One of my favorite quotes from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations:
"Two greyhounds, in running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely."
"Self-Interest" seems like such a bad thing to people. Often times, when I say people act out of self interest, people think my view of the world is so pessimistic. That couldn't be further from the truth. For example, let's examine the act of volunteering. Even when it comes to such an apparently "self-less" act as, say, volunteering to help build a house for an impoverished family; the rule of self-interest is in force:
1. By volunteering, I may be satisfying a personal belief in what I feel is the right thing to do. Therefore, my self-interest is to volunteer so I may feel whole in a way.
2. Volunteering may just help me feel good about what I did, or it might give meaning to my life, or maybe I do it because I see the smiles on the benefactors' faces. All of the above are surely in my self-interest.
I think maybe the reason "self-interest" has gotten such a bad reputation is that on the surface, self-interest sounds like something that would be SOLELY for my own self-interest and with no regard to my fellow men and women or the world around me. However, there are many cases when one's own self-interest can coincide with the interests of others in an unintended, mutually beneficial manner.
