More

2019 ◽  
pp. 27-32
Author(s):  
Roger Crisp
Keyword(s):  
Well Being ◽  
Virtuous Person ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Henry More ◽  
Intellectual Power

This chapter discusses the views on self-interest and morality of the Cambridge Platonist Henry More (1647–87). More’s attempt to combine substantive hedonism about self-interest or well-being (the view that self-interest consists only in pleasures) with the advocacy of virtue is explained. His notion of the ‘boniform faculty’, an intellectual power that enables us to see what is good and to take pleasure in it, is elucidated. Some problems are raised for his account of how to evaluate different kinds of pleasure, based as it is on the Aristotelian idea that the virtuous person is the only competent judge of pleasantness and painfulness.

Foundations From Quantum Physics for a Normative Theory of Administration and Governance

Public Voices ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 35
Author(s):  
R. Philip Brown
Keyword(s):  
Public Administration ◽  
Meaning In Life ◽  
Quantum Physics ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Normative Theory ◽  
The People ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Prime Meridian ◽  
Organizational Purpose ◽  
Organizing Principles

The modem American ethos is a brand of Lockean individualism gone wrong that now embraces rapacious self-interest as its prime meridian. A new ethicalmodel is necessary to combat this radical, soulless, and excessively particularistic form of individualism. The author proposes a journeyman philosophy of organization and governance for citizen and administrative practitioner alike based upon concepts from quantum theory. This normative model of administration, called authentic individualism, has certain ramifications for a more reflexive, creative and unorthodox approach to public administration. All institutions and organizations are systems guided by general organizing principles that should discard the humans as a resource model, make employee well-being an organizational purpose, encourage humans toward a sense of moral meaning in life and work, recognize legitimate leadership as emerging from the people who make up the organization, and fulfill obligations to the community that supports them and makes them successful.

How Can Economic Interests Influence Support for Free Trade?

2012 ◽  
Vol 66 (2) ◽  
pp. 311-328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Benjamin O. Fordham ◽  
Katja B. Kleinberg
Keyword(s):  
Trade Policy ◽  
Free Trade ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Economic Interests ◽  
Policy Attitudes ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Direction Of Causation ◽  
Complete Account

AbstractRecent research on the sources of individual attitudes toward trade policy comes to very different conclusions about the role of economic self-interest. The skeptical view suggests that long-standing symbolic predispositions and sociotropic perceptions shape trade policy opinions more than one's own material well-being. We believe this conclusion is premature for two reasons. First, the practice of using one attitude to predict another raises questions about direction of causation that cannot be answered with the data at hand. This problem is most obvious when questions about the expected impact of trade are used to predict opinions about trade policy. Second, the understanding of self-interest employed in most studies of trade policy attitudes is unrealistically narrow. In reality, the close relationship between individual economic interests and the interests of the groups in which individuals are embedded creates indirect pathways through which one's position in the economy can shape individual trade policy preferences. We use the data employed by Mansfield and Mutz to support our argument that a more complete account of trade attitude formation is needed and that in such an account economic interests may yet play an important role.1

Against Their Apparent Self-Interest: The Authorization of Independent State Legislative Ethics Commissions, 1973–96

2003 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 42-65 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beth A. Rosenson
Keyword(s):  
Agenda Setting ◽  
Event History Analysis ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Party Competition ◽  
Independent State ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Ethics Policy ◽  
Ethics Commissions ◽  
The Impact ◽  
State Legislative

Why do state legislators enact policies that conflict with their immediate self-interest? I address this question by assessing the impact of traditional and non-traditional policy determinants on ethics policy adoption. Specifically, I use event history analysis to identify the factors that explain the authorization of independent state legislative ethics commissions from 1973 to 1996. I find that the determinants of ethics policy are substantially, but not completely, different from those of other policies, with ethics policy fitting into an agenda-setting model better than many other policies. Scandals and the actions of other states played a prominent role in setting the agenda and facilitating the authorization of ethics commissions. The agenda-setting process transforms the immediate self-interest of legislators on this issue from one of concern about their own economic well being to one of concern about re-election. In addition, political culture, institutional power arrangements, legislative compensation, and party competition had small but discernible effects on the likelihood of a state establishing a legislative ethics commission.

Economic Vulnerability, Self-Interest, and Individual Trade Preferences

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexandra Guisinger
Keyword(s):  
Gender Gap ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
Standard Models ◽  
Original Survey ◽  
Trade Preferences ◽  
Election Studies ◽  
Trade Partners ◽  
Do So

Chapter 4 provides an original explanation both for why women and minorities are more likely to express protectionist sentiments and for why those protectionist sentiments are not reflected in their voting. The chapter provides an extension of standard models of individual economic well-being to consider trade’s effect not only on wages but also on employment volatility, which is increased by openness to foreign trade. The chapter offers analysis of original survey data from 2006 and 2010 and three decades of American National Election Studies to confirm the previously observed gender gap and newly identified racial gap in trade preferences. The chapter then presents two experimental surveys testing alternative causal mechanisms for the divides. Both experiments vary the type of information provided to respondents about trade partners and potential benefits of trade. In both cases, experiments show stability in women and non-whites preferences for trade and variability in white men’s preferences. Next, the chapter reinvestigates the salience of trade by gender and racial groupings and shows low salience among women and non-whites. The chapter concludes with a description of who might benefit from women and minorities stable preferences and why so few organizations seek to do so.

