Self-Interest and Football

The concept of self-interest is popularly associated with terms such as selfishness and greed. When we say a person pursues their own “self-interest” we generally mean that they are wholly devoted to their own desires while ignoring others, perhaps completely. While this is the popular understanding of the phrase, I nonetheless believe it to be not only incorrect, but also incoherent.

Consider, for instance, a married couple, where the husband spends a majority of his free-time ignoring his wife and directing his attention toward other things, such as (to hazard a popular stereotype) a football game. Assuming, of course, his wife doesn't care about football, it could easily be said that the husband is pursuing his own self-interest. Yet, over time—if the husband continues to ignore his wife in favor of the glamor of his television—this could cause tension and eventual problems in their relationship, a circumstance which is not in the husband's self-interest.

So the husband, while pursuing his self-interest, acts contrary to his self-interest. But this is impossible. He cannot pursue his self-interest if his actions are against his self-interest. In other words, what he may initially believe to be his self-interest is actually contrary to his self-interest, in which case it cannot truly be his self-interest. Hence, my understanding of this concept as being “incoherent.”

In the Lexicon of The Catalyst of Confidence, the concept of self-interest is defined as one's ultimate good. i.e., that which is good for oneself. It is not defined as “what someone thinks is good for oneself” because such things may not be conducive to one's actual good. Just as a husband's activity of habitually ignoring his wife in favor of some other thing is not conducive to his actual self-interest.

Thus, it seems we can conclude that if a husband develops the habit of doing such things, he may be acting selfishly or carelessly, but he is not acting in terms of his self-interest.