Can Self-interest provide a plausible foundation for a theory of justice (egalitarian or otherwise)?

Résumé du document

For a long time, humans have been considered intelligent animals, which are able to think and use their mind (Aristotle, [1975], 1098 a). In other words, being human consisted in being virtuous in pre-modern times. Since, the wave of the modernity has widely taken in its wake all these ethics, the deontology or moral vision of the mankind has emerged, that thinks that humans are essentially selfish animals. From the concept of Nietzsche and the death of God, this is established as a fact today. Once the assurance of a moral destiny is dead to us, it seems that only our self becomes important. The traditional figure of the homo-economicus, an individual who seeks to reach his own interest has progressively been imposed as the natural way of being, as much in the social beliefs as in theoretical production (Sen, 1991 [1993], p.88). Obviously, this observation has to be nuanced; numerous theories of Modernity since the enlightenment use this concept in different ways. Obviously, "interest" can be understood in a large sense and must not be reduced to a trivial definition.

Extraits

[...] Why do we not consider the empathy as the natural state of nature of the humans? As Rousseau (1782, p.209) said, it might be the society that corrupts this previous state. We saw how the selfishness is important in the modern thought, and its impact. We also showed that it couldn't be considered as a scientific assessment, or a natural state. We might then have a rethink about the social justice from this new point of view. What should we then consider for the human nature? [...]

[...] But it is generally considered as a reaction to the dominant theory, and we will see later the importance of the diffusion of the concept of selfishness in the society. We must admit that most of these interrogations are critical. We do not want to pass judgement on the egoism, we just notice that if they are so many criticisms its means that the phenomena is important. See for example Dumont (1963) or Crozet (2000). The term injustice would be to precise, since as Amartya Sen notices (1991 [1993], p.189) we can imagine many different criteria to define what is But whatever the criteria, the reasoning is the same. [...]

[...] Moreover, the self-interest has seen its importance growing especially in the normative production. Thus, more and more studies are based on egoism as premises, consciously or not, even if it is used with more or less nuances. It is in economics that the figure of the homo- economicus is the most developed, as noted by Amartya Sen (1991 [1993], p.5). He notices that this idea of a rational and egoist agent in economics is without any reason the most widespread in this subject. [...]

[...] Can Self-interest provide a plausible foundation for a theory of justice (egalitarian or otherwise)? For a long time, the humans have been considered as intelligent animals who aim at thinking and using their mind (Aristotle, [1975] a). In other words, the human being consisted in being virtuous. It was the pre-modern times. Since, the wave of the modernity has widely taken in its wake all these ethics, deontology or moral vision of the mankind to think the humans as essentially selfish animals. [...]

[...] Empirically, first, the egoism is more and more considered as the state of mankind in the collective unconscious. It was already a question at the beginning of the 20th century for Durkheim (1895) who wondered about the social link from the economical and political liberalisation of the industrial revolution; it is nowadays a major subject of interrogation, more and more philosophers asking the society on the growth of egoism or individualism[2]. Indeed, in the process of globalisation and democratisation, the individual faces new responsibilities and is now an entity in itself. [...]