Hoping for More

Tocqueville and the Insufficiency of 'Self-Interest Well Understood

Datos Bibliográficos

ID3972094
AutoresAbraham Martínez Hernández (Universidad Panamericana, Escuela de Gobierno y Economía, Augusto Rodin 498, Ciudad de México, 03920, México, autor de correspondencia)
Año2024
Volumen29
Número1
Páginas22-36
Fecha de publicación2024-01-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe European Legacy (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1084-8770 • E-ISSN: 1470-1316
EditorialInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/10848770.2023.2259702
OpenAlexW4386954622
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas18

Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) was convinced that without a new possibility for transcendence, democracies would be ill-prepared to allow for actual freedom. In Democracy in America, his study of the United States, he explained that when self-interest was enlightened, individuals would tend to identify their personal benefits with the well-being of the community. By transcending their individualistic tendency to self-enclose, they would contribute to forming and maintaining a real sovereignty of the people. However, unless the “doctrine of self-interest well understood” was aided by a higher ideal, by itself it would eventually fall short, thus paving the way for new forms of despotism. Religion, and more specifically, reformed versions of Christianity, seemed to effectively elevate the outlook of the early Americans. As I will argue, however, Tocqueville ultimately held that those versions lacked the profundity and stability required to resist the strong materialistic and individualistic tendencies of people living in a democracy. Tocqueville’s apparent, if anxious-ridden, preference for Catholicism as the more adequate civil religion resonates with important aspects of Augustine’s theory of the Two Cities, the earthly and the heavenly city. For both Tocqueville and Augustine, the Roman Church’s stable doctrine was what could more successfully teach mankind the truth about their limited condition, hence making them more capable of learning the “art of being free.”

Aesthetics · Christianity · Democracy · Doctrine · Epistemology · Humility · Individualism · Materialism · Modernity · Political science · Sociology · American Constitutional Law and Politics · European Political History Analysis · Law · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Religious studies