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Six RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST, an OXYMORON

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Six RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST, an OXYMORON Six RATIONAL SELF-INTEREST, AN OXYMORON The fundamental source of moral conceptions of right and justice is that men and women live in society, in a community of some sort. John Dewey and James Tufts1 It is unfortunate that Andrew Light, Erin McKenna, and other pragmatically minded environmental ethicists have adopted the phrase “animal interests,” probably under the influence of Peter Singer.2 Bryan Norton, for example, has argued for value within the tradition of “interests” and finds it hard to clarify what the notion of the interest of a species would be. He notes that analogies to individual interests are not helpful in a holistic context.3 He is echoed by Joel Feinberg and Nicholas Rescher, who, starting from the individualistic premise that morality concerns the interests of different actors, argue that species cannot have interests.4 The term “interests” implies self-interest and its origin as an “ethical” term lies in the adoption—one might say adaptation—of Utilitarian ethics by economists late in the nineteenth century. “Interest” is a banking term that has no place in ethics proper; its use by contemporary Utilitarians as a substitute for the classical “happiness” is unfortunate.5 Indeed, John Stuart Mill, one of the fathers of Utilitarianism, proclaimed that only a “moral blank” could live their life on self-interest alone. It is not for nothing that Aristotle and other moral philosophers condemned the loaning of money for interest on moral grounds. As Immanuel Kant argued, an ethic based on self-interest is an oxymoron, since ethics is concerned above all with the other, despite Kant’s concern with autonomy. Indeed, Clarence I. Lewis (1969, p. 34 et al.), who was influenced by Kant, even separates moral from prudential and other concerns by whether others are involved or would be significantly affected by an action. Worse, “(self-) interest” introduces a morally dubious concept from economics6 into ethics as a theory of value, contributing to the economization of ethics that has brought on the problems this book is addressing. In this chapter I will argue against any notion that ethics can be derived from self-interest. I will first consider the relation of reason, desire, and self- interest. I will then consider a critic of environmental ethics who argues from the point of view of self-interest, and also critically evaluate the “ethic” of self-interest. I will then critically evaluate Utilitarianism. I will examine their connection in this substitution of “satisfaction of interests” for happiness by contemporary Utilitarians. Finally, I will critically examine Economic Utility. 186 ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY 1. Rationality The assumption or premise behind the phrase “rational self-interest” is that self-interest can be rational.7 This could be interpreted in a number of ways. The first is that self-interest can either be rational or irrational, the most prominent meaning. In this sense, what is rational can generally be distinguished from what is not and self-interested actions can be judged in terms of their rationality. Some self-interested actions are rational while others are not. The task of reason is instrumental, providing a schema for actions that will be rational. Reason in this respect is a standard independent of self-interest by which the rationality of any case of self-interest can be critically evaluated. A second interpretation would be that only self-interested actions can be rational. Actions that are not self-interested are foolish, since they cannot be justified rationally. This is the view of the cynic and the freeloader. The cynic argues that anyone who believes that they are acting on altruistic motives is fooling herself, since her real motives lie in self-interest. And reasons can be shown for this judgment, since ultimately, only self-interest can be a motive and thus self-interest alone is a rational explanation.8 The freeloader is a practical cynic, who, knowing that some will be fooled into giving more than they take, or following discretionary rules, exploits such altruism for his own advantage. This interpretation makes a stronger connection between rationality and self-interest. Anyone who does not act on self-interest is behaving irrationally. A third interpretation is that rationality is itself self-interested, that is, that they are closely connected, or, less plausibly, identical. (Only) self-interest is or can be rational and rationality is self-interested. Rational self-interest differs from psychological egoism, although they are sometimes treated as one theory.9 The premise of psychological egoism is that a person cannot act in any way but out of self-regarding motives. Rational self-interest implies that reason and self-interest are related but distinct. Reason is a means, a test for whether self-interest is rational or not in a particular case. Presumably, a person could act on self-interested but irrational grounds. In principle, then, these are distinct theories, although some authors treat egoism and self-interest as synonyms, for example Thomas Hobbes. Some authors jump back and forth between the two theories. I will examine self-interest as an “ethical” theory in the next section. In this section I want to make the case that these connections between reason and self-interest are fundamentally in error. First, I will examine the diverse uses of the word “reason.”10 Brand Blanshard (1961) sees multiple roles for reason: reasons as seeking causes (p. 345), corresponding to our #3 below (explanation, ground); and reason as inference, corresponding to our #1. There is also reason as calculating how much good each activity will bring and examining alternative goods and consequences echoing our notion of .
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