The Malleability Narrative in Entertainment and Social Media: Explaining Pathways to Happiness in Media Content

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Laura Vandenbosch ◽  
Steven Eggermont
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Communication Theory ◽  
Cultural Sociology ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Popular Media ◽  
Media Representations ◽  
Media Content ◽  
Audience Research ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Analytical Research

Abstract Media effects research has documented the prevalence of different ideals in media content, and their effects on media users. We developed a framework for the representation of such ideals, and that may increase our understanding of the effects media have on users' well-being. Drawing on cultural sociology, communication theory, and psychological literature, we introduce the malleability narrative of mediated ideals, described as “a collection of media representations of a variety of ideals that tend to be portrayed as within reach for anyone who is committed to pursuing his/her own self-interest.” The aim of the framework is to foster content analytical research on the occurrence of the malleability narrative in popular media and to stimulate audience research on interactions between media users and the malleability narrative in media, while taking account of different explanatory routes and the heterogeneity of the audience.

The Need for and the Societal Legitimacy of Social Investments in Children and Their Families

2008 ◽  
Vol 29 (11) ◽  
pp. 1520-1542 ◽  
Author(s):  
Trudie Knijn ◽  
Wim van Oorschot
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Parental Leave ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Opinion Survey ◽  
International Context ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Public Opinion Survey ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Investments In Children

In Europe, social investments on behalf of children have become an important issue in social policy. In the Dutch welfare state debate, however, the issue has only a modest place, which raises questions about whether an extension of existing arrangements would be necessary and what its societal legitimacy would be. This article discusses the first question by putting the Dutch situation and its policies into an international context. The second question is answered by an analysis of a public opinion survey on Dutch popular preferences for new child care and parental leave arrangements. The article concludes that extra social investments in children would be beneficial for the future of the Dutch welfare state but that their societal legitimacy is not that obvious, given the division in public opinion. The analysis shows that self-interest does play a role but that ideas about the importance of children, for society and for peoples' personal lives, and ideas about the well-being of children are more important.

scholarly journals The social psychology of economic inequality

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Easterbrook
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Economic Inequality ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Developing Nations ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Political Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Perceptions Of Inequality ◽  
Developed Nations

In this review, I provide an overview of the literature investigating the social psychology of economic inequality, focusing on individuals’ understandings, perceptions, and reactions to inequality. I begin by describing different ways of measuring perceptions of inequality, and conclude that absolute measures—which ask respondents to estimate inequality in more concrete terms—tend to be more useful and accurate than relative measures. I then describe how people understand inequality, highlighting the roles of cognitive heuristics, accessibility of information, self-interest, and context and culture. I review the evidence regarding how people react to inequality, suggesting that inequality is associated with higher well-being in developing nations but lower well-being in developed nations, mostly because of hopes or fears for the future. The evidence from developed nations suggests that inequality increases individuals’ concerns about status and economic resources, increases their perception that the social world is competitive and individualistic, and erodes their faith in others, political systems, and democracy in general.

Self-interest

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John O’Neill
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Well Being ◽  
The Good Life ◽  
Ethical Theories ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Institutional Contexts ◽  
Virtuous Life ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Other Regarding

The concept of self-interest is used in two distinct ways. It sometimes refers to what is in a person’s interests, to well-being understood as what makes their life go well. Self-interest can also refer to a motive or disposition of character: persons are said to act from self-interest when they aim at their own good or to be self-interested when they are disposed to pursue their own good. Are humans always really motivated by self-interest? Psychological egoists believe that all actions, including apparently other-regarding actions, spring from self-interested motivations. Some arguments for this view depend on a fallacious inference from the claim that a person gets pleasure from the satisfaction of an other-regarding desire to the claim that the agent acts in order to get pleasure. Recent appeals to the assumptions of economic theory also fail to establish the universality of self-interested motivation. The weak assumption that individuals aim to maximize preference-satisfaction does not entail that they are self-interested. Stronger assumptions about self-regarding interests used in the explanation of behaviour in markets cannot be extended to explanations of behaviour in non-market settings. Individuals’ identities are constituted by a variety of roles, relations and commitments, and in different institutional contexts under different descriptions individuals can have distinct and sometimes conflicting conceptions of their interests. What is the relation of self-interest and morality? Classical theories of morality claim that the virtuous life is the best life for the individual. This view ties morality to what is in a person’s interests. But this does not entail that agents are necessarily motivated by self-interest. In contrast, some contractual theories tie morality to self-interested motivation: moral rules are those that agents motivated by self-interest would agree upon in order to realize their long-term good given a rough equality of power. Ethical theories in the Kantian tradition reject any justification of ethical obligations that appeals to self-interest. In claiming that commitments to others and excellences of character are part of the good life, however, classical theories can avoid the more plausible versions of Kantian objections.

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