Morality and Self-Interest
Paul Bloomfield
Abstract
The relationship between morality and self-interest is a perennial one in philosophy, at the center of moral theory. It goes back to Plato's Republic, which debated whether living morally was in a person's best interest. Hobbes also claimed that morality was not in the best interests of the individual; Kant, however, thought that morality ought to be followed anyway even if it was not in a person's interest. Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche all had much to say on the subject, and contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel and David Gauthier discuss it a good deal as well. This book ... More
The relationship between morality and self-interest is a perennial one in philosophy, at the center of moral theory. It goes back to Plato's Republic, which debated whether living morally was in a person's best interest. Hobbes also claimed that morality was not in the best interests of the individual; Kant, however, thought that morality ought to be followed anyway even if it was not in a person's interest. Aristotle, Hume, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche all had much to say on the subject, and contemporary philosophers like Thomas Nagel and David Gauthier discuss it a good deal as well. This book presents a number of chapters on this subject. The book provides an introduction to the topic and its place in philosophical history in the introduction. The volume is then divided into three sections. The first lays out the two sides of the debate; the second covers views on morality as external to the self and thus not in our self-interest; and the third focuses on morality as intrinsic to the self and thus in our self-interest. Contributions include newly published work by Thomas Nagel, Julia Annas, Samuel Scheffler, David Schmidtz, and Terence Irwin, among others, as well as a previously published piece by W. D. Falk.
Keywords:
morality,
self-interest,
Plato,
the Republic,
Hobbes,
Kant,
Aristotle,
Hume,
Machiavelli,
Nietzsche
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2007 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780195305845 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: October 2011 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195305845.001.0001 |
