directly responsible. But when corporations went public and shareholders were seen as owners, then the problem became more difficult, for, while management must satisfy many interests, including those of the shareholders, there is often very little to guard the interests of the public, and even those of the corporation itself, from the self interest of the managers. In the last century, to protect the public we have increasingly used government to make laws and public agencies to apply them, only to discover that the people we elect to do the job are just as subject to considerations of self interest in the narrow sense as are managers. It has become a very difficult problem.
A large portion of the difficulty arises from our failure to consider any other aspect of our activity of self interest than its consequences; all decisions are to be made in terms of the bottom line, the end result. But self interested activity involves more than just results and consequences (see consequentialism). It requires freedom of choice and continuous concern. It requires structured alternatives and it requires consistency (Wilbur, 1992: 16–19, 29, 44–5). And the degree to which these enabling conditions are present and maintained is the degree to which self interest as an activity is possible. So, no matter what object your self interest may have, there are some interests you ought to have, the conditions that enable self interested activity. And the conditions that enable your self interested activity are the same for everyone’s self interested activity. When you maintain them for yourself, you maintain them for everyone. For example, these considerations are what make freedom of choice such a terribly important human condition, and they help to constitute an adequate and morally acceptable conception of self interest. In a famous passage, often held to be obviously false, Adam Smith held that if everyone pursues their own self interest, then ‘‘as if led by an invisible hand’’ they will promote the good of society. The conception of an adequate self interest suggested here casts a different light upon what Adam Smith said (Smith, 1930: 421). In another famous passage, Kant said ‘‘act so that you treat humanity, whether in your own person or that of another, always as an end and never as a means only’’ (Kant, 1959: 75–6), and the only way to treat someone as an end is to maintain the enabling conditions of self interested activity (see kantian ethics). They constitute the limitations within which self interested activity for anyone can be maintained without destroying it for everyone.
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