Where is the line between selfishness and self interest? Is there even a line? Or maybe some sort of overlap? These are all questions I have been asking myself after this week's readings and discussions. Although it may be a small idea compared to some the thoughts discusses in class, it has really made me think. So what IS the difference between the two?
In my opinion, there is a very small difference between the two, but that difference is crucial. Both self interest and selfishness involve a concern with oneself, but where the line is drawn, is that selfishness is a concern for oneself without regard for others, and often at the expense of others. It is easy to say that someone with self interest is acting selfishly, but in reality, it is good for people to act in their self interest. Both self interested people and and selfish people want themselves to prosper, but selfishness comes out of greed whereas self interest is a general necessity to make sure your needs are fulfilled, which can often be a benefit, either emotionally or financially to other people around you.
In addition to Mandeville and Hutcheson's conflicting ideas on selfishness and self interest, the reading that truly sparked the deeper thought of this for me was from Smith's Of Sympathy. Smith said, "As we have no immediate experience of what other men feel, we can form no idea of the manner in which they are affected, but by conceiving what we ourselves should feel in the like situation. Though our brother is upon the rack, as long as we ourselves are at our ease, our senses will never inform us of what he suffers". This made me think about other people's situations that I will never experience and made me question if my own self-interest has any impact on these experiences. While it is obvious that selfishness can certainly impact other people's lives in a negative way, I wondered if the same was true for self interest, and came to my proposed conclusions above.
Thinking about it and discovering my new ideas on self interest and selfishness has shed a new light on the importance of not being selfish. While self interest is a very good thing, one must be careful not to extend their self interest to a point where is negatively impacts someone else's life and situation.
Well said Nate. I completely agree with the distinction you made between self-interest and selfishness. Selfishness seems to imply a cynical nature, which seemed to be Mandeville's stance on man's natural state of mind. Smith's position seemed to have no such cynicism and no true relation to Mandeville's. Smith simply suggested the origin of sympathy comes from imagining what one would feel if placed in another man's situation, I don't pick up on any selfishness in that theory.
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I really agree here because what even though there were a lot of thoughts in Smith's "Of Symphony" there was never really anything of a cynical view point, it seemed to mostly stay around the idea of trying to relate to the pain of others. There is a such a fine line between self-interest and selfishness and a lot of times people can push that line while thinking that they are acting in their own self-interest. Even though a lot of people have different ideas of where they think this line is, its definitely interesting to in what general area the majority of people would draw this fine line.
ReplyDeleteGreat discussion here everyone. This is indeed a crucial difference. As a longtime fan of Smith, it drives me crazy when in debates people say something like "can we assume that good outcomes will result from mere self-interested behavior?" Clearly for Smith there is a crucial divide between making money by doing something socially useful and by robbing a bank. The latter is clearly selfish, but I wouldn't say the same of the former. One of the interesting things about this legacy of this debate is the tension between those who advocate for a pro-greed understanding of the free market, and those who argue for a more virtuous understanding of market based in enlightened self-interest. In the context of his discussion about sympathy, it becomes clearer why Smith thought market behavior helped to show a kinder side of human nature.
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