Enlightened Self-Interest

Examples of Enlightened Self-Interest in the following topics:

• The Tragedy of the Commons

  • The tragedy of the commons is the depletion of a common good by individuals who are acting independently and rationally according to each one's self-interest.
  • If individuals have enlightened self-interest, they will realize the negative long-term effects of their short-term decisions.
  • In the absence of enlightened self-interest, the government may step in and impose regulations or taxes to discourage the behavior that leads to the tragedy of the commons.

• Enlightenment Ideals

  • The Age of Enlightenment, also known as the Enlightenment, was a philosophical movement that dominated the world of ideas in Europe in the 18th century.
  • The Scottish Enlightenment, with its mostly liberal Calvinist and Newtonian focus, played a major role in the further development of the transatlantic Enlightenment.
  • Science came to play a leading role in Enlightenment discourse and thought.
  • Broadly speaking, Enlightenment science greatly valued empiricism and rational thought and was embedded with the Enlightenment ideal of advancement and progress.
  • Cave's innovation was to create a monthly digest of news and commentary on any topic the educated public might be interested in, from commodity prices to Latin poetry.

• The Popularization of Science

  • During the Enlightenment, some societies created or retained links to universities.
  • Many limitations of academic journals also left considerable space for the rise of independent periodicals, which excited scientific interest in the general public.
  • The book specifically addressed women with an interest in scientific writing and inspired a variety of similar works.
  • During the Enlightenment era, women were excluded from scientific societies, universities, and learned professions.
  • They were educated, if at all, through self-study, tutors, and by the teachings of more open-minded family members and relatives.

• The Rights of Englishmen

  • "The rights of Englishmen" refers to unwritten constitutional rights and liberties, originating in Britain peaking in the Enlightenment.
  • These rights evolved and developed over several centuries and stages of Anglo-American history--peaking with the Enlightenment era.
  • In the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, the high intellectual Enlightenment was dominated by philosophes who opposed the absolute rule of the monarchs of their day, and instead emphasized the equality of all individuals and the idea that governments derived their existence from the consent of the governed.
  • For instance, in 1690, John Locke (one of the fathers of the English Enlightenment) wrote that all people have fundamental natural rights to "life, liberty and property," and that governments were created in order to protect these rights.
  • Smith saw self-interest, rather than altruism, as the motivation for the production of goods and services.

• Enlightened Despotism

  • Although major thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment are credited for the development of government theories that were critical to the creation and evolution of the modern civil-society-driven democratic state, among the first ideas resulting from the political ideals of the Enlightenment was enlightened despotism (or enlightened absolutism).
  • This philosophy implied that the sovereign knew the interests of his or her subjects better than they themselves did.
  • The difference between a despot and an enlightened despot is based on a broad analysis of the degree to which they embraced the Age of Enlightenment.
  • However, historians debate the actual implementation of enlightened despotism.
  • Following the common interest among enlightened despots, Frederick supported arts, philosophers that he favored, and complete freedom of the press and literature.

• Land and Liberty

  • Political developments in England combined with conditions in the colonies to foster customs of independence and self-rule among colonists.
  • In the American colonies, many different interest groups were represented in political decision-making.
  • The ideological movement known as the American Enlightenment was a critical precursor to the American Revolution.
  • Chief among the ideas of the American Enlightenment were the concepts of liberalism, democracy, republicanism, and religious tolerance.
  • Discuss the burgeoning legal characteristics of the British Colonies that eventually gave rise to Republicanism, the American Enlightenment, and, eventually, the American Revolution.

• Liberty

  • The thinkers of the Enlightenment reasoned that law governed both heavenly and human affairs, and that law gave the king his power, rather than the king's power giving force to law.
  • Thus, Enlightenment thinkers' conception of liberty was that a free individual is most free within the context of a state which provides stability through its laws.
  • The concept of liberty has long been a central aspect of the political self-definition in the United States.
  • In addition, under the social contract, the people could instigate a revolution against the government when it acted against the interests of citizens, and replace it with one that would serve the interests of citizens.

• Classical Liberalism

  • Classical liberalism developed over the course of the 1800s in the United States and Britain and drew upon Enlightenment sources (particularly the works of John Locke, Thomas Hobbes, and Adam Smith).
  • Hence, classical liberals believed that individuals should be free to pursue their self-interest without societal control or restraint.
  • Through peaceful, harmonious trade relationships established by private merchants and companies without government interference, mutual national interest and prosperity would derive from commercial exchange rather than imperial territorial acquisition (which liberals saw as the root of all wars).
  • Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher, pioneer of political economy, and a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment.

• The Enlightenment

  • The Enlightenment, also known as the Age of Reason, was a movement that began during the 18th century in Europe and the American colonies.
  • The Enlightenment has long been hailed as the foundation of modern Western political and intellectual culture.
  • Previous to the Enlightenment, the dominant artistic style was Rococo.
  • Artists like David supported the rebels in the French Revolution through an art that asked for clear-headed thinking, self-sacrifice to the State (as in Oath of the Horatii), and an austerity reminiscent of Republican Rome .
  • Describe the shifts in thinking and artwork that characterized the Enlightenment.

• John Locke

  • John Locke was an English philosopher and physician, widely regarded as one of the most influential of Enlightenment thinkers and commonly known as the "Father of Liberalism." 
  • His writings influenced Voltaire and Rousseau, many Scottish Enlightenment thinkers, as well as the American revolutionaries.
  • He found the works of modern philosophers, such as René Descartes, more interesting than the classical material taught at the university.
  • Locke's theory of mind has been as influential as his political theory and is often cited as the origin of modern conceptions of identity and the self.
  • Locke was the first to define the self through a continuity of consciousness.