Talk:Enlightened self-interest

message: I don't think this article should have a flag for factuality. The article doesn't make any fact-claims. It does need a lot of work, I'll try to remember to work on it.--RLent 20:24, 18 April 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Enlightened self-interest is related to, but not the same as rational selfishness. I think it is fair to call it a moral principle, although it approaches the moral issue from a different angle: instead of claiming that we should act in a certain way because it is moral, it claims that moral actions are in our own self-interest if we properly understood our own self-interest. Henry Ford paid his employees well so that they would be able to buy his vehicles. Anything that deals with how we ought to behave is an ethical principle.--RLent 20:40, 20 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Factuality

message: "Unenlightened self interest" is a contradiction in terms. 
If Richard thinks he acts in his own best interest by ignoring the basic rights of Susie, Alex and Jim, and later on it turns out that Richard's actions were not in his best interest because Susie, Alex and Jim got so fed up with Richard that they killed him, Richard never acted in his own best interest. 
I assume that when we talk about a person's interest, we mean their best interest, or in other words, the course of action yielding the best results for that person. 
If that is true, Richard's (best) interest remains the same no matter whether Richard is aware of it or not. 
Hence, we can distinguish between someone not knowing what their self interest is because they have a short-sighted view and someone knowing what their self interest is because they have a far-sighted view, but we can not talk about enlightened and unenlightened self interest since the self interest is absolute, and not dependent on the actors awareness. 
Of course it does not follow that a short-sighted person necessarily acts against their own (absolute, long term) interest, but that would be mere coincidence.
That being said, I think the term "unenlightened self interest" should be either removed from the entry or explained as I did here. I just didn't want to do it myself because I have never edited anything in wikipedia and don't want to butt heads with the current or original creators of this article.
- Joshua M.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.208.116.241 (talk) 05:35, 1 January 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I actually think the term "unenlightened self interest" is very useful in the context of an article entitled "Enlightened self-interest".  Self-interest is a noun representing a concept or set of concepts.  If there is such a thing as "enlightened self-interest" (and there must be a number of people who think there is, because this term has been around for decades, as far as I can say directly, and for centuries, as far as the cited history goes), then that is an adjective, a qualifier on the main subject, self-interest.  I.e. enlightened self-interest is a subset of the broader concept of self-interest.  The complement subset, that is all of the elements of the set self-interest that are not contained in the subset enlightened self-interest, might very well be the set of concepts  unenlightened self-interest.  Perhaps not all.  Perhaps there are self-interest concepts that are neither enlightened nor unenlightened, and in that case, unenlightened self-interest would be contained in the subset of self-interest that is not enlightened, but might not encompass the entire subset.  Nonetheless, if one is to consider the kind of self-interest that is not enlightened self-interest, is not "unenlightened self-interest" a term that could logically be used?  If enlightened self-interest is acting in one's self-interest in such a way that is not greedy (which seems to be what the article is trying to establish), is not greed (which, at least in some contexts is clearly related to acting in one's self-interest) precisely the kind of self-interest that is not in the enlightened self-interest subset? 207.190.198.130 (talk) 03:20, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

text: I don't believe it to be contradictory at all. Enlightened self-interest implies that one have some degree of enlightenment to understand that an action is indeed in your own self interest. An unenlightened self-interest are those actions which are obviously in your self-interest, with little or no "enlightenment" required. Leaving a burning building or making sure you have enoough food are pretty obvious, those actions which fall under the category of enlightened self-interest are those which might not seem at first glace to be in your own self-interest. Unenlightened self-interest does not necessarily imply that the actions are working against your own self-interest.--RLent (talk) 17:39, 21 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "unenlightened self interest" 

message: (Thomas Hobbes, not the tiger)
-- TimNelson (talk) 08:39, 17 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Didn't Hobbes come up with this?   

message: This is very similar to psychological egoism, perhaps to the point where there should be a merge. If not, it would help to clarify the difference, if any exists. --Chealer (talk) 04:16, 17 February 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Psychological egoism 

message: So which is more concise and clear?
: In contrast to enlightened self-interest, unnenlightened self-interest is simple greed, or the concept of "unenlightened self-interest",
or
: In contrast to enlightened self-interest is greed, or the concept of "unenlightened self-interest",
Neglecting the misspelling (no big deal, that can be corrected) the former unnecessarily repeats the term "unenlightened self-interest".  Like this is a thing or the concept of thing.  It is greed that is the concept of unenlightened self-interest.  The most obvious alternative or opposite of enlightened self-interest (which one might denote as "unenlightened self-interest") is simple greed.  So maybe "simple" should go back in.  That was a mistake to leave out.  I will put that back in.  But repeating, in the same sentence, "unenlightened self-interest" as subject and object is poor sentence structure.  And not concise.  At it's very simplest, enlightened self-interest is a self-interest that is not greedy.  50.47.109.19 (talk) 23:18, 16 October 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Virtues of one sentence structure over the other.