Disinterestedness and Self-Formation

Principles of Action in William Hazlitt

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2397828
AutoresJack Barbalet (0000-0002-4212-7929, Western Sydney University, autor correspondente)
Ano2009
Volume12
Fascículo2
Páginas195-211
Data de publicação2009-05-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEuropean Journal of Social Theory (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1368-4310 • E-ISSN: 1461-7137
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1368431009103705
OpenAlexW2117437406
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas5
Referências citadas21

The concept of self-interest is core to modern understandings of individual desire and need. It is also central in the concept of homo economicus and, in a variety of forms, underpins economic science. The critical discussion of the notion of self-interest in William Hazlitt, An Essay on the Principles of Human Action ([1805] 1969), remains unknown in sociology and economics even though it resolves a number of key problems associated with the concept and makes an original, indeed, unique contribution to action theory. In particular, Hazlitt shows that the basis on which an individual pursues their own interest is identical with their sympathy with the interests of others. Hazlitt shows that a clear distinction between self and other cannot be sustained, and that an individual is as remote from their future self as they are from any other person. Even the 'sexual appetite' Hazlitt shows cannot be understood in terms of simple self-interest as it is stimulated and consummated through mental and reciprocal capacities. These and related aspects of Hazlitt's Principles are set out below, and their relevance for an understanding of self-interested action and self-formation is demonstrated

Epistemology · Homo economicus · Political science · Positive economics · Reciprocal · Self · Self-interest · Sociology · Sympathy · Economic Theory and Institutions · Philosophy · Political Theory and Influence · Psychology · Social Psychology · Weber, Simmel, Sociological Theory