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Legalism is a Chinese political philosophy that holds that self-interest underlies human nature and therefore human behavior. [1] It is axiomatic in Legalism that a government can not truly be staffed by upright and trustworthy men of service, because every member of the elite—like any member of society—will pursue their own interests and thus must be employed for their interests. [2]
The invisible hand is a metaphor inspired by the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith that describes the incentives which free markets sometimes create for self-interested people to accidentally act in the public interest, even when this is not something they intended. Smith originally mentioned the term in two specific, but ...
The term enlightened self-interest has been criticized as a mere ideological or semantic device of neoclassical economic theory to justify this type of behavior. It has been considered at best a variant of self-interest that is unsuitable for the establishment of personal and public relations, because, like the definition of self-interest in ...
By contrast, public choice theory models government as made up of officials who, besides pursuing the public interest, may act to benefit themselves, for example in the budget-maximizing model of bureaucracy, possibly at the cost of efficiency.
Public choice theory assumes that people are mainly guided by self-interest, including politicians, bureaucrats, and government officials. [11] Public choice theory focuses on democratic decision-making process within the political realm. Buchanan used both fields of economics and political science to help develop his theory of public choice.
Ethical egoism can be broadly divided into three categories: individual, personal, and universal. An individual ethical egoist would hold that all people should do whatever benefits "my" (the individual's) self-interest; a personal ethical egoist would hold that they should act in their self-interest, but would make no claims about what anyone else ought to do; a universal ethical egoist would ...
[19] [20] Interest theories highlight the duty to respect the rights of other individuals on grounds of self-interest: Human rights law, applied to a State's own citizens serves the interest of states, by, for example, minimizing the risk of violent resistance and protest and by keeping the level of dissatisfaction with the government manageable
Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, and social outlook that emphasizes the intrinsic worth of the individual. [1] [2] Individualists promote realizing one's goals and desires, valuing independence and self-reliance, and advocating that the interests of the individual should gain precedence over the state or a social group, while opposing external interference ...