Before a person places her trust in someone else, she carefully weighs the question "How likely is this person to serve my interests?" When people's interests are completely aligned, trust is a reasonable response.
If I were an African-American and saw a viable candidate in a presidential race who I thought would also serve my interests, I would vote for that person, too.
However, for the contractarian, such a desire is merely strategic justification is instrumentally useful because it enables me to get others to do what serves my interests.
"I have a temper, to state the obvious, which I have tried to control with varying degrees of success because it does not always serve my interest or the public's".
In my case, I wanted to develop new skills and obtain a degree that would serve my professional interests.
Someone whose vision outmaneuvered the mainstream information I was exposed to, and the religious, political, and professional institutions which did not serve my best interests after all.
I soon found out that the attorney had more of an interest in his fee than serving my best interest.
If it is wrong for me to act in my own interest whenever I could instead do something that would serve the interests of others more than any act open to me could serve my own interest, then arguably I am only rarely allowed to act in my own interest.
speaks for his patients: "Are you really serving my best interest as a patient, doctor, or, in fact, are you looking out for your best interest?" As the nation struggles to work out rational, compassionate, economic health-care arrangements, the ethical issues faced by Arrowsmith and those facing Dr. Solomon are not all that different.
As a committed urbanite, tax-and-dividend would certainly serve my narrow self-interest.
